Everything you need to know about Atlassian Cloud
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Atlassian Cloud is a suite of cloud-based software and collaboration tools. It includes a range of products designed to help teams and organizations with software development, project management, and team collaboration tasks.
Security is crucial, and Atlassian Cloud users benefit from real-time updates and a dedicated team of experts working around the clock to protect their data.
Features such as encryption, access controls, and compliance certifications (SOC2 and ISO 27001) work to help those with security and compliance needs.
Customer data in Atlassian Cloud products is encrypted in transit over public networks using TLS 1.2+ with Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) to protect against unauthorized access.
Atlassian Cloud's architecture offers users resilient and scalable solutions for uninterrupted access to data and business continuity, even in the event of service outages.
Atlassian Access can be added to Atlassian Cloud products as an additional subscription. It’s not considered an application in the same way as Jira and Confluence, and understanding this distinction early on will help in grasping how it is used.
Access is valuable for businesses with stringent security and compliance needs or those wanting to streamline user management across multiple instances.
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) for single sign-on (SSO) connects your Atlassian Cloud user authentication to your identity provider, permitting Atlassian accounts to authenticate once and access multiple products during a single session. This offers additional oversight across company domains.
By maintaining one identity for all Cloud apps, SSO solutions remove password fatigue and lower IT management overhead.
Getting your head around Access can be tricky for first-time users. Read our blog post to learn more.
Critical data loss is a common concern for any cloud site. For all its virtues, Atlassian Cloud is no exception. There’s no sure-fire way to prevent human error, e.g., the accidental deletion of Jira issues or Confluence pages, but there are steps you can take to protect your organisation.
Atlassian Cloud backup is an alternative to restore mechanisms that can take days or even weeks to resolve. It allows you to set up an additional instance and restore the most recent valid copy of your data.
Atlassian Marketplace apps are a valuable resource for optimizing efficiency, versatility, and the overall capabilities of your core products. There are thousands available for various use cases.
Believing that high-risk big-bang data migrations where all data is moved at once are normal is a common misconception.
Full backup and restore mechanisms entice users to choose this method; there are, however, lower-risk alternatives that provide greater business value and benefits.
Atlassian used to promote the big-bang method, using the full export and import systems. Developers then created Marketplace apps like the Confluence and Jira Cloud Migration Assistants for iterative data migrations.
Alternatives to the big-bang approach include:
» Iterative or phased data migrations
» Start from scratch
» Optimise and shift
» Lift and shift
Let’s delve into each one for a smooth migration.
This migration process is suited if time is on your side. You can gradually adapt to the changes and tailor apps to meet your needs.
There's no need to rush onboarding users per phase, and you can housekeep and optimise your Jira instances and projects throughout. You can also migrate parts of your instance and get feedback for future migration phases to help you improve.
It’s important to note that with this method, communication throughout is key. Deleting projects too quickly after migrating can confuse users and disrupt work.
The biggest advantage to the "start fresh" approach is that your new environment will be available to use immediately. Established teams can streamline their migration to Atlassian Cloud without the constraints of existing systems or processes.
Decide what data to migrate, and any inactivate users to leave behind on your Server instance. Migrate only what’s necessary in a single downtime window.
This is when you migrate your data—product, users, and apps—from Server to Cloud all at once in a single downtime window.
If you're considering a Cloud migration trial, Atlassian has made it so that users can benefit until the associated Server licence or Data Center subscription period ends.
Migrations can take anywhere up to nine months or longer from assessment to launch. Consider these four steps in between—planning, preparing, testing, and migrating. We explain all of these below, as well as the assessment and launch phases.
The who, what, when, why, and how. This is your time to decide whether to migrate and if it makes sense to your team and organisation.
Who will benefit? What are the benefits? When will you do it? Why do it at all? How will it be done?
Assessing your apps early on will give you more confidence when it comes to the actual migration. Atlassian Cloud Migration Assistants for Jira and Confluence include an "assess phase," showing all the apps you currently have installed on your instance, as well as whether there’s a Cloud version of that app with a comparison of the functionality and if a migration pathway exists.
In the assessment phase, you’ll compare cloud vs. self-managed, assess your current landscape, apps, integrations, the size and complexity of your data, and assemble a team.
Migrating to Atlassian Cloud is a team effort, usually involving a project manager, system admins, an executive sponsor, a technical team and testers, product owners, and someone from the legal department. They all play a vital role in ensuring the end-to-end success of your migration.
