An App Vendor’s Perspective on Cloud Migrations

Guest Contributor: Paul Lechner, AVP Product Management, Appfire

Are you procrastinating your Cloud migration? (This is a judgment-free zone!)If you’re like most organizations, you probably have a lot of good reasons for not moving to the cloud just yet. You might be worried about security and compliance; you may be concerned that your current solution won’t work with cloud apps, or maybe it’s simply because migrating to the cloud is a huge undertaking that requires a lot of time and resources.

I lead product management at Appfire, and with 200+ apps, hundreds of solution partners, and hundreds of 1000s of customers, we've picked up some key things to keep in mind as EOL for Atlassian Server approaches.

Shameless plug -- I'll be talking with Isos Technology and Atlassian about this and more during a live webinar on Wednesday, August 17th. Tune in and ask us your questions live!

1. Start the discussion NOW. There are actual business risks in delaying your migration timeline — and there are exponential cost savings by moving to Cloud sooner. Just take a look at the Forrester report on Jira Cloud Migrations. Software licensing costs per employee fell by 30%.
   
   That 30% is a pretty consistent number that I've heard in terms of cost reduction. And it makes a lot of sense when you think of it in terms of aggregate expenses. For example, as an IT Manager/Admin, I no longer have to pay for servers in a data center and all the upkeep that comes with it. I don't have to pay for security, auth, individual tools, etc.
   
   Another reason to kick off your cloud migration asap is to make sure you get your pick of a solution partner. You'll want to get on their radar before they're booked up with other clients.
   
   
2. You CAN maintain security and compliance in the cloud as your organization grows. You just need to be thoughtful about it. Wayne Sadin, who will host our August 17th discussion, shared some good thoughts from an executive perspective on this in a recent blog post. This leads to my 3rd point...
   
   
3. Make sure you use Marketplace apps to their full advantage to make the transition to Cloud easier.. That doesn't necessarily mean using more apps, but choosing apps (and potentially working with a solution partner to guide you through this process) that are actually mission-critical to make the move to Cloud — and ensuring that your apps have the enterprise-level security and support you need to run your business in the cloud.
   
   
4. Use migration tools to facilitate the move to the Cloud. For simpler migrations, consider Atlassian’s Jira Cloud Migration Assistant. For larger, more complex migrations, consider Appfire’s Configuration Manager for Jira (CMJ), which provides in-depth analysis and powerful change management functionality.  

That's all I have for now! Folks who have made the move to cloud, is there anything else to keep in mind?