Atlassian made the strategic choice to focus on cloud with their products. With this choice, they want to focus on the implementation and use of Jira, Confluence, and other products in the Atlassian Cloud environment.
For this reason, Atlassian recently announced that it will no longer support its on-premise server products in the foreseeable future. What does this mean and what should you do if you use these products?
Atlassian’s cloud focus in a nutshell
From February 2, 2021, no new Atlassian server products can be purchased. Existing implementations can still be used but the price for these server products will go up. Since server products have annual support costs, they will also go up. In 2021 the Atlassian Marketplace will no longer accept new Jira server add-ons, which means that no more new add-ons will be developed by suppliers. Existing add-ons will remain available.
From February 2, 2022, it will no longer be possible to increase or decrease the user numbers. So scaling from 250 to 500 users, or the other way around is then no longer possible. In addition, add-ons can no longer be purchased from February 2, 2023.
Finally, on February 2, 2024, support for server products will end. Technical updates or security patches will no longer be provided by Atlassian from that moment on.
Steps to take for migrating to Atlassian cloud products
From now on thought must be given to migrating the server applications to the cloud. What is involved? The following aspects are certainly important:
- Set up a Cloud Migration Runbook: which steps must be followed to achieve a successful migration? Involve all relevant parties, including Atlassian and an Atlassian Partner, to guide and support this process.
- Choose the migration method: use XML or the Atlassian Cloud Migration Assistant.
- Set up a Cloud Trial environment: this will be the environment that will be migrated to and on which test migrations can be performed.
- View the used add-ons: assess whether they should be migrated to the cloud and whether they are also available in the cloud.
- Decide how User Management should take place: are we going to use Atlassian Access IAM or do we choose a different path?
- Look at the data you want to migrate to the cloud: this is the time to clear up any unnecessary things.
- When the previous actions have been done, a test migration can be performed. Please note that Atlassian must be informed in good time. In some cases, Atlassian has to do configurations on the cloud environment to enable the migration.
- Decide whether the test migration was successful or not: has the migration been completed successfully? Have all users and projects been transferred? Preferably draw up a UAT (User Acceptance Testing) plan, in which users and administrators assess whether the system works properly.
- Process findings of the test migration: involve the relevant parties in solving those problems. Think of Atlassian, Partners, and possibly suppliers of add-ons.
- When all findings are resolved, run the migration.
- Provide training and guidance for users during the migration. The user interface of cloud products is slightly different from the server variants. It is essential to optimize the user experience to prevent product acceptance from falling short of expectations.
Do you want to know more about the cloud migration of Atlassian products such as JIRA and Confluence?
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