Whether you’re new to Atlassian or migrating from server, cloud has a lot to offer. Discover what makes it worth the move and if it’s the right choice for your organisation.
Since 2 February 2021, signing up to Atlassian’s server products or renewing a licence has ceased to be an option. With big decisions to be made about migration, you might be wondering if climbing aboard the cloud revolution is right for you. Here we point out the positives, discuss the drawbacks, and outline migration approaches. First up, it’s worth asking what kind of businesses will benefit most from making the move to cloud?
The ideal cloud customer
If cloud is on your radar, you want to know that it’s a sound solution for your business, not to mention your users. And it’s a big decision – one you shouldn’t take lightly. We’ve helped some of the world’s leading organisations migrate to cloud, which means we know what types of teams benefit the most.
Widely distributed teams
Are your teams spread out across the globe, working in different environments and in different time zones?
Access to Atlassian tools
Do your people need to be able to access Atlassian tools quickly and efficiently at all hours of the day?
Simplify operations
Want easy everyday operations you can count on?
Something for everyone
Who uses your tools? If you have technical and non-technical business users, then cloud is ideal.
Keeping concerns at bay
Change makes us all a little nervous, and you’re right to be cautious. Customers we talk to have legitimate concerns around security, add-on app feature parity, and integrations. So let’s take a look at some of the top cloud consternations and try to put your mind at ease.
Is cloud secure?
Forty percent of IT managers surveyed said that security and compliance are some of the greatest challenges they’re facing when it comes to on-prem-to-cloud migration. Thanks to Atlassian’s zero-trust approach, for most businesses, their security actually takes a big step up after migrating.
Unlike typical on-prem set-ups, where a single login gets your team into the system, with cloud there are checkpoints for every user and every tool. On top of that, Atlassian makes security a priority no matter your size or user tier – something your own in-house developers probably don’t have enough time to do. You can rest easy knowing that testing, disaster recovery, and encryption are being taken care of.
Can we access our apps and integrations?
It might come as a surprise to learn that cloud is more app-friendly than you think. Cloud improvements are moving at a rapid pace. The Atlassian Marketplace has over 1,000 apps and integrations – including all of the most popular products – and they’re adding more all the time. In many cases, you should be able to replicate your workflows with existing cloud apps – and in some cases, functionality is better and more robust in the cloud.
App migration is a cinch too, thanks to tools like Jira cloud Migration Assistant. It lets you map out your migration by assessing what apps your team are using and what’s available in cloud. And if you’re worried about integrating everyday SaaS tools, such as Slack, Jenkins, GitHub, and Zoom, Atlassian has official partnerships with all your favourites, so you get deeper embedded functionality and first-access to feature improvements.
What’s the bad news?
Cloud isn’t for everybody, so it’s worth pointing out a few situations where you might want to reconsider if it’s the right choice for you. The first is if your organisation requires the highest data protection measures, such as government departments. For policy or legal reasons, you’re going to have to keep your data on-prem. That means coming over to cloud won’t ever be an option.
Secondly, if you’ve got thousands of users, you should know that, as with any deployment model, there will be some performance issues with cloud. And you’ll have less control over when updates take place – Atlassian is free to do them whenever it sees fit. The third scenario that could take cloud out of the running is where app functionality is a dealbreaker. While a lot of work is being done to get cloud versions of apps up to scratch, you should make sure the features you depend on can come with you to the cloud.
Cloud sounds ideal for our needs! What’s next?
You’ve weighed up the pros and cons and you’re ready to bite the bullet. Next up, you need to decide on how you do it. Atlassian recommends a big-bang approach where you assess which data to take with you and leave everything else behind on your server instance. It’s ideal for lower complexity instances, with fewer users relying on apps that are available on cloud. While you’ll only be migrating what you need, reducing downtime, and making cloud simpler for your teams to navigate, it requires a lot of planning and coordination.
If doing everything all at once sounds a little scary, you might consider a phased or clean slate approach instead. The former lets you migrate in stages, working out issues and onboarding users as you go, while the latter sees you shed your existing server data moving forward. You can get up and running on cloud more quickly and set things up from scratch.
Migration maestros
Migration might sound like a minefield, but you don’t have to go it alone. Every organisation is different, which means every migration will be too. Our experts are able to offer a solution that’s tailored to your business – from guidance about your essential apps to explaining licencing options – so you can embrace cloud with confidence.
