Could I please get the definitive upgrade path for Confluence.
Asked by Adam Hodgkinson:

We are currently running Confluence 3.5.9.  
As I understand it, I need to upgrade to 5.0.3 and then to 5.9.

But I was recently informed of the need to go 3.5.17 when I asked this question:  
<https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/33128766>.  

I need to know what the proper upgrade path is and if UT Southwestern has licenses to run the current production server, a migration server and then a final destination server concurrently.

Is this the proper avenue to request this kind of support?


Answers:
author: Artur J
body: Hi Adam,

We have a very detailed documentation, see [Upgrading Confluence](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/upgrading-confluence-4578.html).

In order to make sure everything works as expected, to keep the downtime as short as possible and not end up with an unusable system:

**Try all steps on a test system first!** Make sure you take notes of every step!

**Backup everything!** Be sure you know how to restore the system in case something goes wrong.

Test everything throughly after the test and the productive migration!

I hope this helps. The whole procedure needs a bit of planning but it can be done.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: The answers you got on the other question are correct. The **definitive** path is, and always has been 3.x -\> 3.5.17 -\> 5.0.3 -\> 5.9.   

You **might** need more versions like 4.0 in there, but that will come out in your testing (and generally is not needed, 5.03 should be fine). You **might** be able to get away with 3.5.9 to 5.0, but that is absolutely NOT definitive, and again, you won't know unless you test it.  

For the licences, we don't know. If you have current supported commercial licence (which you should find in your my.Atlassian account), then yes, you have production licence, and you can use the associated developer licences for your migration.

comments: author: Colin McDermott_GLiNTECH
body: Strange, this guide indicates that it's 5.0.3 -\> 5.10.???

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/upgrading-confluence-4578.html>

Would be great if Atlassian could pin the landing version here. I.e. move to this version as there are still older versions out there in the wild.


author: Chander Inguva
body: Hey Adam,

You can import XML Data from 3.5.9 on to 3.5.17 and also from 3.5.17 to 5.0.3 and then from 5.0.3 to latest.I would have done an Upgrade from 3.5.17 to latest after importing data from 3.5.9 to 3.5.17.

Again, Please make sure you test it on Dev Instance first before proceeding on Production.

Regards

Chander


author: Adam Hodgkinson
body: Thank you for the prompt reply.  
Is the data import path the same as the upgrade path?  

We are thinking now that maybe we build a clean Virtual Machine and then import the data.  
Would we need to build 3.5.17 on one VM and import our 3.5.9 data, then build a 5.0.3 machine and import that data?


author: Chander Inguva
body: Hey Adam,

You need to Upgrade to 3.5.17 and later to 5.0.3 and then to 5.9. For any Upgrade support you have to raise support ticket with Atlassian at <https://support.atlassian.com/>

Hope this helps

Regards

Chander Inguva