To all Atlassian server champions - we want to hear from you

[Cameron Deatsch]

Edit Nov. 6, 2020: Thank you for all your feedback. We’ve summarized and addressed your top concerns and questions on this thread.

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If you haven’t already read our recent announcement “Accelerating our journey to the cloud, together” and reviewed the related information that we added to our website, please start there as both resources provide important context for this post.

Now that we’re all on the same page, let’s talk about it - our plan to stop selling and eventually stop supporting server is a big shift. Especially for our server champions like you.

I wanted to write this note to acknowledge all that you do for your Atlassian users, and to be upfront that we know this announcement is disruptive and may cause uncertainty in the near-term. I also know these changes are the right ones to set our customers up for decades of future success, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure you have a clear path forward alongside us on this journey to the cloud.

Server champions, you know who you are. You’re the one who has used our server products for years, in many cases a decade or longer. You’re the person who introduced our server products into your current organization and perhaps this isn’t the first organization you brought Atlassian into. If Atlassian products were already in use when you got there, you’re the one who took over and drove the adoption and success of our products to a new level. You’re an expert on our server products, bending them to the will of your stakeholders. You’re the one people come to when there is a challenge they need to solve with Atlassian products. Heck, you may even have Atlassian in your title.

Atlassian wouldn’t be where it is today without you, and you’re an important part of our future.

Which is why we are creating server champion community groups.

We’d like to invite you to become part of a set of private server champions community groups. As a group member, you’ll be part of shaping the future of our cloud offerings. We plan to connect group members with Atlassian Product Managers working on the requirements across each of the areas you care most about (e.g. security, change management). Our Product Managers will first and foremost listen in order to understand your needs, and they will also present our progress to date, and solicit feedback on future plans and roadmaps.

While we’re confident that Atlassian cloud is ready for the majority of our customers today, we know there is still more we need to continue to learn from server champions like you. We want to partner with you to ensure we deeply understand your requirements so that you can confidently say that cloud is a great choice for your organization. We want to enable you to deliver the same great experience to your users that they have come to rely on.

How to join the server champion community groups

To join our server champion community groups, please click on the links of the group/s you'd like to join and hit the Request Access button. You'll receive an email confirmation within 24 hours. 

• Extensibility Feedback Group

• Security & Compliance Feedback Group

• Reliability & Performance Feedback Group

• Change Management Feedback Group

Want to ask a question now? If you’ve got questions that aren’t addressed by the information we added to our website, drop them in the comments below. We’ll be monitoring this post actively and the Atlassian team is here to support you.

A final note…

I want to wrap this up by saying thank you. Thank you for your partnership. Thank you for helping to make Atlassian the company it is today. During my time as Head of the Server business at Atlassian, I spoke with many of you personally. I know the passion and pride you have for the work you do, and I sure hope in those meetings it came across clearly how much respect I have for you and the role you play.

Thank you for giving us an opportunity to show you we can continue to be great partners as we journey to the cloud, together.

[Matteo Gubellini _SoftComply_]

Hello,

I think I'm speaking for a lot of other partners in the Atlassian ecosystem.

The decision to eventually discontinue the Server products is a massive deal. We have business mainly with small-medium companies who can't simply afford to move to Data Center. As we work with regulated industries like Medical Device manufacturers, going to Cloud is simply not an option.

You may boost Cloud as much as you want, but it's missing a ton of key features that will make it non viable for regulated industries. Apps for Cloud are limited in their features, due to the structure itself of Cloud, that prevents developers do have the same solutions as in Server. And, due to the very nature of Cloud, the continuous update of the instance, regulated industries will not be able to use it. They need a more static solution.

Maybe it is part of the Atlassian strategy to drop the small fish in favor of the large ones, but I expect many companies to move away from Atlassian, and a number of partners to cease business. Consider anyway that many of these small companies expand significantly in 1-2 years, making them potential customers for Data Center, but if you add these entry barriers in the first place, then they will choose a different platform.

I would ask you to consider at least to create lower tiers for Data Center. If the purpose is to ensure customers renew their licenses, I'm ok with it, but we need to provide Server-like solutions for the regulated industry, for small-medium companies.

Regards

Matteo

[Erick van Rijk]

I second this statement. There a a lot of mid size companies that CANNOT move to the cloud. Our Notified Body will never accept something mission critical as documentation / project management to be hosted in the cloud. DC isn’t suitable for smaller / midsize businesses due to high costs vs benefit. 

[Cameron Deatsch]

Thank you Erick and Matteo. First, the goal here is not to lose our focus on small and mid-sized customers. In fact, the overwhelming majority of our 150,000 cloud customers are small and mid-sized businesses. 

As far as cloud viability is concerned, you mention three specific areas, compliance due to being a medical device company, extensibility for developers, and continuous updates that enterprise customers can't accept. In all of these areas we are making tons of progress. From a compliance perspective, are there specific regulations that we should be aware of for your specific organization or is it simply internal policies that all data must be managed in house? With extensibility, we continue to focus on Atlassian Connect and Forge. We already have the majority of our most popular server apps available in cloud (and we know they don't have 100% parity) but we believe that we can accommodate many of the key use cases customers are looking for. Lastly, with continuous deployments, we are working on the ability for customers to choose when new features are deployed. You can track all of this here: https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/cloud?

Lastly, on your request for lower Data Center tiers, we hear you loud and clear. At this time the entry point for Data Center is the 500 user license and we have no plans to add lower tiers. However, we will continue to capture feedback from our customers and partners in this area. 

[Michael Woffenden]

Agreed! 

Atlassian could solve this dilemma (and truly provide some love for the small businesses that use JSD and Confluence Server) -- by creating an entry level pricing scheme for Data Center.

Don't force us to go to Cloud!  It's not at all the same product as Server.

[Matteo Gubellini _SoftComply_]

Hello @Cameron Deatsch ,

In the Medical Device industry there are a number of regulations and standards we need to comply with. The issue is with them, not internal policies. Ref ISO 13485 and 21 CFR 11, just to start. (FYI We are not a user, we are an integrator of Apps to create solutions for the MedTech industry on Atlassian products.)

