Cloud-hosted Options for the Atlassian Tech Stack

If your organization relies on any of the applications in the Atlassian tech stack (such as Trello, Jira, Confluence, or BitBucket), this brief article is well worth the four minutes it will take to read it.

Atlassian apps are among the most popular product and project management applications used by software development organizations in particular those who engage in agile development. Traditionally these apps were hosted on an on-site server, with all the pros and cons it entails. Many long time Jira users are probably still using this on-prem deployment model.

Recently, however, Atlassian has made their entire stack available for deployment and hosting in new and exciting ways, introducing options and benefits that weren’t readily available before.

Cloud hosting

In addition to the traditional on-premises installation, you can now host the entire Atlassian stack in the cloud. Moving to the cloud offers a wide range of benefits, including cost savings, speed, efficiency, and greater security.

There are three variations on the cloud hosting theme that will work for Atlassian applications:

1. Using a cloud hosting service, such as AWS

2. Using a managed service

3. Using a hybrid setup with some applications remaining on-premises and other in the cloud

Cloud hosting service

We’ve discussed previously why Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers the best combination of cloud computing tools and resources for running Atlassian apps, but you have the freedom to choose almost any cloud provider that suits your unique requirements.

Whether you choose to go with AWS or not, moving your Atlassian stack to the cloud should considerably reduce the time and expense your IT team is currently investing in maintaining the servers. Hosting on the cloud can also reduce the cost of usage, since you’re only required to pay for what you use.

Managed cloud services

Taking the concept, a step further, a managed services arrangement would allow you to fully delegate the management and maintenance of your apps to a third party, reducing even further the time and resources you need to spend in-house to keep your vital software up and running at all times.

Private or hybrid cloud services

In some circumstances, it makes sense to host some of the apps you routinely use in the cloud while maintaining others on your on-site server. This arrangement is known as a hybrid cloud model. Alternatively, it may be advantageous to keep everything on-site, but set it up as a private cloud rather than a traditional static server.

The Atlassian apps can now be successfully deployed in all these ways, with impressive, flexibility and benefits for companies that make the switch. Most importantly, the efficiencies and cost savings derived from moving to the cloud frees more time and resources that can be focused on more business-critical activities within the organization.

Third party apps

Another key benefit of moving your Atlassian stack to the cloud is the wide range of cloud-based third party apps you can easily integrate and run alongside the core apps you use every day.

Typically, Jira and other Atlassian apps don’t operate in a vacuum. While they provide a solid foundation for nearly any product or project management needs, chances are that many users have at least a handful of third party apps on hand to help fill the little gaps in functionality and personalize their experience and fit the Atlassian stack to the company’s unique needs and workflow.

Among the thousands of available apps — from helpdesk and monitoring to DevOps and testing — there’s bound to be something that’s just a perfect addition to the core apps to achieve greater efficiencies and expanding the functionality. Sometimes it could be as simple as integrating a third party service you prefer, like good old Google Docs or Todolist.

Once the core Atlassian components are migrated to the cloud, a reasonable next step is to migrate and integrate all those third party applications you already use and host them in the same cloud environment. This provides a more seamless workflow and considerably reduces complexity and with it, headaches for IT. In addition, having the full stack in the cloud means your organization can now benefit from the huge array of cloud-native apps, tools, and utilities that are exploding onto the scene.

It makes a lot of sense to have a single, flexible, progressive environment in which to host your company’s development platform and all the third party integrations you need. If you want that environment to be viable, effective and relevant for years to come, it has to be the cloud.

Finally, if you want the very best cloud experience with the least headache possible, you’ll want to let cPrime help you migrate your Atlassian stack and third party apps to the AWS.