diff --git a/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/AbstractRollingTestCase.java b/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/AbstractRollingTestCase.java
index 6f4453aa06cc9..eb5517b7acb56 100644
--- a/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/AbstractRollingTestCase.java
+++ b/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/AbstractRollingTestCase.java
@@ -18,33 +18,8 @@
  */
 package org.elasticsearch.upgrades;
 
-import org.apache.http.entity.ContentType;
-import org.apache.http.entity.StringEntity;
-import org.elasticsearch.Version;
-import org.elasticsearch.action.support.PlainActionFuture;
-import org.elasticsearch.client.Response;
-import org.elasticsearch.cluster.metadata.IndexMetaData;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings;
-import org.elasticsearch.common.util.concurrent.AbstractRunnable;
 import org.elasticsearch.test.rest.ESRestTestCase;
-import org.elasticsearch.test.rest.yaml.ObjectPath;
-
-import java.io.IOException;
-import java.util.ArrayList;
-import java.util.Collections;
-import java.util.List;
-import java.util.Map;
-import java.util.concurrent.Future;
-import java.util.function.Predicate;
-
-import static com.carrotsearch.randomizedtesting.RandomizedTest.randomAsciiOfLength;
-import static java.util.Collections.emptyMap;
-import static org.elasticsearch.cluster.routing.UnassignedInfo.INDEX_DELAYED_NODE_LEFT_TIMEOUT_SETTING;
-import static org.elasticsearch.cluster.routing.allocation.decider.EnableAllocationDecider.INDEX_ROUTING_ALLOCATION_ENABLE_SETTING;
-import static org.elasticsearch.cluster.routing.allocation.decider.MaxRetryAllocationDecider.SETTING_ALLOCATION_MAX_RETRY;
-import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.equalTo;
-import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.hasSize;
-import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.notNullValue;
 
 public abstract class AbstractRollingTestCase extends ESRestTestCase {
     protected enum ClusterType {
diff --git a/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/RecoveryIT.java b/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/RecoveryIT.java
index 350636551d9ad..1351de16cf718 100644
--- a/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/RecoveryIT.java
+++ b/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/RecoveryIT.java
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@
 import org.elasticsearch.cluster.metadata.IndexMetaData;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings;
 import org.elasticsearch.common.util.concurrent.AbstractRunnable;
-import org.elasticsearch.test.rest.ESRestTestCase;
 import org.elasticsearch.test.rest.yaml.ObjectPath;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
diff --git a/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/XPackIT.java b/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/XPackIT.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..3ed98a5d1f772
--- /dev/null
+++ b/qa/rolling-upgrade/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/upgrades/XPackIT.java
@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to Elasticsearch under one or more contributor
+ * license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright
+ * ownership. Elasticsearch licenses this file to you under
+ * the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
+ * not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+ * software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+ * "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+ * KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+ * specific language governing permissions and limitations
+ * under the License.
+ */
+package org.elasticsearch.upgrades;
+
+import org.apache.http.util.EntityUtils;
+import org.elasticsearch.common.Booleans;
+import org.junit.Before;
+import org.elasticsearch.client.Request;
+import org.elasticsearch.client.Response;
+
+import java.io.IOException;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
+
+import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.equalTo;
+import static org.junit.Assume.assumeThat;
+
+/**
+ * Basic tests for simple xpack functionality that are only run if the
+ * cluster is the on the "zip" distribution.
+ */
+public class XPackIT extends AbstractRollingTestCase {
+    @Before
+    public void skipIfNotXPack() {
+        assumeThat("test is only supported if the distribution contains xpack",
+                System.getProperty("tests.distribution"), equalTo("zip"));
+        assumeThat("running this on the unupgraded cluster would change its state and it wouldn't work prior to 6.3 anyway",
+                CLUSTER_TYPE, equalTo(ClusterType.UPGRADED));
+        /*
+         * *Mostly* we want this for when we're upgrading from pre-6.3's
+         * zip distribution which doesn't contain xpack to post 6.3's zip
+         * distribution which *does* contain xpack. But we'll also run it
+         * on all upgrades for completeness's sake.
+         */
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Test a basic feature (SQL) which doesn't require any trial license.
+     * Note that the test methods on this class can run in any order so we
+     * <strong>might</strong> have already installed a trial license.
+     */
+    public void testBasicFeature() throws IOException {
+        Request bulk = new Request("POST", "/sql_test/doc/_bulk");
+        bulk.setJsonEntity(
+              "{\"index\":{}}\n"
+            + "{\"f\": \"1\"}\n"
+            + "{\"index\":{}}\n"
+            + "{\"f\": \"2\"}\n");
+        bulk.addParameter("refresh", "true");
+        client().performRequest(bulk);
+
+        Request sql = new Request("POST", "/_xpack/sql");
+        sql.setJsonEntity("{\"query\": \"SELECT * FROM sql_test WHERE f > 1 ORDER BY f ASC\"}");
+        String response = EntityUtils.toString(client().performRequest(sql).getEntity());
+        assertEquals("{\"columns\":[{\"name\":\"f\",\"type\":\"text\"}],\"rows\":[[\"2\"]]}", response);
+    }
+
+    /**
+     * Test creating a trial license and using it. This is interesting because
+     * our other tests test cover starting a new cluster with the default
+     * distribution and enabling the trial license but this test is the only
+     * one that can upgrade from the oss distribution to the default
+     * distribution with xpack and the create a trial license. We don't
+     * <strong>do</strong> a lot with the trial license because for the most
+     * part those things are tested elsewhere, off in xpack. But we do use the
+     * trial license a little bit to make sure that it works.
+     */
+    public void testTrialLicense() throws IOException {
+        Request startTrial = new Request("POST", "/_xpack/license/start_trial");
+        startTrial.addParameter("acknowledge", "true");
+        client().performRequest(startTrial);
+
+        String noJobs = EntityUtils.toString(
+            client().performRequest(new Request("GET", "/_xpack/ml/anomaly_detectors")).getEntity());
+        assertEquals("{\"count\":0,\"jobs\":[]}", noJobs);
+
+        Request createJob = new Request("PUT", "/_xpack/ml/anomaly_detectors/test_job");
+        createJob.setJsonEntity(
+                  "{\n"
+                + "  \"analysis_config\" : {\n"
+                + "    \"bucket_span\": \"10m\",\n"
+                + "    \"detectors\": [\n"
+                + "      {\n"
+                + "        \"function\": \"sum\",\n"
+                + "        \"field_name\": \"total\"\n"
+                + "      }\n"
+                + "    ]\n"
+                + "  },\n"
+                + "  \"data_description\": {\n"
+                + "    \"time_field\": \"timestamp\",\n"
+                + "    \"time_format\": \"epoch_ms\"\n"
+                + "  }\n"
+                + "}\n");
+        client().performRequest(createJob);
+    }
+}