I'll try to summarize the problems:

1. Apps that are used for complying to these regulations for a Document Management System are either not available on Cloud or the developers are struggling to put something together even vaguely similar, on Cloud. We spoke to them and they said it's due to the additional complexity and limitations that Cloud has vs Server.

2. One of the key requirements for the MedTech industry (and I guess many others) is that you have to show you are in control of your system. With Cloud, well, you are not. Cloud is dynamic. Too dynamic. Updates happen daily. Updates are pushed without notice. Updates sometimes break Apps. This is a massive no-no. Unless you will create a Cloud version of Confluence (and other products) with WAY less frequent updates (and here I mean once every few months at worst!) Cloud will never be an option. Also, you will have to let the developers know in advance so they can ensure their Apps still work with the new version. So, sort of like Server...

I can go on forever here, but if you want to have more details we can arrange a chat with you.

Rgds

Matteo

[Erick van Rijk]

Hi @Cameron Deatsch

I second what @Matteo Gubellini _SoftComply_  is stating here.

I'm in MedTech and it is not that we do not want to move to cloud services, but its practically impossible to do so (outside simple office / backend stuff).

ISO 13485 / 21 CFR 11 / ISO 14971 are just a few of the larger (medical) standards you need to comply with. There are also different requirements for each country you are dealing with (example Japans JPAL required data retention of 15 years, which we can cover with an internal procedure of tape backups in cold storage) Or EU with GDPR / MDR.

During a yearly Notified Body audit you need to provide evidence that you (auditee) are in control of the tools and data. For cloud services this is not the case. When Atlassian upgrades their server software, how can I prove that the data is not modified in any sense (Spoiler, I cannot). For the server, what we currently do is test upgrade / check data (SQL integrity check and random selection of document/issue) and then we move over to a new version. This is satisfy our NB that we comply with regulations, not for fun.

What happens if an upgrade breaks a plugin. (best case data is not accessible, worse case data is modified). I would never know until its too late (a user detects the errors), since it is done "in the cloud".

It will be even worse if you do everything in Atlassian Suite (QMS/DevDoc/Issue tracking/Post Market Surveillance), everything you do can be put into question. The burden of proof is on the Auditee side, not de Auditor. If you piss off an Auditor enough by not showing compliance, they can write up a major non-compliance which will cause lots of fallout. Think warning letter from the FDA, loss of certification (CE in Europe), hold on equipment exports etc.

This might sound like scaremongering but this is a really an actual risk, just GDPR non-compliance is already an issue, and that's not even a MedTech thing.

I think all the above would also apply for any Legal/DoD/high security work (but different legal framework).

Again, I understand the push toward the cloud for Atlassian and you cannot make everybody happy. But reading the comments on this thread and others, perhaps Atlassian does not understand their customers as well as they think they do (at least the subset that user server onPrem). It will be a loss for me to move away from the Atlassian suite due to the 8 years invested in the platform but the way this is handled the faith in Atlassian has taken a nosedive.

[Jonathan]

Come Monday I will have to feel like an ass forwarding this announcement onto the numerous other small-medium companies I got started on Server products in recent years. I honestly think they will start taking the time remaining to begin migrating to the alternatives many of them had in mind.

They went with server either because of compliance regulations/security/etc, or cloud did not perform as they needed so a custom tailored server solution was required. That's not even going into the considerations of cost, and add-ons yet.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Matteo and Erick, thank you for your detailed replies and I will make sure to follow up with our compliance team on the various standards you mentioned in your comments. 

When it comes to apps that help with compliance in Server, I'd love to hear the specific apps you are currently using so we can make sure to reach out to those vendors to help them build the equivalent in cloud. While we aren't at parity yet, in the next 3 years I believe our cloud app ecosystem will outnumber our current server apps.

On your requirements around the dynamic nature of cloud and the requirements to control all of your data, we have various programs in place to address these exact issues like the ability to pick your releases and improved encryption and data residency capabilities. 

[Matteo Gubellini _SoftComply_]

Hello Cameron,

Please drop me an email I'll give you these info.

matteo@softcomply.com

Regards

Matteo

[Erick van Rijk]

Hi @Cameron Deatsch

In an ideal world, Atlassian could get their suite certified which would be awesome.

21 CFR 11 would probably be doable quite quickly, but the speed this is handled (see JRACLOUD-69893 open since jul/2018) forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical.

For getting it certified for use in MedTech, its "complicated". Every company does things differently depending on what they do and where they operate. This also depends on their Quality Management System (QMS) and Notified Body. For some reason NBs can't even agree with each-other how some items (like data storage / tooling etc) needs to be handled.

As mentioned previously, data integrity is a major item for NBs. See JRASERVER-65867 from Aug/2017 where I put in the request.

That said, currently the Atlassian Tooling is hitchhiking on our own internal QMS/Certification so the effort to maintaining it not a major hurdle after the initial verification & validation. For example the IEC 62304 defines different levels (A/B/C) of criticality of software depending on the product (Most are B or C) V&V of the tooling (this would include JIRA/Confluence/Bamboo/Bitbucket since they can influence the software (either by design inputs or code level). (upcoming IEC 62304-2 is even more stringent)

I would expect it to be a lot more difficult for Atlassian to get their suite certified (I'm not a NB so your mileage may vary depending who you ask), but I would expect an audit yearly at the least and formal Verification/Validation of every product release (or at least LTS versions and no intermittent "hot-fixes" without V&V).

You are now probably thinking, why would Confluence be part of the audit???. MS Office isn't put on that level of scrutiny. Well, if you do you QMS or design fully in MS Word, you actually need to do a V&V on MS Word to prove that critical data is not lost (potential hazard) and that's because its part of the "process" of development / QMS, You can now have your cup of SOUP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_of_unknown_pedigree)

As the above tries to demonstrate switching to Cloud isn't easy even with (partial) certification of the Atlassian cloud suite. Just one item of non-compliance can rule out cloud adoption (depending the NB/Country).