For those in smaller teams with one person wearing many hats, external support is an option.
At this stage, you’ll decide whether you need Atlassian Access; if yes, verify your domain. Then, you’ll decide on your migration strategy.
It's time to talk to your key stakeholders and teams that will be directly impacted by the migration.
No matter the size of your company or the complexity of your migration, testing is a must. It allows you to detect any potential roadblocks and gives an idea of how long the migration will take.
The length of your migration will depend on the complexity and size of your team. By evaluating your readiness now, you allow yourself enough time to understand the process.
It’s time to bring out the runbook you created and follow the steps and timing you put together to move your data to the new production environment.
Once you’ve migrated everything over, let your team know they can reach out with any post-migration questions or concerns as they adjust to the new environment.
Consider setting Server to “read-only” mode once you've made sure your users no longer need access.
Businesses often find they make savings with Atlassian Cloud given the handling of maintenance reducing IT overhead and hardware costs.
Atlassian Cloud eliminates manual upgrades and software maintenance to reduce the total cost of ownership. The Atlassian Cloud pricing calculator can help you estimate what you're spending on operations and maintenance using Server and Data Center so you can see how it compares to Atlassian Cloud.
Cloud offers either monthly per-user pricing or annual subscriptions. Monthly subscriptions are charged by the exact number of users licensed per month, and annual subscriptions on the user tier you fall into at a reduced rate.
If you’re in the process of deciding between Atlassian Cloud and Data Center, consider the difference in cost using the Atlassian Cloud calculator.
Atlassian's flagship products are available in: Free, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise plans. Let’s explore each one.
Suitable for companies that want to trial products or teams requiring no more than ten Jira Software/Confluence users (three agents for Jira Service Management). There are a few limitations to the free plan, such as 2GB storage, but it’s ideal if you want to see how the products can make your life easier.
You can rely on the Atlassian community for support with the free plan.
Suitable for small setups needing agile tools for one or more teams working individually or cross-functionally. Although certain functions and interfaces may have been updated, if you’re familiar with the traditional self-managed versions of Jira or Confluence, you’ll recognise the setup. In terms of storage space, it’s a big step up with 250GB available.
Atlassian provides 9-5 support with no SLA requirements. You can have up to 20,000 licensed users on one site, and audit logs are added to review activities. With data residency, you can pin product data to a defined location, e.g., Europe or the US.
Watch our on-demand webinar about residency for Atlassian Cloud customers.
Suitable for experienced Jira users wanting to take the tool to the next level. You get unlimited storage space, a 99.9% (financially backed) SLA, priority support, Advanced Roadmaps (formerly Portfolio), and support for automation that allows you to build automation rules that apply to multiple projects.
You also get Insight, the flexible CMDB, allowing your organisation to manage resources important to service requests, incidents, change management practices, and more.
IP allowlisting is available with Premium plans for Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Confluence.
Atlassian's Enterprise Cloud is suited to large companies with 1,000+ users and strict requirements for security and data storage. Set up unlimited instances with centralized per-user licensing and benefit from Atlassian Access, which serves as a security interface at the organisation level.
You can apply the most well-known security protocols and policies connected to login and easily connect to directory services through an intuitive UI.
Read our blog post for more information on how the plans differ.
Cloud Premium is recommended for larger teams with 100+ users where problems at scale are easily fixed.
With Jira Service Management Premium, users can configure and scale as needed with guaranteed high performance and unlimited storage. Other features include:
Cloud Enterprise is for enterprises with growing collaboration, security, and governance needs. Users have unlimited instances in Jira and Confluence Cloud products with a single-user licence.
The Cloud Enterprise plan includes everything in Premium with the addition of capabilities in flagship products—Jira Software (JSW), Confluence, and Jira Service Management (JSM).
Enterprise also includes Atlassian Analytics for complete visibility into how your teams work with a unified data lake and custom analytics, in addition to Atlassian Access, at no extra cost.
As the highest-tier plan, Atlassian Cloud Enterprise is for those with:
Existing Atlassian Cloud users can get more from their investment by optimizing their usage, improving collaboration, and leveraging additional features. Here are some strategies to maximise the value of Atlassian Cloud:
By taking these steps, existing Atlassian Cloud users can make the most of their investment and improve collaboration.
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