4 Cloud Migration Strategies: Their Pros and Cons

So, you've decided that moving to Cloud is the right decision for the future of your Atlassian products. Now, how do you go about doing so? Migrating to the Atlassian Cloud can be a complex process that could have a big impact on users, data integrity, and system performance, so there needs to be a strategy in place to meet any business requirements specific to your organization and industry.

We will cover the four cloud migration strategies you can implement when moving to Atlassian Cloud. Note the importance of planning properly for the cloud migration, deciding on your migration strategy, and carrying out that strategy first requires an assessment of your Atlassian footprint. 

Clean-Up and Migrate

When we use this strategy, we are looking at evaluating your source instance and cleaning up anything that may not be deemed necessary to migrate. All the necessary data is then migrated to the cloud at once while leaving behind items in the server for reference.

Pros:

• Only one migration outage
• Can reduce the time of the outage
• End up with an improved instance
• Potential performance improvements
• Reduce costs

Cons:

• The outage window may be longer than other methods due to the size of the data
• Requires additional time to clean and prepare the instance

As-Is Migration

Migrate your entire instance at once with one migration outage. This includes all instance data and users.

Pros:

• Reduced costs
• Timeline is reduced
• Less effort and simpler process
• One migration window
• Can migrate Service Management and Advanced Roadmaps

Cons:

• Increased downtime depending on the size of the instance
• Unnecessary data and users may be moved to the cloud increasing cost and complexity

Phased Migration

With a phased migration, we take the approach of cleaning and migrating but with an extended timeline and without having to move everything at once. Users and instance data are moved depending on a scheduled plan. 

Pros:

• Outage times are reduced
• Possible phased user onboarding
• Cleanup can happen while migrating
• Easier phased adoption of Atlassian Cloud

Cons:

• Does not support Service Management and Advanced Road maps
• May support fewer third-party apps
• Overall longer process may increase the cost
• Multiple outages
• Increased complexity
• May require a third-party app to meet business requirements

Clean Sweep

If on-prem (server or DC) data is not required and teams want to start using the cloud right away, starting fresh on a brand new instance may be the simplest of strategies.

Pros:

• No downtime required
• Server can be kept for closing out projects or archiving
• Easier to onboard new teams
• Allows clean slate to improve processes and implement new things

Cons:

• Old on-prem data will not be available on the Cloud instance

Conclusion

Every company and industry has different needs, but our experts have the experience necessary to make yours easy and efficient. If you are considering a move to Atlassian Cloud but are worried about how this new environment will impact your mission-critical apps and add-ons, we’re here to help!

Want to learn more about the Cloud Migration process? Check out these articles on the Pros and Cons of Cloud Migration and 4 Things to Look Out for When Migrating to Atlassian Cloud.

Cloud migration isn't the end of the story, either. Once you've migrated to the cloud, it's time to invest in your people and processes so you can deliver on strategy that moves your business forward. Discover the importance of enterprise intelligence in the cloud in our on-demand webinar, or check out the tl;dr article!