Regarding the apps that I currently use SynapseRT (no cloud option atm but probably can be replaced by X-Ray or Zyphir) and projectDoc (no cloud as well). Scroll already has Cloud so that will not be an issue. An important items is that you need to be able to export everything to file (PDF/Word) for external sources (NBs/etc). And I would have probably used SoftComply's eQMS if we already had our own. (nice product @Matteo Gubellini _SoftComply_ )

We are not a Fortune 500 company (if we were we would be running DC anyway), just a little fish in the big ocean of customers, so I do not think I can change the path we are heading, but an alternative from Atlassian for the users that cannot move to the cloud would be appreciated by all the user here. Or at least a proper reasoning why Server is different from DC (different codebase?) and cannot be supported anymore.

DC for 50 users and upwards?

Cloud in selfhosted docker service?

VPS hosted by Atlassian in each region?

[Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California)]

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/527906

@Erick van Rijk thanks por your post. You are not alone in this ocean. We are in the same boat and despite some items of concern are already in the Roadmap the date is to close to the end of support (HIPAA as example 2023) which is risky for us to wait until last minute to decide our path. We need time for testing and piloting the new solution.

I understand we still have the DC option, but until when? Are the app developers focus 100% in Cloud? 
the point is, moving to DC requires an effort too, so how far can we go in that direction? For how long?

I think we will be ok with features,  but  regulation will be a hurdle to overcome so we can set our curse

I hope the little fish don’t need to look for a new ocean or at least a friendly aquarium:) 

[Cameron Deatsch]

Erick, thanks again for the detailed response. I'm making sure this is shared with our compliance teams as we do need an answer in these areas.

Fabian, I'm sure we will meet the HIPAA compliance with plenty of time for you to test the system appropriately. Remember at any time we will grant you a gree cloud trial license that matches your current server maintenance term. 

On R&D investment, we will continue to invest in Data Center but with a focus on larger enterprise deployments. However, we will continue to overinvest in Cloud R&D largely due to the various asks coming from the individuals on this thread. Additionally, at any time you can get a 30 day trial of Data Center to see if it's right for you. 

[Erick van Rijk]

@Cameron Deatsch, I already looked at DC and the costs are simply to high for our budget especially now. Just Confluence and Jira will put it over 50k a year. It would be cheaper to hire someone to spend half a year reworking our internal procedures to other vendors systems (if they don't already have an importer). I will probably spend the next year or so still using the Atlassian suite and keeping an eye on Cloud (already had a trial account for a while now playing around with it) and in the mean time looking for alternatives.

One thing other people mentioned is that also worries me is the EULA, where Atlassian can delete the data for any reason. (yes you can make automated backups etc. but without any system to put it in you just have a bunch of XML/SQL data sitting there). The current server solution actually allows us to take a year old snapshot and load it in vmware to access the data. What do you envision the cloud solution be to allow your cloud customers to access old data after 10+ years (maybe Atlassian won't exist anymore in 10 years)?

[Jonathan]

Looks like so far that other companies I've previously started on Atlassian products will begin migrating to other products as soon as they've decided on an alternative. No point sticking around and sinking any further effort into something that's being phased out anyway.

In future I won't be recommending Atlassian products either, the Cloud products often lead to annoyance, or just simply weren't even an option due to other reasons.

Many chose Atlassian products simply because they were the default, but now there's so many more options available on the market.

I don't think there's anything to communicate back to Atlassian regarding this, the decision's already been made. Most have already made the decision before about Server vs Cloud, most points that lead to choosing server in the past have not changed.

[Fabian Lopez]

@Cameron Deatsch  Thanks for addressing my concern about HIPAA. The question now is the path to follow to be better prepared for the new scenario.

1. Stay on the server version and wait for Cloud HIPAA readiness - It will probably generate some anxiety due to the uncertain date, it is like getting close to the waterfall in a little boat. It will impact our organization in other aspects due to the number of apps and customization we have.

2. Step approach, Server to DC, and then wait for Cloud compliance to move to Cloud. The question here is, how big the gap between DC and Cloud will be. Is this intermediate effort really needed?

Without a doubt, we will work on a transition plan, where the cost is one of the key variables too as well as the level of maturity reached by our users.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Fabian, both are good options. I'm actively pushing our R&D teams to accelerate both HIPAA and Fedramp compliance. On October 29, we're going to publish a new website that will help to lay out the pricing implications for each of these various paths so keep an eye out.

When you do decide, or have any concerns along the way, please reach out and I'd love to discuss the situation with your personally.

[Collin O_Connor]

Just going to chime in from the medical developer world, as Matteo and Erick.  They quite eloquently expressed the issues facing us as we use Jira/Confluence as part of our QMS for medical work, and same with Confluence.  The amount of effort we have to go with during audits is enough; but showing this is in the cloud, and knowing that some of the plugins we work with flat out will not work in the cloud because of their integrations makes it impossible to move forward on cloud, full stop. 

The other big one is that we've figured out a way to integrate Bamboo into our QMS processes for software and firmware, with automated testing.  But there's no way to do any of that with Bitbucket, as this requires Windows to build/test/run, some of these are desktop applications which are apparently a dinosaur in the tools world these days, and there's no Bamboo DataCenter.  And honestly the use of Bamboo as build automation for these systems when we're literally 2 developers in the entire company (we are <50 employees in the company as a whole) is part of what allows us to move efficiently and effectively, because it lets us automate away a lot of manual things such as creating code diffs for history, running tests in parallel on multiple systems, generating system documentation, delivery of binaries to appropriate locations, creating build installs, and so on.  Our entire process has been built on this for ten years and now we're facing the fact we're either going to have to never get updates to it, and it'll eventually break, or either retool to manual processes and reduce our efficacy at our jobs, or find another suite of tools to go forward.  And again, because this is medical devices, we can't just put our sources, our binaries, and so on into a cloud.  We have to show full control for safety to auditors without warning and ensure we always have access to it, and that no one else does.  And getting historical access - what happens when we need to go back and pull 15 year old items from the cloud?  Will we be able to, or will we be at the mercy of your setup?  Will we be able to pull all the data for backup, archival, and submission to notified bodies if we need to?

