If we want 4 versions of JIRA (Development, Integration, Staging, Production), what licences do we need?

Hugh Prior
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August 22, 2011

If we want 4 versions of JIRA (Development, Integration, Staging, Production), what licences do we need?

The following quote (from http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/licensing.jsp#terms) implies that we maybe only need 1 license, for the Production version:

A JIRA commercial/academic license entitles you to:

  • Deploy a single instance of JIRA in a production environment on 1 server

Is that correct?

Or if not, then the alternative answer would be that each version needs its own license. The actual number of users are:

  • DEV (<10)
  • INT (<25)
  • STG (<25 )
  • PROD (>1000)

This would imply 4 licenses of the above sizes (i.e. 1 x 10 users, 2 x 25 users, 1 unlimited).

However, DEV/INT/STG environments are copies of the production database (with the 1000+ users), so even though on development there are only a few developers who ever log on, according to the licensing page, the license should still be an "unlimited" users license:

Licensing fees are quoted per number of 'active users'. An active user in JIRA is by definition any user account in the system with the "JIRA Users" global permission, i.e. anyone who can log in. Unlimited 'anonymous users' are permitted on all licenses.

So, based on this, we would need 4 "unlimited user" licenses! This seems to me not at all what Atlassian intends.

I am pretty clear I think on what the licensing page says, but what should we purchase as licenses in our instance?

Do we need only 1 "unlimited user" license since we have only 1 production server?

Do we need 4 "unlimited user" licenses?

Do we need 1 "unlimited user" license and the other environments according to actual users (which is not what the license page says, since the strict rule seems clear - number of users with the "JIRA users" global permission)?

3 answers

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Answer accepted
Igor Sereda [ALM Works]
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August 22, 2011

I think you need only 1 Unlimited license for the Production system. All other systems may run on a Development license. See here: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/licensing-faq.jsp#staging_server

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Paul Paul August 25, 2011

We run a number of instances of JIRA and Confluence using the developer license that you can access from your account page on the Atlassian site. We always test new plug-ins out with version changes of the core product before deployment to our LIVE instance.

You only need to have a commerical license for your production environment.

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Radu Dumitriu
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August 22, 2011

Again, the disclaimer: I'm the programmer, not a sysadmin.

However, it's clearly a matter of setup. You should have projects, projects that may refer to developers, integrators, staging and production. A project goes itself in one of those stages so I really cannot see why you want to create 4 jira instances.One should suffice, everybody should go on the same server.

Of course, you can still do it your way, after all Atlassian is one of the nicest companies in the world and they deserve a bigger revenue. :)

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