Overview
Swinburne University of Technology (Swinburne) in Melbourne, renowned for its innovation and research, has a cloud-first digital strategy to enhance accessibility, collaboration, and security. Partnering with Atlassian Solutions Provider Area9, Swinburne’s delivery project team migrated its Jira and Confluence platforms to the cloud, overcoming challenges through a strategic and integrated approach.
Introduction: “lift and shift” approach for Atlassian cloud migration
With end-of-life support for Atlassian server products looming (15 February 2024), Swinburne’s IT Corporate Services team initiated a “lift and shift” approach to migrate Jira and Confluence to the cloud.
These platforms, integral to various university business units (and used by 4000+ end users), required a seamless migration to maintain critical business processes and knowledge management.
It was intended that this “lift and shift” approach meant applications, systems, workloads, and data are to be moved from on-premises data centres to the cloud with little or no changes.
Challenges: lack of data migration visibility, clear mapping of applications and limited vendor information
Swinburne’s lift and shift approach involved the use of a migration tool that automatically maps resources currently available in source infrastructure to the matching resources in the cloud provider.
Whilst following this process, the IT Corporate Services team soon realised that there were technical gaps in this method.
Gaurav Gupta – Swinburne’s Applications Team Lead, Corporate Services and member of the project delivery team explained:
“During our app assessment, we realised the migration tool we were using only provides a high-level view of what data has been migrated and what has not shifted and that mapping of applications were not happening.”
“Essentially, there was no way for us to understand or confirm if the application data itself has been migrated, and there was limited information available from the vendor so there was a lack of confidence that we were migrating the right data.”
“Without understanding what’s what, there was a chance that everything was being pulled into the cloud as part of the migration, including insecure and incompatible configurations.”
Approach: working with Area9 – an Atlassian Solutions Partner – to migrate with confidence
Upon identifying the technical challenges of the migration approach, the project team released a Request for Quotation to work with relevant Atlassian Solution Partner. The challenges and delivery risks included were:
- Apps Assessment still to be finalised,
- complexity of the migration,
- there is a need to bring external expertise for this type of SaaS migration, and
- project resource constraints.
Having previously delivered seamless and secure migration projects for several Australian public sector agencies and education providers, Area9 was invited to submit a response and chosen as Swinburne’s Atlassian Cloud migration partner.
Area9’s solution: integrating people, process and technology for successful cloud migration
Area9 collaborated with Swinburne, proposed an iterative migration approach after a thorough scoping exercise. This was a pivot from the initial migration approach.
The delivery approach and plan involved:
- Commit to Migration Run 2 or 3 times
- Iterative Testing
- User Engagement
- Continuous refinement, and
- Production Migration to SaaS Platform when ready.
- Technical (technology) support services
To address the challenges of missing applications mapping and visible migration of data to the cloud, Area9 conducted a comprehensive gap analysis. This information was then used to:
- create scripts to clean the database before migration,
- advise business end users how to ‘clean’ their data to assist with successful migration,
- escalate identified issues to Atlassian for resolution, leveraging Area9’s Gold Partner status and robust working relationships with Atlassian to expedite the process.
This work supported the first iteration of migration of Swinburne on-prem Jira and Confluence from data centres.
“We were impressed with Area9’s agility and adaptability, moving from a lift and shift to an iterative migration strategy, which surfaced issues that we didn’t previously identify. This approach gave us confidence towards achieving seamless, secure migration,” explained Gaurav.
- Connecting people to the project
Recognising that user satisfaction is paramount to project success, Area9 suggested and worked with Swinburne’s delivery team to conduct User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with selected end users following the initial migration phase.
The UAT served to validate the migrated data and resolution of identified issues, signaling readiness for the go-live phase of migration. Importantly, it actively involved end users in the migration process, providing them with firsthand experience and insights into the upgraded cloud products.
- Support model to enhance BAU process
Area9’s migration strategy, technical issues resolution, and proactive stakeholder engagement reduced post-migration issues, alleviating the burden on end users and IT Corporate Services. This approach reduced the go-live impact on business as usual (BAU) operations, ensuring a seamless transition to the cloud environment.
“Area9’s integrated approach was strategic and proactive, from the start to the end. They communicated effectively and we could always rely on Robert and his team to provide technical and project advice that reflected clear understanding of our business operation requirements,” commented Gaurav.
Result: successful adoption and seamless migration
Swinburne successfully went live with Jira Cloud in December 2023 and Confluence Cloud in mid-January 2024. The migration project was delivered on time and on budget.
“Working with Area9 not only ensured technical success but also facilitated a seamless connection between our business users and the technology throughout the migration process. This enabled our users to gain clarity on system changes and understand the functionality and data enhancements post-migration,” said Gaurav.
“As a result, our business users were empowered to proactively address data cleanliness, familiarise themselves with upcoming changes, and resolve any issues with expert support and guidance from Area9. Consequently, our transition to BAU post-migration was smooth and hassle-free.”
“For us, this embodies the true essence of successful technology adoption.”
“Robert’s team are highly skilled, demonstrated high standard of professionalism and has been flexible, supportive throughout project delivery into Hypercare. Area9 delivered high quality work, together with Swinburne Change Management with their sound advice, has alleviated the impact for users on Go-Live and Post Go-live, landing the SaaS service as per planned on time and with the budget of the engagement.”
“Area9’s commitment to deliver the planned milestones, on time and within the resources allocation is to be commended.”
For more information on Area9 enterprise team
Area9’s enterprise team combine business improvement analysis with Atlassian collaboration tools and real time information to give modern workplaces a competitive edge. Get in touch to discuss how we can collaborate with you and your team to prepare for the future, and to create a better future.
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