Confluence has this issue for us as well - we've got it tailored not just into our documentation for the software and firmwares, but it's used by management and manufacturing as well, for everything from meeting notes, to tracking quality, to helpdesk and service guides for our phone staff, with links to tools and resources in other systems that are also internal-only, including direct links to file system.  And while we could for at least some of them "open a hole in the firewall to allow requests through", in a cloud system how will we know for sure it's always coming from Atlassian, and not a hacker or disgruntled former employee or a scanner tool, seeing what they can find?  Doing anything of that sort with the cloud migration increases the complexity of the system we must maintain, reduce our use of the tools, or move to an entirely different toolstack entirely.

To note too, this isn't just with notified bodies and following standards - the standards change based on the product and device.  But additionally our -customers- audit us, especially in certain instances, to insure integrity of the data and items.  And each of their processes is different.  Even if you could certify to all the various national bodies for notification, I know at least two of our biggest customers would have issue with it for a variety of reasons.

For those of us with Server, often times from what I'm seeing here is we're not just 'your tool' but it's become a critical part of an ecosystem.  A vital organ in the body of our businesses.  And you can't just pull out the liver, lungs, and kidneys all at once and replace them with a ventilator and a dialysis machine while keeping them in a sealed plastic bubble while you invent a new vaccine and not expect the body to suffer for it, if not outright die from the systemic damage done.

Not gonna lie, the future ahead now looks pretty scary for our use of Atlassian tools, and even if this were reversed 100%, the trust damage will be done.

[marth8880]

Like poetry.

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi Collin,

Thanks for sharing your feedback. Our goal is to meet your needs, regardless of how you deploy.

No matter where you are in your journey, we want to empower you with choices. If you anticipate a longer journey to cloud, we’ll continue to invest in Data Center and are offering multi-year loyalty discounts to existing server customers help ease the transition.

What auditing capabilities would you need to enable for your customers? Are there specific compliance requirements/standards we need to address for your industry or the industries you serve? If you don’t see your requirement on our cloud roadmap, please let us know. We’ll continue to evaluate our packaging following this announcement to ensure that it meets the needs of our customers like yourself by the end of support in February 2024.

In regards to your apps, we’re committed to continuous improvements to ensure our cloud platform provides the best possible extensibility experience. In addition to the new APIs and extension points made available recently, we’re continuing to invest in more features and functionality that close any remaining extensibility gaps that exist in cloud.

As far as Bamboo, we plan to make Bamboo Data Center available in the future. As details emerge, we will notify current Bamboo Server customers. In the meantime, as with the other products affected by this announcement, we’ll continue to offer support for Bamboo Server through February 2024. If you’re able to move your CI/CD to cloud, we’d also encourage you to consider Bitbucket Pipelines – an integrated CI/CD service, built directly into Bitbucket Cloud.

In terms of cloud trust and security, we often see customers your size – and many enterprise customers – move because of the added security benefit that being in our cloud provides. Our Trust site is a great resource for understanding our security and compliance practices. Can you share with us what exactly your needs are that are preventing you from moving?

Our products come with built-in audit logging capabilities (see Jira’s, for example), as well as advanced audit logging capabilities through Atlassian Access.

Everyone at Atlassian takes our value "Don’t #@!% the customer" very seriously. This is a big change we know but we have never been shy with our customers about our cloud investments and future. Additionally, we spent a lot of time ensuring that all of our customers have the time to make the decision that is right for them.

While we may not have every answer for you today, 3+ years is a long time, both with the entire industry moving to cloud services and with our investments in these areas. We’ll continue working to address each of your needs to ensure you’re able to make the move as well.

[Vicky Blease]

Hi Andy, you keep pointing out in your replies that we have 3 years to transition, but you're overlooking the hiked license fees for anyone that takes advantage of this time?

https://www.atlassian.com/licensing/future-pricing/server-pricing/faqs

Can Atlassian at least U-turn on this decision? We need more time to make a plan; 3 months notice before a price hike is not giving us a chance to budget for these changes.

[Dalectric]

Totally agree with this. We have no budget planned for this increase and our financial year doesn't start until April 2021.

[Alex Janes]

I don't get to budget very far ahead. I am finally getting to do my budget for 2021. But, I will be budgeting to find a new product at this point.

All Atlassian has done is spit out more talking points, rather than ACTUALLY ADDRESS our issues.

I will keep commenting and fighting for a cheaper on-premise option. But at this point, Atlassian has lost me as a customer.

[Taylor Huston]

This is an incredibly bad idea.

I've been an Atlassian administrator for several years now. I have worked with a lot of companies, big and small. Some on Server, some on DC, some on Cloud. Many, many companies do not want Jira Cloud. They need their data on a server they control, behind a firewall they manage, that they can access even without the internet. They have customizations that won't work on Cloud. They rely on Add-Ons that aren't available for Cloud. And many of them are companies that can't justify $40k/yr for Jira alone.

Killing off Server is an incredibly backwards, harmful move. I see no technical reason to do this, it seems solely to force people onto Cloud or Data Center, where you make more money. This move seems entirely driven by greed and profits, not what's best for the customer. Keeping Server alive, as a product, has minimal overhead for you as a company. It's basically the same code as Data Center, which you aren't killing (yet). So it's not like Server was losing you money by existing. The only reason to kill it is to FORCE people into things that make you more money. That's bad for the customer.

Before, a customer could try Jira On-Prem for as little as a $10 starter license. Now the cheapest option they have is, what, over $40k? That is insane.

