Zephyr Squad Server-to-Cloud Migration Guides

Warning

Important Notice for Migrations after November 1st of 2023

In our continuous effort to make Zephyr Squad better and more efficient for our users, we upgraded the user experience of Zephyr Squad Cloud. This new experience is enabled by default for all new Squad Cloud plugin installations. However, to maintain data compatibility between Server/DataCenter and Cloud, it is essential to switch back to the classic Squad experience in your Cloud instance. To do this, run a JCMA dummy migration. By the end of the process, you will be automatically switched to the older experience. Go to Migrate via JCMA to learn in details how to run migration. To learn more about the new user experience in Cloud, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team.

Supporting your journey to cloud

Atlassian’s shift in strategy to become a cloud-first company has accelerated the journey to cloud with next-level offerings. On this journey, customers start migrating their Jira instances and apps from Server to Cloud (or Data Center).

We recommend using the JCMA as the primary migration method unless there are non-negotiable limitations that forbid its use. Please note that no support is provided for customization of Zephyr Migration Tool:

  • Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) – a primarily recommended application provided by Atlassian.

  • (Soon to be deprecated) Zephyr Migration Tool - an open-source tool offered by SmartBear which works with Jira Site Import and requires more technical steps.

Important

We do not guarantee the results of combining different migration methods. Support for doing so will be provided as best effort.

How to get ready for migration?

We understand that migration process is a challenge. We want this experience to be as smooth as possible for our customers. To make this happen, we recommend that all customers work through the following phases for a successful JCMA migration:

  1. Prepare for the migration: Evaluate migration paths and understand the potential risks and benefits.

  2. Plan the migration: To ensure a smooth migration for large data sets, read the steps in this guide and test your migration scope before committing to your timelines.

  3. Prepare your data:

    • Update to Squad latest version to leverage performance improvements and better functionalities.

    • If your test migration exceeds the desired time window, you will need to reduce and/or slice your dataset into multiple migration plans. Please notice that we can migrate around 1-2 million Zephyr objects in around 40 hours. Contact our Support team for guidance.

  4. Validate your migration plan: Conduct UAT migration to correctly estimate the duration of the migration. Use the results to define the migration timeline and choose the production migration window(s). We recommend that customers run UAT migrations during weekdays and leave the weekend to production migrations. However, please note that weekdays are less busy and the performance might be better than during the weekend.

  5. Run the migration: Raise new support ticket informing your Cloud site URL and the Migration Plan name(s) so we can provide backend progress updates.

Migration Guides

At SmartBear, we are committed to facilitating a smooth transition for all our customers, so we have created guides to help you migrate your instances and Zephyr app data. Please follow the links below to view the guides:

go.gifServer-to-Cloud Migration via JCMA

go.gifServer-to-Cloud Migration via Zephyr Migration Tool

go.gifZephyr Migration Tool Advanced Guide

go.gifFAQ

Unsupported Migrations

We offer automated tools only for Server to Cloud migrations. The following migrations are not supported:

  • Merging multiple Server/DC instances into a single Cloud instance

    This is possible with the JCMA if project keys do not match. There may be other conflicts with duplicate data.

  • Migrating to an existing Cloud site. While possible, we strongly recommend that you validate the scope with our Cloud Migrations Manager.

  • Cloud to Cloud migrations

    Atlassian has not yet made it possible to migrate application data from Cloud to Cloud. The only option is to manually export and import the test cases via Excel. You can explore our API to migrate other Zephyr objects, such as Steps, and Cycles.

  • Zephyr Squad to Zephyr Scale Cloud migrations

    For Solution Partners, we have increased our capabilities to migrate Squad Server data to Scale Server data. For more information, contact our support team.

For more information, contact our support team.

See Also

Zephyr Squad Features - Server/Data Center vs Cloud

Publication date: