At the end of October 2020, Atlassian announced the end of its Server offer. The company affirmed its desire to position itself as a major player in the Cloud. One year later, are we ready to embark and migrate to the Cloud?
What has happened in the last year?
After the initial concerns about Atlassian's announcement, many questions arose for its customers, including:
- What will the migration cost?
- Will the data be stored in a location compatible with my legal constraints?
- How will the Data Center offer evolve?
- How will the plugin editors react?
One year later, we can only note Atlassian's commitment to reassure users about its solutions. The pages of the Trust Center deal with the practices that the editor implements to guarantee the security and the confidentiality of the hosted data. They are continuously updated, in all transparency. Certifications are added one after the other to testify to the seriousness of the approach (ISO 27001, ISO 27018, SOC, RGPD, etc.).
At the same time, Atlassian is urging its plugin partners to join its specific programs to ensure overall data security.
In short, the Cloud is on its way and has now matured enough to consider your migration.
Is it the right time to migrate to the cloud?
Let's go back to the deadlines announced by Atlassian. The end of the Server offer has already been announced. And it is already no longer possible since February 2021 to acquire licenses of this type. However, existing customers still have some time to decide. But the deadlines are getting tighter...
- February 2022: End of the possibility to increase or decrease its user bands. This is an important deadline, because the announcement of the end of 2020 had the effect of confirming the importance of Atlassian solutions for most of our customers. As a result, their usage is trending upward. If you have not anticipated this growth, you may be forced to change your hosting mode quickly.
- February 2023: End of the possibility to purchase plugins for Server instances. It is already no longer possible to purchase Atlassian plugins that have been integrated into the Data Center and Cloud offerings (Insight, Advanced Roadmaps or Team Calendar for example).
- February 2024: end of the maintenance of the Server solutions.
This leaves a little more time, as long as you don't have any new users to integrate, or need new plugins in the near future.
Yes, but... migrating to the cloud is not that simple. Depending on the complexity of your instance, Atlassian claims a migration time of three months to one year. So even if the migration is not absolutely urgent, now is the time to start thinking about it.
Why can it take so long?
Have you ever read that migration is simple, fast, risk-free? Our advice: don't start from that assumption. Automatic migration tools do not migrate everything, especially plugin data.
By the way, do you know which plugins you use? Where do you use them? Why do you use them?
And these plugins, are they available in the Cloud? If so, are you sure they are the same plugins, with the same features?
All these questions are important and it is necessary to ask them. First of all, because it would be a shame to have to pay the cost of a data migration of a plugin that you would no longer use (or whose functionalities would have been replaced by equivalent functionalities available in standard).
And regardless of these technical considerations, do you know how your teams will welcome the change? This question is rarely asked at first. And yet: if users are willing, the loss of functionality will be better accepted (because yes! assume that you will lose functionality).
Migrating to the cloud is also an opportunity!
If you've been using the solutions for several years, chances are the experience has deteriorated... Poorly established governance often results in an instance that is difficult to administer, redundant configuration elements that slow down your ability to adapt your tools to your new challenges. And in some cases, it can lead you to avoid any new functional evolution.
You may also have, as we often observe, plugins that you no longer know the purpose of, that are redundant between them, and that unnecessarily burden and complicate your instance.
Except... even though you have these drawbacks in mind, you've never really had the opportunity to question your instance.
Well, here's your chance! If you are looking to reunite your users around your practices and tools, in order to ensure their support during the migration, take the opportunity to involve them in the new uses of the suite. The migration to the Cloud will be only one element.
Not to mention the advantages of the Cloud...
Indeed, you could opt for Data Center. In some situations it is even the best choice. We have customers who work in the field of national defense for example, where the Cloud is not an option. But if you are hesitating between the two, keep in mind that :
- the total cost of acquisition, taking into account hosting and associated operations, remains higher in On Premise mode,
- the Cloud allows you to benefit much faster from the latest innovations, and without interruption of service (yes, version upgrades at night and on weekends, we are not fans...),
- the Cloud allows you to seamlessly absorb the growth of your teams,
- data and access are more secure (unless you have your own security team dedicated to monitoring for vulnerabilities),
- you have native mobile applications.
So, what's next?
Don't miss the turn, the finish line is approaching! Take advantage of this time to question the use of your tools, their complexity, the interest of plugins. Take your time to make your decision, but don't delay the analysis. At SmartView, we consider this phase to be the most important of the migration. It will allow you to size the effort, ensure team buy-in, and define your timeline. We offer a formalized audit to answer all your questions, and define together the best path to take off in the Cloud.
Find the best excerpts of our webinar
- Extract 1 - 3 reasons to migrate to the Atlassian Cloud
- Extract 2 - Atlassian Cloud costs
- Extract 3 - An audit to successfully migrate to the Atlassian Cloud