This is going to leave a huge gap in the market that some other company is going to come along and fill, stealing all of those customers away from you. There are a lot of companies out there with under 200 employees that have no interest in Cloud and can not afford or justify the cost of Jira Data Center.

https://www.atlassian.com/company/values

"Don’t #@!% the customer"

[_A9_ William Kennedy]

"Be the change you seek".

[Cameron Deatsch]

Taylor, thanks for your feedback and for continuing to be part of the Atlassian community. I read your detailed comments above and your post on Medium.

You are absolutely correct that there are there is a subset of our customer base in highly regulated environments that may seem stuck without an option. But the reality is that when we do speak with those customers almost all of them use some sort of cloud technology in their businesses. Moreover, almost all of them have been adopting cloud technologies faster than various on-prem tech. It's on Atlassian to meet their various requirements for data privacy, extensibility, and apps. And since you're a member of the community I hope you agree that we've made significant progress in all of these areas over the last couple of years. 

And when it comes to these lower-tier customers, the price is not much different when you compare the current Server licensing fees and our cloud licenses. When you take this into account plus the cost of managing hardware and managing upgrades it's often a cost-savings for our customers in these tiers. We did not make this announcement to force these lower-tier customers to go to Data Center so we could raise their prices. 

Everyone at Atlassian takes "Don’t #@!% the customer" very seriously. This is a big change we know but we have never been shy with our customers about our cloud investments and future. Additionally, we spent a lot of time ensuring that all of our customers have the time to make the decision that is right for them and that we accommodate their various needs over the next few years. Server customers can still upgrade and purchase new marketplace apps after February. 

[Taylor Huston]

@Cameron Deatsch  all of that sounds nice, I'm sure your team spent a lot of time coming up with good, canned answers to all of the complaints that you knew you would get. But you're still not answering one thing.

"Killing off Server is an incredibly backwards, harmful move. I see no technical reason to do this, it seems solely to force people onto Cloud or Data Center, where you make more money. This move seems entirely driven by greed and profits, not what's best for the customer. Keeping Server alive, as a product, has minimal overhead for you as a company. It's basically the same code as Data Center, which you aren't killing (yet). So it's not like Server was losing you money by existing. The only reason to kill it is to FORCE people into things that make you more money. That's bad for the customer."

If keeping Server alive costs you basically nothing (since it's essentially the same product as Data Center, just with different licensing so that should be the case), why does taking away the CHOICE for customers make any sense?

I get that Cloud is the future, for many reasons. And I definitely think you should invest most of your time, effort, R&D, etc, into it going forward. But. no matter how much you improve Cloud, it will never be okay for all customers. There will always be a small, but very real, section of customers that require an On-Prem solution, for whatever reason, but cannot justify the minimum tier and cost for Data Center. Seems to me you really have three options.

1. Keep Server and Data Center alive, as it is now, but continue to improve Cloud so that it becomes so good that most of your customers WANT to use it anyway, and leave Server alive for those few that can't. Leave the choice up to them.
2. Stop selling new Server licenses, but add some Data Center tiers that are cheap enough so that small companies that can't move to Cloud have an affordable, viable choice. Make it so that 100 person company has a choice between Jira Cloud or Jira Data Center for about the same amount of money.
3. Just kill Server, keep Data Center prohibitively expensive, taking away their choice.

Option 1 is the most customer-friendly, it leaves the most choice in their hands. Option 2 is less so, but at least your customers still have a choice. Option 3 just takes away their choice completely, and really is #@!%ing a lot of them.

Cloud is the future, fine. Then keep working on it. Keep pushing it. Keep focusing on it. Make it so good that they WANT to use it. Don't take away their options so they are FORCED to use it. Both options will get you where you want to go, but only one will screw over a lot of companies, both your customers and Partners, along the way.

[Timur Izhbulatov]

@Taylor Huston

Taylor, unfortunately, this conversation is futile. The thread was started by @Cameron Deatsch just to mitigate reputational consequences of this move and let us blow off steam.

Once a company starts moving towards IPO everything humane in it starts dying. Atlassian has reached their IPO. They died 5 years ago.

[ASTEN RATHBUN]

Indeed, they've already made the decision, and indicate they're not interested in a server-equivalent-cost option.  

Even if I have a few years to keep using Server, that doesn't help me as I can't possibly buy the licenses I would need by Feb '21.  

We just invested a lot of time and money getting Jira Service Desk Server set up and customized as well, and all that is completely wasted.  I'm so angry I'm shaking.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Asten, sorry this is causing you additional frustration. I'm sure there is a path forward for our companies to work together. 

If you're willing I'd love to chat over Zoom. I'll reach out over email. 

[Taylor Huston]

@Cameron Deatsch still would like an answer to this question:

If keeping Server alive costs you basically nothing (since it's essentially the same product as Data Center, just with different licensing so that should be the case), why does taking away the CHOICE for customers make any sense?

If you want to put all of your resources into Cloud to make it into a product that all companies will want to move to (which it is no where close to being at this point), that makes sense. You're still letting the customer make the choice, when THEY are ready.

Why, instead of doing that, are you taking away their options, their choice, and FORCING them to move to Cloud (or pay for Data Center, but this question is more based on smaller companies that are way below 500 users)?

[Cameron Deatsch]

Hey Taylor, you're right, we are eliminating the choice for existing customers but we are giving 39 months heads up to make the choice. We're also allowing them to upgrade in the first year and buy more apps for the next 2 years. This is plenty of time for us to prove that our cloud can work for them, or help build the case to move to Data Center. And we know that when customers move to the cloud, they have higher satisfaction scores and get more value out of our products.

I also want to repeat again to the many people on this thread that they're absolutely right that there is a group of our smaller customers in regulated environments or have policies against having Atlassian data in the cloud. While we don't have an answer for those customers today, again, 3 years is a long time and with the entire industry moving to cloud services and with our investments in these areas, I know many of these customers will be able to make the move. Even your current company. 

[Taylor Huston]

@Cameron Deatsch that still doesn't really answer the question.

