At a glance
Products: Jira, JSM and Confluence
Scope: Atlassian Data Center to Cloud
Client: GB Group, a digital identity and fraud solutions provider. FTSE 250 company.
The challenge: Migrating a large and complex environment to Atlassian Cloud. High volume of integrations and apps.
The solution: Comprehensive site and app audit, rigorous trial migration programme, and bespoke migration pathways for apps.
The results: Successful Atlassian Cloud migration with zero loss of critical data.
Background
GB Group (GBG), a long-term client, is a digital identity and fraud solutions provider. The organisation used Jira, Jira Service Management (JSM) and Confluence on Atlassian Data Center.
In anticipation of the sun-setting of Data Center products, GBG was considering a move to the Atlassian Cloud Platform. To support with this decision, our team here at AC delivered strategic advisory in partnership with Atlassian, which included stakeholder alignment, developing a tailored migration strategy for the organisation, and proactively sourcing research and documentation.
Following this engagement, GBG confirmed it would migrate to the Atlassian Cloud Platform, to benefit from improved scalability, resilience, and reduced infrastructure overhead.
Challenge
GBG’s on-premises environment was large and very complex.
It included:
- ~810 users
- ~250 projects
- 1.1 million+ issues
- ~400 GB of attachments
- 41 portals in Jira Service Management
Our client also used a wide range of Marketplace apps, integrations and custom automations. Many of these were essential to GBG’s operational workflows, and required bespoke migration strategies.
Alongside this, we had to navigate the complex migration of Assets, and be mindful of GBG’s strict user and identity management provisions.
GBG’s Data Center environment relied on LDAP and SAML integrations. Transitioning to Atlassian Cloud would require the implementation of Atlassian Guard for identity management and SSO integration, including domain verification and user account consolidation.
Solution
We began by conducting an audit of GBG’s Data Center sites, including numerous Atlassian Marketplace apps and third-party integrations, to understand exactly what we were dealing with.
Ensuring all apps were Cloud-ready
We carefully documented and presented examples of how each app’s functionality would change once migrated from DC to Cloud.
It was essential to manage stakeholder expectations here, to ensure they were aware of the impact migration would have on particular app functionality, and understand what options were open to them moving forward.
We then designed tailored migration strategies for each app to preserve functionality wherever possible.
Migrating asset schemas
GBG used Assets DC as a separate tool (on Cloud it is included with JSM as part of the Service Collection). To migrate asset schemas over to the new Cloud environment, we had to conduct complex workarounds.
The challenge lay in the fact that a native migration path did not exist. To overcome this, we developed a custom migration approach, building bespoke Python scripts to efficiently migrate and reconcile large volumes of asset data.
As a result of this work, we successfully imported GBG’s asset objects, attributes and relationships into Cloud while preserving the structures, relationships and dependencies that underpinned them.
Where required, we also re-established links between Jira issues and their corresponding Assets records. Throughout, we undertook extensive validation to confirm that Assets continued to properly support GBG‘s business and service management processes post-migration.
Maintaining a critical integration with Dynamics 365 CRM
GBG used a third-party tool to connect Jira to its Dynamics 365 CRM – but that tool did not exist in Cloud. As this Jira-Dynamics 365 integration was vital, we sought out a new Cloud app to enable it.
Navigating the new set-up was challenging. Our solution included custom adaptations to the CRM configuration itself. This work ensured that GBG could retain the core processes and scope of its Jira-Dynamics 365 in the new Cloud environment.
Ensuring success with trial migrations
Ahead of migration, we led the planning, risk management and execution. A trial migration is always recommended, but due to the size and complexity of GBG’s Data Center sites, we undertook with several.
This meant we could test migration paths for all the various different apps, assets and integrations, lessening the risk of disruption.
With a high-risk production migration window, we carefully coordinated between our AC team and the client to ensure the following took place:
- User access freeze
- Data integrity validation
- Application compatibility
- Smoke testing prior to go-live
Outcomes
As a result of our preparation, stakeholder engagement and rigorous trial migration programme, the production migration was highly successful, with no loss of data and minimal disruption to GBG teams.
Now, the team can benefit from:
- Reduced infrastructure management overheads, costs and admin
- Enhanced usability, with cleaner Cloud configuration and reduced tool sprawl
- Improved scalability and adaptability across the Atlassian Cloud Platform
- Access to Cloud-only AI experiences via Rovo, additional tools such as integrated Assets, and enterprise-grade security functionality via Atlassian Guard
The GBG migration was enterprise scale and complex, with a large ecosystem of Marketplace apps and third-party integrations, alongside custom automations.
The successful migration of Jira, JSM and Confluence has resulted in a connected, Cloud-based Atlassian System of Work for GBG.
