Single Data Center (with Backbone) → Single Cloud (with Backbone)

This article guides you through the steps to take for the migration of a single-instance Data Center to Cloud.

Prerequisites

• You are locally synchronizing on a single Data Center instance which has Backbone installed

• You plan to migrate your Data Center instance to Cloud

• There are no errors in the troubleshooting tab of the configuration. If there are, please solve these first

• An Atlassian Access Token is required for the Cloud instance which you may create here

Things to Keep in Mind

• During the migration process, all synchronizations are temporarily suspended.

• If changes were made to issues while synchronization was suspended, performing a full resync after migration will sync all delta changes

Migration Steps

Step 1: Stop the Backbone synchronizations

Ensure that all necessary data is synchronized and no sync update is pending, then temporarily stop all Backbone synchronizations.

Step 2: Export your synchronization data

1. Export your sync configuration for your synchronization

2. Click on the three ••• dots in the top right corner and download synchronized issues.

For each synchronization we should now have two JSON files:

• [...]config_export.json - The configuration itself

• [...]sync_info_pairs.json - The list of synchronized issue pairs

Step 3: Migrate the DC projects to Cloud

Use the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant to migrate all synchronizing projects to cloud.

For the sake of this guide, we will assume the following:

• Project A: source project on DC, this project initiated the synchronization.

• Project A2: source project after it had been migrated from DC to Cloud

• Project B: target project on DC

• Project B2: target project after it had been migrated from DC to Cloud

Step 4: Perform the Backbone Cloud Migration preparation in order

Perform a Backbone Cloud Migration preparation with the files created in Step 3 and following the steps below:

Preparation of Project A → Project A2 Migration

• Open Manage Apps > Migration Scripts (under Backbone Issue Sync).

• Under Upload Files, upload:

  • Your synchronized issue data (filename ends with “sync_info_pairs.json”).

  • Your exported synchronization config (filename ends with “config_export.json”).

• Under Additional Information:

  • Select Project A.

  • Provide the URL of the Data Center instance for Project A.

  • Provide the URL of the migrated Cloud instance for Project A2.

• Enter the authentication credentials for the Data Center you migrated from and the Cloud you migrated to.

• The users should be able to see the same issues as the Backbone synchronization user and have administrative access to the projects on their respective instances. (For Data Center, you can also use the synchronization user.)

• Run Migrate Files.

• Download the ZIP file created by the migration script.

• Unpack the ZIP file. The output.json file contains the prepared synchronization data.

• Check the outcome by opening the script.log file. The last line should say “No errors occurred”.

Preparation of Project B → Project B2 Migration

• Open Manage Apps > Migration Scripts (under Backbone Issue Sync).

• Under Upload Files, upload:

  • The output.json file downloaded from the previous migration preparation step.

  • Your exported synchronization config (filename ends with “config_export.json”).

• Under Additional Information:

  • Select Project B.

  • Provide the URL of the Data Center instance for Project B.

  • Provide the URL of the migrated Cloud instance for Project B2.

• Enter the authentication credentials for the Data Center you migrated from and the Cloud you migrated to.

• The users should be able to see the same issues as the Backbone synchronization user and have administrative access to the projects on their respective instances. (For Data Center, you can also use the synchronization user.)

• Run Migrate Files.

• Download the ZIP file created by the migration script.

• Unpack the ZIP file. The output.json file contains the final prepared synchronization data.

• Check the outcome by opening the script.log file. The last line should say “No errors occurred”.

Step 5: Create the new Cloud synchronization

• On the new Jira Cloud instance for project A2, create a new synchronization with project B2.

• Accept the synchronization request in project B2 to proceed with the configuration.

• Import the synchronization config exported in Step 1 or create a new config.

• Pair the issues (click ••• > Pair existing issues > Pair existing issues synced with Backbone before).

  • Upload the file output.json from the B->B2 migration preparation output.

  • Ensure that “update sync info panel” remains unchecked.

• In the synchronization config, check every tab ('Issue types', 'Fields - mappings', “Workflows”, etc.) for validation errors – these will appear in yellow warning boxes. These warnings can appear due to custom IDs (issue type IDs, field IDs, workflow transitions, etc) being different in the new Jira instance. Find any errors and correct them.

Step 6: Start the synchronization and resync

After importing the sync configuration and pairing the issues, the synchronization can then be started.

• If no issue changes occurred during migration:

  Run a lightweight resync (selecting only the Summary field) to quickly recreate the Backbone Sync Info Panel.

• If issues were created or edited during the migration window (delta data):

  Run a full resync to sync all pending changes and recreate the Sync Info Panel.

Still Unclear? Reach Out to Us

If you need help with any of these migration steps, reach out to us via help@k15t.com.

Last updated: October 19, 2026