Before you begin

Before starting, ensure the following are in place in both Atlassian and Rewind.

In Atlassian

• Empty Jira instance — You have an empty Atlassian Jira instance ready to use as the Hot Standby destination.
• Data residency region — We suggest setting up the Hot Standby instance in a different AWS data residency region than your main instance. This provides added protection against regional infrastructure failures.
• Atlassian permissions — The account used to install Rewind to the Hot Standby instance must be a Organization Admin on that Atlassian site. This is required both to install the app and to allow Rewind to sync data via the API on an ongoing basis.
• Service account (recommended) — We recommend creating a dedicated service account (for example, rewindbackups@companyname.com) rather than using a personal account to install and manage the Rewind app on your Hot Standby instance. This ensures there is no disruption to the sync if the installing user's account changes. Learn more about service accounts →

In Rewind

• Rewind permissions — You are an Organization Administrator or Organization Owner in Rewind.
• Service account user (if applicable) — If you are using a dedicated service account, that account must also be added to your Rewind organization as an Organization Administrator or Organization Owner. This ensures the Hot Standby instance is correctly associated with your existing Rewind organization during the install process. Learn more about adding users in Rewind →
• Successful backup — Backups for your main Rewind instance are running as expected. We suggest checking whether the previous day's backup completed successfully. At least one full backup must be completed before the first sync can start.

Installing Hot Standby

1. From the left-hand navigation, click on the Jira service instance you want to install Hot Standby on.
2. Select the Hot Standby tab and click Get started.

3. In the Select destination dropdown, select the empty instance you want to use as the Hot Standby instance. If you still need to add your destination instance to Rewind please follow these steps:

   Note: Ensure you are logged into the correct Atlassian account — the one that has Org Admin access to the instance you want to use as the Hot Standby destination. If you are using a dedicated service account, ensure you are logged in under that account at this stage.
   1. Select Install a new instance from the Hot Standby setup page. This will direct you to the Atlassian Marketplace to install Rewind — note that this is a separate app from the standard Rewind Backups app and is specifically required for your Hot Standby destination instance.
   2. Review the permissions and click Get app when ready.
   3. Select the desired Jira instance from the dropdown and click Install.
   4. A pop-up will appear in the bottom left. Click Manage app — you will see the Rewind app loaded in the middle of the screen.
   5. Select Jira in the left-hand menu and find the instance you just installed. If you don't see it, wait about 10 seconds and refresh your browser.
4. Return to the Rewind app page where you launched the Hot Standby setup in step 2. The instance will now appear in the dropdown — select it.
5. Click Create & sync to complete setup. You will see a Syncing… banner appear under the Hot Standby tab.

What happens after installation

Once installation is complete, here are a few important things to be aware of:

• After each daily automated backup completes, your data will be synced to the Hot Standby instance automatically, giving you an RPO of approximately 24 hours. The first sync will take the longest — subsequent syncs are faster as they are incremental.
• Do not make any direct changes (add, update, or delete) within the Hot Standby Jira instance. Doing so will cause it to fall out of sync with your main instance and may cause errors in future syncs.
• Syncs can run while a backup is in progress. If data is created or updated during a sync, those updates will be captured in the next scheduled sync.
• You can view the status of each sync by visiting the Hot Standby tab on the corresponding service instance within Rewind.
• The Hot Standby Jira instance will not be backed up. You will not be able to restore individual resources to it, or use the Restore to another instance feature to copy data to it.

Related articles

• What is Hot Standby for Jira? — Overview of the feature, what is supported and unsupported, and limitations.
• Managing your Hot Standby instance for Jira — How to trigger manual syncs, abort or turn off sync, uninstall, unlink, and switch over to using your Hot Standby instance as your main instance.

Need help?

If you have questions or need assistance, contact help@rewind.com or submit a request.