In your blog post you state "more than 90 percent of you [new Atlassian customers] start with Atlassian cloud". The key word there is start. Which means not all of them stay. And means that 10 percent decide from the beginning that Server is the best option. 

What about them? The fact is that, no matter how much you improve Cloud, it will never be the best fit for everyone.  So why take away their choice?

You can keep improving Cloud, keep making it better and better, invest in it, all that jazz. You can also keep Server alive for the small minority of customers that need it. These are not mutually exclusive options.

There is no technical reason to kill Server. It costs you nothing to keep it available for that small percentage customers that really want it. Nothing than the potential lost revenue that is. Cloud makes you more money. Data Center makes you more money (especially after you just doubled the price). So, really, is killing Server good for your customers...or just your shareholders?

And I want to make it clear, I ask these questions because I love Atlassian. It's a company who's products I've loved to work with, and it's been great for my career. Which is why you turning into just another big tech company who only cares about profit margins is so disappointing to me. Lots of tech companies talk big about not being evil, few manage to actually not be evil.

https://www.atlassian.com/company/values

[Being Appalled]

I know many of these customers will be able to make the move. Even your current company.

Again, you're telling us that you know better than your customers do. You might want to re-consider your attitude?

[Erick van Rijk]

@Cameron Deatsch 

While we don't have an answer for those customers today, again, 3 years is a long time and with the entire industry moving to cloud services and with our investments in these areas, I know many of these customers will be able to make the move. Even your current company.

This is another issue, while I do admit Atlassian has given enough time to consider migrating to the Cloud or other vendors, but your assumption is everything will be fixed in the upcoming years.

Basically you are asking your existing customers to "trust" Atlassian that they will resolve all outstanding issues for the cloud we have now. From another perspective you are asking companies to keep investing (time/money) to stay with Atlassian because somewhere in the future they can move from Server/DC to the cloud. From a business standpoint this does not make any sense, effort can only be spend once.

If Atlassian asked the server customers 2 years ago "what do we need to have in place to allow you to move" and kept server alive until everything was settled (e.g. 100% working hybrid solution) it would be a different story. You probably get the remaining 90% transferred by then and have your everybody works in the cloud solution. But right now we are far from that.

[Dalectric]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, Atlassian have given us no reason to trust that they will fix issues with the cloud products based on their past record on not fixing long standing issues with their current server products.

[Tom Shaffer]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, Atlassian have given us no reason to trust that they will fix issues with the cloud products based on their past record on not fixing long standing issues with their current server products.

Exactly. Having the server option was the great equalizer in this aspect with all of the add-ons and customizations you can do that just simply don't exist in their cloud offerings.

And then I see stuff like this from Cameron:

I'm sure we will meet the HIPAA compliance with plenty of time for you to test the system appropriately

And I can't help but wonder if they really think that's the best they can do in this whole situation. Why weren't these things implemented already and then start the timer on shutting down the server? Why is Atlassian putting themselves at risk here and then asking us to do the same with our companies/jobs?

This bears repeating because I think most, if not all of us fall into this category:

I ask these questions because I love Atlassian. It's a company who's products I've loved to work with...

We want you to succeed Atlassian. We want to succeed together. The reason why I keep returning to these forum threads is for the glitter of hope that maybe we can sway some sort of sensible decision here but I agree with a lot of others here where it looks like the heels are dug in and they are just gritting their teeth to get through this rough patch. I'm sorry to give you such a hard time @Cameron Deatsch , I know this is something you've been not looking forward to doing for a long time. You're the lightning rod here.

At least for my company, the question isn't do we go with the cloud or stay on server? It's, do we stay on what will eventually be unpatched software on our server or do we go with another company's server option?

[Neil Gower]

I would suggest based on feedback on various forums that you did not have conversations with a broad enough group of heavily regulated customers.

Many of them are fintech/medtech and cloud is still not an option, and many are small and cannot afford DC especially with the significant price hike you are using to sweeten the deal!

[Taylor Huston]

@Cameron Deatsch  I'd still like to hear the justification on how this move is a good thing for your customers, not just a good thing for your shareholders.

[Alex Janes]

@Cameron Deatsch You also haven't responded to me. You promised a response by the end of last week. Well, were coming to the end of another week, and you have been ignoring us. And frankly, this is insane. You have a TON of customer concerns that are not being addressed.

We’ll be monitoring this post actively and the Atlassian team is here to support you.

Well then, do that. You have too many upset customers to be leaving us hanging like this...

Hey Taylor, you're right, we are eliminating the choice for existing customers but we are giving 39 months heads up to make the choice.

No you aren't giving all of your customers 39 months. What about your Atlassian partners (whom I would argue are your most valuable customers)? They have just over 2 months to get their new customers into a system that is affordable still for smaller, compliance required organizations. You forgot about all of your partners here that sell this product for you. They had a path to get customers into your product, then ramp up their spend over time.

But, Atlassian doesn't want to wait. They want more money now. And now partners have no affordable option for regulated industries that need on-premise software.

[Davin Studer]

How can you expect your customers to be ok with the HUGE price increases that will come from this ... especially during these times?

For instance this is what we pay annually for our Atlassian Products and apps.

Server - Total $38,643
Confluence -  $33,298
Jira Software - $5,345

To move away from Server to Data Center and retain all our current functionality would be ...

Data Center - $97,968
Confluence - $74,496
Jira Software - $23,472

To move to Cloud and lose much of our functionality as the apps don't exist

Cloud - $137,640
Confluence - $128,840
Jira Software - $8,800

Just to move to Data Center it would cost us over 2.5 times as much. There is no way that our organization will go ahead with that. They will tell me to start shopping around and planning a migration. Given that how does this fall in line with your value of "Don’t #@!% the customer"? Please, I love your products, but you are seriously missing the mark on not "#@!% the customer".

[Cameron Deatsch]

Davin, thank you for the detailed post. I sent you an email and would like to jump on a call to go through your products with my team to ensure we are presenting you with the best possible pricing for your options. You are absolutely correct that all future paths do lead to increased prices but we stand by those prices due to the value they deliver as well as the relative pricing of alternatives in the market. 

