In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, migrating to Atlassian Cloud has become a strategic imperative for organizations seeking enhanced collaboration, scalability, and operational efficiency. With Atlassian Server support having ended in February 2024, businesses must now chart their course to the cloud with precision and foresight. This comprehensive guide explores the different Atlassian migration strategies, methodologies, and best practices to ensure your transition delivers maximum business value with minimal disruption.
Selecting the right migration strategy is important for a successful transition to Atlassian Cloud. Each approach offers distinct advantages based on your organization's size, complexity, and business requirements.
The Lift and Shift migration strategy involves moving your entire Atlassian environment to the cloud in a single, coordinated effort. This approach transfers all data, users, and configurations during one planned downtime window, maintaining your current setup with minimal changes.
When to use this approach:
The Lift and Shift method is Atlassian's recommended approach for most organizations, particularly those with less than 10,000 users. This strategy offers several key benefits:
However, this approach requires careful planning to address potential challenges such as extended downtime if issues arise, migration of unnecessary legacy data, and limited opportunities to optimize workflows during transition.
The Phased Migration strategy breaks down the migration process into manageable stages, allowing you to migrate data and users incrementally. This approach is typically implemented by transitioning individual departments, business units, or smaller teams in sequence.
When to use this approach:
Phased Migration offers distinct advantages for larger or more complex organizations:
The primary challenges with this approach include more complex coordination across phases, potential inconsistencies between cloud and on-premises environments during transition, and extended migration timelines that may delay full ROI realization.
The Fresh Start migration strategy involves setting up a new cloud instance and selectively migrating only essential users and workflows, leaving behind existing data on the old instance. This approach allows you to optimize your cloud environment without the burden of unnecessary historical data.
When to use this approach:
The Fresh Start method provides unique benefits:
Organizations choosing this path should be aware of potential data loss risks without careful assessment, change management challenges as employees adapt to new workflows, and the initial resource requirements for thorough planning and configuration setup.
Regardless of which migration strategy you select, several critical factors must be addressed to ensure a successful transition to Atlassian Cloud.
Before migration, conducting a comprehensive audit of your existing environment is essential. This process should:
Organizations that invest time in data cleanup before migration typically experience faster, more successful transitions with fewer complications.
Marketplace apps and integrations play a crucial role in most Atlassian deployments. Your migration plan should include:
Atlassian's Cloud Migration Assistants can help assess app compatibility and identify potential migration challenges.
Transitioning user accounts and permissions requires careful planning:
Remember that Atlassian Cloud uses email addresses as unique identifiers, which may require adjustments to your user management approach.
Strategic timing can significantly impact migration success:
For larger organizations, working with an Atlassian Solution Partner can help minimize downtime and ensure smooth execution.
Once you've selected your migration approach and completed preliminary planning, it's time to execute your migration. The following steps outline a structured implementation process.
Drawing from industry expertise and Atlassian's recommendations, these best practices can help ensure a successful cloud migration:
Even with careful planning, migrations may encounter challenges. Here are strategies for addressing common issues:
Successfully migrating to Atlassian Cloud is just the beginning. To maximize your return on investment, consider these post-migration optimization strategies:
Atlassian continues to invest heavily in cloud capabilities, with over 90% of new features being developed exclusively for cloud environments. By migrating now, your organization positions itself to benefit from:
Migrating to Atlassian Cloud represents a significant opportunity to enhance collaboration, streamline operations, and drive innovation within your organization. By carefully selecting the right migration strategy, thoroughly planning your approach, and following established best practices, you can ensure a successful transition that delivers immediate and long-term business value.
Remember that migration is not merely a technical exercise but a strategic transformation that affects people, processes, and technology. By addressing all three dimensions in your migration plan, you'll position your organization for success in the cloud-first future.
Atlassian offers three primary migration methods: Lift and Shift (migrating everything at once), Phased Migration (incremental approach), and Fresh Start (selective migration with new configuration). The best method depends on your organization's size, complexity, and specific requirements. Atlassian generally recommends the Lift and Shift approach for organizations with fewer than 10,000 users, while larger enterprises may benefit from a Phased Migration strategy.
Migration timelines vary based on organization size, data volume, and complexity. For organizations with fewer than 5,000 users, migrations typically take around 4 months from planning to completion. Organizations with 5,000-10,000 users should expect approximately 6 months, while enterprises with over 10,000 users may require 6+ months or longer. These timelines include planning, testing, execution, and post-migration optimization.
Marketplace app migration depends on cloud compatibility. Atlassian works with top Marketplace Partners to enable automated app data migration using the Cloud Migration Assistants. Before migration, you should inventory all installed apps, verify their cloud compatibility, and identify alternatives for apps without cloud versions. Some app data may migrate automatically, while others may require manual configuration or data transfer.
To minimize downtime, consider scheduling migrations during periods of lower business activity, thoroughly test before production migration, develop a detailed runbook with clear timelines, and establish rollback procedures. For Phased Migrations, you can further reduce impact by migrating non-critical systems first. Working with an Atlassian Solution Partner can also help optimize the migration process and minimize disruption.
Your approach to historical data depends on your migration strategy and business needs. In a Lift and Shift migration, all historical data typically moves to the cloud. With a Fresh Start approach, you might archive historical data for compliance while only migrating active projects. Consider conducting a data audit to identify what's essential to migrate, what can be archived, and what can be safely discarded to streamline your cloud environment.
Atlassian Cloud uses email addresses as unique identifiers for user accounts, which may differ from your current approach. Before migration, audit existing user accounts to identify duplicates or inactive users, plan for identity management changes, and consider implementing Atlassian Guard for centralized authentication. After migration, review and verify user permissions to ensure appropriate access levels are maintained.
Atlassian offers several support channels for migrations, including the Atlassian Community for user questions, Cloud Migration Managers and Migration Support Engineers for technical issues, and Solution Partners for end-to-end migration assistance. Atlassian also provides free migration tools like the Cloud Migration Assistants for Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket, along with comprehensive documentation and migration guides.
Atlassian recommends working with a Solution Partner if you have a complex migration scenario, limited internal resources, specific security or compliance needs, over 1,000 users, a condensed migration timeline, or five or more business-critical apps to migrate. Solution Partners bring specialized expertise that can significantly reduce risk and ensure a smooth transition to Atlassian Cloud.
Key security considerations include data encryption during transfer, user authentication methods, permission structures in the cloud environment, and compliance with industry regulations. Atlassian Cloud offers enterprise-grade security features including data encryption at rest and in transit, compliance with standards like SOC2 and ISO 27001, and advanced user management through Atlassian Guard. Review Atlassian's security documentation and consider conducting a security assessment before migration.
Effective change management is crucial for user adoption. Communicate the benefits of cloud migration clearly and consistently, provide comprehensive training materials and support resources, gather feedback from early adopters to improve the experience, and highlight new features available in the cloud environment. Atlassian's Cloud Adoption Toolkit provides resources to support this process, including communication templates and training materials.