Can Jira be locally maintained as SaaS?

[Joseph Franks]

Can Jira be installed on Web Servers and Application Servers as SaaS. Mainly, can our own System Administrators maintain those servers or does Atlassian have to maintain them when set up as SaaS?

This question is a pre-requisite question to the main one that I have. Which is, who and what are the responsibilities in case of a system crash?

Thanks,

[Daniel Eads]

Hey Joseph,

SaaS can mean different things depending on your background and the philosophy of the company licensing the software you want to use. For clarity, I'm going to define it as "a time-based subscription where you don't have to maintain the underlying hardware". It's worth noting that Atlassian Server licenses are perpetual use - you're entitled to continue using the versions released during your maintenance period forever if run on your own hardware.

Let me explain some of the deployment options in relation to your question:

1. Atlassian Cloud (SaaS) - Atlassian maintains the underlying hardware, is responsible for uptime, maintains backups, and handles new features (technically there are no "upgrades" in Cloud). You pay a monthly or yearly fee, and lose access to the software/your data if you stop making payments. The only responsibilities of the administrators at your company are making payments, adding/removing users, and configuring product-specific options (Projects/Fields/etc in Jira).
2. Third party managed hosting for Jira Server (SaaS) - The third party you select, Contegix for instance, maintains the underlying hardware. Depending on the licensing model, you may pay a separate fee for the perpetual-use Jira application license and the actual hosting costs at the third-party. The third party is responsible for maintaining backups and restoring in case of a crash. They are also responsible for working with you on application upgrades and will most likely handle the upgrades after you approve them. What your administrators are responsible for varies by third-party host, but generally you should not expect to be responsible for backups or restorations.
3. AWS/Azure-hosted Server or Data Center (not SaaS) - the hardware lives at the Cloud provider you choose, but you're responsible for administering the actual operating system and backups. You can use the Atlassian-provided images for Data Center (our multi-node high availability product that doesn't grant a perpetual license) deployments or deploy the Server versions on an instance you bring up. You are responsible for backups, restorations, and upgrades.
4. On-premise Server or Data Center (not SaaS) - the traditional server option where the hardware is either in your office or in a data center that you own or lease. You are 100% responsible for all parts of the stack - hardware, operating system, networking, upgrades, backups, restoration.

Cheers,
Daniel