As you may know, Atlassian Server products are coming to their End of Life in February 2024. We are gradually seeing many more customers start to consider their options: whether to move to the Cloud or stay “on-premise”, or to a hosted cloud option such as Atlassian Data Center solutions. From our perspective, we view this as a good thing. In this article, I will explain the importance of why you should start working on decision-making and migration now, and not delay the process any longer.
Reason 1: Is your organisation ready to move to Cloud?
One of the first steps that Atlassian advises in their process for moving to the cloud is to ask the question: Has your organization made the decision to move to Cloud? Decision-making takes time. We have seen that making a decision to go to the Cloud for any organization is a process in itself – and can take a significant amount of time to complete.
Some organizations have embraced a “Cloud-first” strategy – at least in principle. But even in that situation, the decision to move to the Atlassian Cloud can take time. “Cloud-first”, for some organizations, may mean that they prefer moving all of their applications to one type of Cloud solution, such as Azure, Google or Amazon. Atlassian products are hosted within AWS, so this might not match up with your company’s or SISO team’s preference. Having the proper conversation with the right people, and making the decision, is a process that needs to happen sooner rather than later – so that you can decide on the best option for your company’s Cloud strategy.
Other organizations might be bound by compliance or other factors that may lead them to consider that Cloud is not an option for them. For these organizations, the decision-making will also take time, because there may be different considerations to take into account during the process. Legislation is also evolving – so maybe Cloud is an option after all. In short – evaluating your options takes time.
Reason 2: Cloud migration also takes time
Over the past few years, we have discovered that Cloud migrations take time. I would like to take a moment here to focus on the technical elements of migration in particular. A typical Cloud migration, from start to finish, may take up to 6-9 months. This is the time required, from the initial decision-making on whether to move to the Cloud (or not), right up to the point when your organisation has finished the migration and is ready to use the Atlassian Cloud.
After making the decision to move to the Cloud, preparation has to take place and raises further questions: How are we going to move to the Cloud? Will it be accomplished as a “Lift & Shift“1, or will we use the opportunity to ‘clean house’ and optimize our current Atlassian instances before moving to the Cloud or Data Center? In the preparation phase, decisions also have to be made on how to move to the Cloud as a technical exercise. This typically involves an Atlassian Partner like Valiantys. There are also considerations around the usage of apps or add-ons which have to be taken into account. Is your organisation using the app to justify the investment? Is the app available in the Cloud or do we have to look for alternatives? Is the functionality even available natively in the Atlassian Cloud? How will user management take place?
These are all decisions that have to be made during the preparation phase. This takes time and involves both your business and IT stakeholders in the process. The actual migration itself normally only takes a fraction of the preparation time, as a general rule of thumb. But yes, preparation is key – and it takes time!
Reason 3: Capacity from Atlassian and Atlassian partners
From a capacity point of view, everyone is in the same position and has the same or a similar deadline: February 2024.
Some of you may even have shorter deadlines if renewals are coming up and you are not considering renewing your server products as a result of the decision you have made to move to the Cloud. Either way, migration requires effort from both Atlassian and Atlassian partners who will work alongside your own organization’s teams to make the migration a success. It may sound a little bit like an elephant in the room, but both Atlassian and Atlassian partners only have a finite capacity at any given time. If the majority of organizations migrating to Cloud decide to move within the same timeframe, this could stretch the limits of capacity.
Both Atlassian and Atlassian partners are committed to meeting the highest quality of service expected. Valiantys, as an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner, and acknowledged by Atlassian as specialized in Agile at Scale, ITSM and Cloud, has the proven knowledge and experience to achieve the level of quality of service you need for your organization. So this is why I think that starting on time, with a good migration plan, is paramount to success.
Not only will it spread the load for both Atlassian and its partners, but it will also ensure that you derive the best possible outcomes and quality of service for your organization.
This brings us to the title of this article: the clock is ticking. I would recommend starting the process sooner rather than later to make sure your organization can achieve Cloud migration smoothly.
We are ready to discuss this in more detail with you, so please reach out to discuss your Cloud migration or Data Center migration here.
- Lift and Shift = If you want to keep all your data – issues, attachments, and apps – then the “Lift and Shift” approach may be right for you. You’ll know this is the way to go if, after you’ve completed your audits (part of the Assessment phase), all of the data in your instance is useful and relevant to your current business, and your teams will continue to work on all your projects. More information on choosing the right strategy here, or contact Valiantys to get started today.
