Jira Server – Exceed Your License User Tier with Smart Floating Licenses

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 do not 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.

1. End of Server Timeline

Currently, there are three 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 February 2, 2024. You can extend the license but you will not be able to upgrade the license, as each license is limited to a specific number of users.

2. Pain Point

For example, if you have ten (10) users and seek to increase to twenty-five (25), this will not be possible as Atlassian no longer sells this option for the Jira Server version.

The issue is that some customers already have this type of installation up and running, with more users than the license allows, and wish to increase their Jira Server users from 10 to 25, 30, or 40. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible through Atlassian.

However, VIP.LEAN has the solution and this is what we offer.

3. Solution

VIP.LEAN Solutions provides a Jira application that enables you to use the Jira license in a smarter way, effectively increasing your number of users.

3.1 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. Assume in this case that we have ten (10) licenses:

• We must first define which licenses are mapped to admin users. Admin users must have a fixed mapping to a Jira license.
• Two admin users have a license each (license 9 and license 10), which means we still have eight (8) remaining licenses.
• We also have several users accessing the Jira system at different times. We create 30, 40, or even 50 additional users, but without assigning a license during creation. This is done later.
• All these users are added to a Jira Group known as jira-software-virtual-users.
• We then install the VIP.LEAN License Optimizer application in your Jira Server instance and replace the standard Jira login screen with our own login screen.
• All the user has to do is enter their login credentials as usual.
• Through the VIP.LEAN app, we check in Jira if the user exists in the virtual user group. If yes, we dynamically assign a fresh Jira license to this user.
• The VIP.LEAN License Manager then forwards the credentials to the standard Jira login form (available in the background), and the user is automatically logged into Jira.
• When a user logs in and all licenses are already assigned, we select the user with the highest inactivity time, remove their license mapping, and reassign the license to the new user.
• This means that if there is a high number of users, they will not all be able to log on simultaneously.
• This mechanism performs extremely well when users are not all logged into Jira at the same time or continuously, which 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.
• For REST API access, we recommend using technical users that are permanently assigned to a license.