Also, we purposefully constructed this program to accommodate customers who may be affected by the global pandemic which we can discuss. 

[Tuelle]

What does Covid has to do with you increasing the prices by such an amount? Covid will hopefully be gone or mitigated in two to three years, your huge price increase will stay

[Tom Shaffer]

Also, we purposefully constructed this program to accommodate customers who may be affected by the global pandemic which we can discuss. 

Wait! What?! So you rose your prices, made licensing requirements out of reach for a lot of small/mid-size teams, and have set a date to remove current on-prem server options all in the name of taking advantage of the remote work era that COVID has forced many of us into? You may want to revisit that talking point, Cameron. It's probably coming out in the exact opposite way that your team thought it was going to sound.

[Andrew Pane]

@Cameron Deatsch and the Atlassian Team:

A lot of very experienced admins have now posted on this thread the reasons that we cannot move to Cloud: technical, legal, contractual, regulatory, integration, etc. A lot of us evaluated Cloud in the past and found it did not meet our unique business requirements. (My company migrated from Cloud just a few years ago after initially deploying there and finding we could not accomplish what we wanted to do in that environment.)

Your response so far has essentially been "Atlassian understands your business better than you understand your business!"

Frankly, this is insulting. We do understand Cloud, and we do understand the efforts Atlassian is undergoing to improve your offering there... and it is still not the right solution for us.

Give us some pricing tiers for DC that we can reasonably work with, or be honest and admit that "Cloud First" is a precursor to "Cloud Only", and that DC customers can similarly expect to have the rug pulled out from under them in a few years as well.

[Alex Janes]

Even Microsoft understands that on-premise software has its place. 75% of customers could probably use Office 365. But there are regulatory and policy requirements for their customers that can never be in the cloud. So, they still license Exchange server, SharePoint server, etc, all for on-premise use.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/exchange-news-and-announcements-microsoft-ignite-2020-edition/ba-p/1662224

Granted, the next version of Exchange server will be licensed on a subscription model, rather than perpetual. But it's still on-premise and 100% under the user's control.

The fact of the matter is, Atlassian, you cannot and will not convince all of your customers to go 100% cloud. If you think that, you are crazy! I've seen some investors compare you to Adobe. They state things like, the first year or two of subscription only, their stock value will slip. But it recovered and started doing better.

But the difference between you and Adobe is, Photoshop installs on my computer. The files I edit, are all stored on my computer, or my file server, not Adobe's cloud (Their cloud is an option, but we don't use it). With your change, there is NO OPTION for on-premise, other than to spend exorbitant amounts of money. At least with Adobe, it was subscription software I could install on my computer. And I could pay for only 1 user. You don't have that.

If you want to get rid of perpetual licenses, fine. I will always need to maintain my support for updates anyway.

But I simply cannot afford Data Center, and will not go to the cloud.

[Stephen Sifers]

Andrew and Alex,

We understand that this is a big decision and might have caught you by surprise. But we’re here to work with you and explain the rationale behind this decision. By sharpening our focus to our cloud and Data Center products, we can move faster and go further - something customers have long asked for.

As you know, we’ve never been shy with our customers about our cloud investments and future. It sounds like you’re well informed and have reviewed our cloud roadmap already to see our upcoming investments. We will continue to strengthen our cloud products so that they meet your security or compliance requirements by the end of support in February 2024. If you don’t see your requirement or need, please let us know. We’ll continue to evaluate our packaging and roadmap following this announcement to ensure that it meets the needs of our customers like yourself.

In addition to this cloud focus, we understand that not every customer will be ready to make the switch from our server products to our cloud products by 2024. And, some of you have requirements that might prevent you from ever operating in the cloud. We currently have no plans to discontinue Data Center. We will be investing in it for enterprise organizations and are expanding it to include Bamboo Data Center - see what’s on our Data Center roadmap for the future.

We’ve put deliberate focus into making sure that we have the right programs in place to ensure you are set up for success with this transition, including three years of support and maintenance for your server products and providing a variety of discounts to ease the financial impact of these changes - whether you choose cloud or Data Center.

Lastly, on your request for lower Data Center tiers, we’ve heard your feedback. At this time, the entry point for Data Center is the 500 user license, and we have no plans to add lower tiers. However, we will continue to capture input from our customers and partners in this area to make sure we have offerings that meet your needs. And to ease the transition to Data Center, we also offer existing server customers multi-year discounts on your subscription.

Respectfully,
Stephen Sifers

[Mike]

Hello, 

I'm a freelance Consultant and Trainer for Atlassian Products, in particular Jira and Confluence, in the DACH Region in Middle Europe.

I've some questions for the future and some suggestions (requirements for the cloud products). But first I want to express my disappointment.

_____________

You broke two Atlassion principles.

- Don't fuck the customer

- Open and transparent communicaiton.

It is obvious that this change is due to the idea of massively boosting your revenues in the short run. You are milking the cash cow. That is, of course, your right to do. It is a typical capitalistic move. But, and that is what you are underestimating, many people liked you and your products, because it seemed you would act on a different spirt, a new transforming spirit. And it also seems that you got caught by your own success.

OK but that's your mistake und you will have to deal with the long term consequences of losing some of your spirit, trust, fun and creativity. 

____________________

Here some concrete questions for my future as a Freelancer, Trainer and Consultant of Jira & Confluence.

Of course, I train and consult self hosted as well as cloud products. And I want to stay with that. But I need a self hosted instance of my own. First of all to train for myself and test different apps. Secondly some of the customers want to train an a training instance, not on their own instance.

So of course it is not affordable for me to own a Data Center License. Is there a possibility of developper licenses or training licenses for Data Center and its APPS? For non productive training instances without owning a productive instance?

