Migrating away from Connect data store to Forge Storage

[SueRocha]

Hello,

We are reviewing our options on how best we can incrementally adopt Forge with the goal of replacing our Connect data store with Forge Storage. We have a couple of questions that were were hoping to get answered:

1. Can you run a Connect on Forge app without the JWT shared secret? We assume that the answer is no so what does this mean if we move away from the Connect data store?

2. Connect on Forge App Upgrade & Data Migration: Assuming we implement Forge Storage and we deploy a new version. Is there a way to bulk upgrade to avoid the scenario of having to support the Connect data store for a long period of time? Any suggestions or best practices that you could share with us?

Thanks,
Sue

[SeanBourke]

Hey @SueRocha,

I noticed that you’ve been exploring Forge Remote recently; I imagine that you plan to utilise this as the avenue to bring data from your existing remote service into Forge Storage?

@SueRocha

Can you run a Connect on Forge app without the JWT shared secret? We assume that the answer is no so what does this mean if we move away from the Connect data store?

Retention of the Connect Lifecycle events while you still have customers updating will ensure you have a simpler approach to correlating the existing Connect installations with the new Forge installation. The installation payload will now include an installationId which represents the Forge installation and will be shared in the Forge Remote request.

It’s worth noting that you can define the operation types for this remote, which will influence the data residency status of your Forge app version.

@SueRocha

Connect on Forge App Upgrade & Data Migration: Assuming we implement Forge Storage and we deploy a new version. Is there a way to bulk upgrade to avoid the scenario of having to support the Connect data store for a long period of time? Any suggestions or best practices that you could share with us?

There is no simple pathway to bulk import data while customers are still on the Connect version, however there are some considerations which you can make which support accelerated updates from customers. In moving our Atlassian Labs apps, we identified that adding an identifying QSP (i.e. ?forge) to any Connect modules loaded in Forge enabled us to differentiate those loaded in Connect versus Forge. We were then able to introduce update call to actions to any admin-facing modules loaded in Connect.