Are you Atlassian Cloud ready? And, if not, how do you reach Cloud readiness?
That’s the question we’ll answer in today’s article. And it’s an important one as, for many teams, Atlassian Cloud readiness needs to be achieved sooner rather than later.
Let’s start with some context.
What do we mean by ‘Cloud readiness’?
What is Cloud readiness? It’s when your team and your technology are ready to migrate to the Cloud. (In this blog post, we’re specifically focusing on making the move from Atlassian Data Center apps to the Atlassian Cloud Platform, but the term could apply to any migration from on-prem to Cloud.)
Achieving Atlassian Cloud readiness is not a simple one-and-done task. It can take months of planning, auditing your existing sites and preparing for migration.
What happens if you’re not Cloud ready before a migration?
If you haven’t reached Cloud ready state, your Cloud migration can still be completed. However, the process may cause greater disruption to BAU activities, be slower than expected, or require more set-up and complex config to get started in your new Cloud sites post-migration.
Let’s say you miss out a key element of Cloud readiness and prep ahead of a Jira migration: Your existing site audit.
In doing this, you risk migrating over vast volumes of inaccurate or inactive data, which can slow progress. On the ‘other side’, post-migration, you’ll inherit a disordered Jira instance, full of old config, which really should have been cleaned up before migration, and which is now impeding usability.
ℹ️ Why Atlassian Cloud readiness should be on your roadmap now?
There are two core reasons why teams need to start their Cloud migration planning as soon as possible.
The first is because Atlassian Data Center (DC) users are facing a deadline. Atlassian is sun-setting DC products in March 2029.
The second reason is that taking the time to plan, audit and optimise now will result in a smoother, faster migration overall.
We don’t want organisations to miss out on this crucial preparation time. So, today we’re covering three valuable recommendations to help teams actively reach Atlassian Cloud readiness:
Looking for more? We explored the topic of Atlassian Cloud readiness in our recent webinar (hosted alongside Atlassian and our development arm, AppFox), and which you can watch on-demand right here.
1. Every organisation has a different definition of Cloud success
We’ve worked with a vast range of organisations moving from on-prem to the Atlassian Cloud, and each of them has had different a definition of success.
To achieve an Atlassian Cloud ready state, you need to identify what success looks like to your organisation. Is it a unified Cloud platform? Is it greater value for money? Is it access to Cloud-only innovations, like Atlassian Rovo?
Taking the time to determine your measure of success will help to inform the pace and purpose of your Atlassian Cloud migration project. Below are some examples of clients whom we’ve guided through the move to Cloud.
Real world examples of Atlassian Cloud-readiness
Global shipping and logistics firm
In this example, our client’s Cloud migration enabled them to move away from tool-sprawl and inconsistency, and instead embed a unified Cloud platform that supported delivery (instead of slowing it down).
International not-for-profit
We worked closely with this nfp to significantly reduce external users and third-party apps, which had spiralled out of control and were impacting usability. It was cost, however, which was the most significant success metric. We delivered annual cost-savings of $500k per annum.
National banking institution
Meanwhile, a banking client’s long-term goal wasn’t around cost or speed, but instead managing risk, compliance and governance.
Those are just three examples of what Cloud success looks like in different environments. Have you defined your long-term Atlassian Cloud goals?
💡 Spotlight on Atlassian Cloud-only innovations
We briefly mentioned that migrating to the Atlassian Cloud Platform unlocks Cloud-only capabilities. Many of these centre on Rovo, Atlassian’s AI flagship AI tool.
From Rovo ‘Deep Research’ mode to your 24/7 virtual colleague, Rovo Chat, Atlassian Rovo provides powerful, enterprise-level AI experiences.
There’s so much we could discuss around Rovo and its value, but we’ll focus on custom Rovo Agents first. Using natural language prompts, you can build your own, bespoke AI Agents, which can fulfil highly specific use cases for your teams.
We’ve developed a number of custom Rovo Agents for both our clients and for our internal use here at AC. We’re talking agents to streamline service desk ticket triage, intelligently prioritise work items in Jira, enhance Root Cause Analysis, and more.
Atlassian Rovo Agents aren’t the sole reason to migrate to Cloud. But they form a compelling case for the power and scope of AI capabilities that a move to Cloud could yield…
Browse our library of Custom AI Agents.
2. We do have a formula for a smooth migration
Admittedly, the term ‘formula’ may be a bit broad strokes here, as every Cloud migration is different.
However, throughout every project that our team here at AC has worked on, we’ve recognised a pattern that consistently results in smoother, faster migration processes – and subsequently underpins long-term success.
Preparation comes first
Clean-ups reduce risk and cost
Cloud readiness looks different for everyone
We’ve already touched on the importance of prep in the opening of this blog post, and we’ll spend more time looking at clean-ups in the next section. But it’s worth spending a little more time on the last point here, around Cloud readiness looking different for everyone.
Why is Atlassian Cloud readiness different for everyone?
As we mentioned earlier, Cloud readiness cannot be achieved by a single task or activity. Instead, it is a process (we’ve actually created a roadmap to help guide you through it) of steps and tasks.
The path to Atlassian Cloud readiness encompasses stakeholder engagement and strategy, right through to auditing and delivering inventories of projects and spaces.
When you reach Cloud readiness, it may not look the same as another organisation’s would. You’ll all have the same destination, but your priorities and starting points will all be different – and informed by your definition of end-state Cloud success.
Have you reached Atlassian Cloud readiness? No matter what your blockers are, from configuration to regulatory constraints, we’ll help you prepare effectively.
3. You can make your config clean-up easier
Here at AC, one of our core pillars of migration success lies in spending time before your migration to really clean up and optimise your existing instance configuration.
That’s why this preparation time is so important. By investing time into reviewing duplicate data, inactive users, empty projects and so on, you can ensure that only the data you really need and want is migrated over.
But this sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?
Not with the help of Optimizer for Jira, an award-winning Atlassian Marketplace app from our colleagues over at AppFox.
For example, with Optimizer for Jira, you can run an instance health check, which provides you with an instant overview of your instance health. It highlights problem areas, such as duplicate fields, inactive screens or empty spaces.
Once you know where those problems lie, you can address them. Optimizer enables bulk actions, such as deletion, which removes the manual burden for Admins, and makes it easier and quicker for your instance to reach Cloud readiness.
What does your Atlassian Cloud readiness roadmap look like? Watch the full recording now to find out where you are in your migration prep journey.
How are you going to use this time?
If you’re embarking on an Atlassian Cloud migration, start preparing now. Use this time to truly define your Cloud success metrics, engage your stakeholders, begin a robust configuration clean-up and optimisation, and identify what Cloud readiness looks like to you.
Watch now! Jira Cloud Readiness webinar: The pre-migration steps you can’t skip
In the meantime, we’ll leave you with our Cloud credentials. As an Atlassian Platinum Solution partner, and with Atlassian Cloud Specialized status, here at AC we’re a safe pair of hands to guide you through your Cloud migration.
Whether you simply need guidance around config optimisation and Atlassian Cloud readiness, or you’re looking for a dedicated team of experts to lead you through your Cloud migration from start to finish, we’re here to help.
