Efficient Jira License Management with VIP.LEAN: If the number of real users exceeds the limited number of licenses of a Jira software instance (server version) you, as end-user are highly limited in your operational work, as long you don't migrate to Jira data center or cloud version. The VIP.LEAN License Manager offers you the perfect interim solution until you have completed your migration process.
End of Server Timeline
Currently, there are three (03) versions of Jira which are used by customers:
- The Jira Server
- The Jira Data Center
- The Jira Cloud
In this post, we are focusing on the Jira server version. Atlassian has published the following end of server timeline:
- Effective February 2, 2021: New server licenses will no longer be available, and price variations will affect server upgrades and renewal licenses.
- As of February 2, 2022: User tier upgrades and downgrades will be discontinued .
- As of February 2, 2023: New Marketplace app sales will cease.
- As of February 2, 2024:Support and troubleshooting for all server products will be terminated.
Therefore, should you, as an end-user customer, have a Jira server instance, kindly note that you will only be able to extend the support/maintenance service duration up to 02.02.2024, which is to say, “extend the license” but you will not be able to “upgrade” the license as each license is limited to a specific number of users.
Pain Point
For example, if we have ten (10) users and we seek to increase the number of users to twenty-five (25), this will not be possible as the provider “Atlassian” no longer sells this option for the Jira Server version.
The issue here, is that there are some customers who already have this type of installation, currently up and running, and who have more users than that provided by the license and wish to increase the number of Jira Server users from 10 to 25,30 or 40, unfortunately, this will not be possible.
However, VIP.LEAN has the solution, a smart solution, and this is what we offer.
Solution
VIP.LEAN solutions will provide you with a Jira Application that will enable you, as an end-customer, to use the Jira license in a smarter way thus increasing your number of users.
How does it work?
Please refer to the solution sketch below, which will take you step by step through the process.
In the Jira Server, we have a constant number of licenses and let’s assume in this case that we have ten (10) licenses:
- We must first define which licenses are mapped to the admin user. The admin user must have a fixed mapping to Jira license.
- 2 Admin users have a license each, let’s name them license nine (09) and license ten (10), which means we still have eight (08) remaining licenses.
- We also have several users accessing the Jira system, but at different times, so, we will create 30, 40 or even 50 more users, but we will not assign the license during the creation phase, this will be done later.
- What we do is that we add all these users to a Jira Group known as “jira-software-virtual-users” .
- We will then install the VIP.LEAN license optimizer application in your Jira Server instance and we will replace the standard login Jira screen server with our own login screen.
- Then, all you will have to do, is enter the system using the login credentials.
- Through our VIP.LEAN app, we will then check, in Jira, if the user is an existing user, in the virtual user group, if yes, we will then assign this user with a new fresh Jira License. This is carried out in a dynamic manner.
- Once this is done, the VIP.LEAN License Manager will forward the credentials to the standard login form in Jira (which is available in the background), and the user is then automatically logged in into Jira.
- In the situation where a user logs in, and all the licenses have already been mapped out to previous users; we will select the user, which demonstrates the highest inactivity time, and we will remove his/her mapping from the license and this license will then be reassigned to the new user.
- This means that should there be a high number of users, these will not be able to all log on at the same time.
- This demonstrates that this mechanism is performing extremely well when all users are not logged into Jira during the same periods and not in a continuous manner. This is the case with many installations.
For our end customers, this is the perfect solution.
Additional information
- We currently distribute our app directly
- Please contact us to receive a quote at a very attractive price: https://viplean.com/kontakt/
- For RestAPI access, we recommend that you use technical users that are permanently assigned to a license.