________________________

Then some thoughts and requirements for small to mid sized businesses of the Middle Europe DACH Region with higher security requirements:

- They need a protected network. At the moment you can only access their jira/confluence domains via citrix server. So the requirement would be that a companies cloud site can be restricted to a predefined server network, eg. citrix servers.

- Garantee that all the data is stored within the European Union.

- Trust, that companies can really save their highly sensitive data on the cloud. At the moment, most companies do not have this trust in the DACH Region. This is a general cultural, not an Atlassian issue. And I'm not sure how you want to change that...

- Fun for the new Jira/Confluence Admin (See next section).

______________________

Finally I want to mention, that one of the big success factors was, that Admins could easily play around test and try it out, including all the apps of the marketplace. This is not so easy anymore, since most apps have not 10$ per year starter fees (server), but 60$ per year (cloud), and test periods of only one month. This is extinguishing the fun for the new Jira/Confluence Admin. And I have seen on many occasions, that this initial creative fun translated into passion und decisions towards your product for the whole company. It translated into big sales.

So please make it possible for the new jira/confluence admin on the cloud, to be as creative and have as much fun at a very low cost, like on the server product. You will be rewarded a hundred times.

Killing off this initial key success factor seems to be a sign, that you losing the ground under your feet.

Pls be aware, the key to your success was not because you acted like the big companies of the world, it was because you acted differently.

Do Not Lose Your Initial Spirit.

Kind Regards,

Michael

[Seweryn Szatkowski]

...

[Fabienne Gerhard]

I would really like to know how data security according Europe GDPR will be handled - after first shock I‘m really seeing it as a chance (I can see advantages in cloud and I‘m sure time over the next 4 years will give is even more) 

But right now - at this moment - no chance moving to cloud without getting killed by our data security chief.... 

[Cameron Deatsch]

Mike, thanks for the long and detailed write-up. The request for non-production Data Center deployments to "play" around with is definitely something I'll bring back to the teams. 

Additionally, thanks for the detail on the requirements for cloud customers in Germany. I believe we can address many of these requirements with our data residency and other security-related roadmap improvements.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Fabienne,

Everything we do for GDPR is documented here: 

https://www.atlassian.com/trust/privacy/gdpr

We realize the recent invalidation of Privacy Shield causes some issues in this area but we are actively working on addressing our customer feedback in the area. 

I'd ask you to not write off Cloud. Go try it out. Setup some projects, use the mobile-apps. 

[Mike]

@Cameron Deatsch

Thx for adressing the issue of non production datacenter licenses in your team.

I have another request for the cloud product.

Most companies have a staging environment. Most of the time 2 installations, sometimes three. Production, Test, Dev... It was possible, because only the Production license had to be paid with Server Products.

How can this be achievend on cloud? At the moment you would have to pay 2x the price for having a test/dev environment in addition to production...

For professional use it is very important to test your new customization, scriptrunner scripts, etc.

Thx.

Mike

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hey @Mike

I do believe Cloud premium comes or will come (gotta check the roadmap) with a Sandbox environment attached to it as our test/staging environment

https://www.atlassian.com/software/premium 

[Earl McCutcheon]

Hey @Mike ,

In addition to the upcoming Sandbox environments mentioned by @Dirk Ronsmans , make sure to visit our Platform Roadmap to see what’s coming next in the cloud. and as noted in the roadmap the Sandbox feature is currently shipped on a scheduled roll out for a q4 2020, with additional details on the functionality in the following documentation page and if you do not see it in your instance already it will be rolling out really soon to all cloud sites:

• https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/manage-sandboxes-1019402392.html

Also, we have a few additional options available that can help out.

Check out the KB article:

• Atlassian Cloud: Staging and testing environment 

Specifically noting the options:

• We offer App developers a free cloud development environment for Jira and Confluence Cloud app testing.
• Existing self-hosted (server or Data Center) customers can also take advantage of an extended cloud trial to move to cloud at no additional cost.

So if you are making new apps and want to test them out you can get free access to a dev environment any time, or if you wanted to test a migration to cloud and set up user acceptance testing in tandem with a current server license you can sign up for a free (up to) 12 months extended trial license for cloud at a matching license level to your current server license, noting:

Cloud migration trials are extended to match the remaining duration of your current Server or Data Center license (up to 12 months), and allow you to explore, assess, and test cloud over time—without disrupting your team. There is no credit card required.

Your cloud migration trial also matches the user tier (up to 10,000) associated with your Server/Data Center license, and is intended to help your organization evaluate our cloud products over a longer period of time than our standard 7-day trials (and without the functionality limitations of a 10-user Free plan).

Additionally, cloud migration trials let you to choose between Standard and Premium plans, absolutely free. If you have more than 10,000 users and are interested in evaluating our cloud products,please contact us to get started.

Regards,
Earl

[Alex Janes]

This is extinguishing the fun for the new Jira/Confluence Admin. And I have seen on many occasions, that this initial creative fun translated into passion und decisions towards your product for the whole company. It translated into big sales.

This 100%. I wasn't able to get any buy in from employees or management for a year. In that year, I continued to tweak and customize to overcome every objection that was made. And they love it.

You are going to lose a lot of new customers because there simply isn't a cheap on-premise option. And I'm willing to bet that alot of your highest paying customers started on a $10 server license to get their feet wet.

Now how will they do it? If they want to do advanced customizations with other systems on-premise, they can't without spending tons of money.

Oh, and don't tell me cloud, because as this thread has PROVEN, cloud is not for everyone, and isn't for me or my org.

[Alex Janes]

@Cameron Deatsch Respectfully, it's been two days since anyone has been responding to customer concerns on this forum. That bothers me a lot, considering how DEEPLY impactful this decision affects your customer base.

I can only hope that this silence is because you and your team has decided that it's time to back track, and are coming up with a new plan. But frankly, the silence leaves a lot to be desired, and speaks volumes about how much Atlassian (or rather, how much they seem to not) cares about the concerns being brought up here.

I don't mean to be disrespectful. But frankly, we as a community have been disrespected and appalled by this decision. You can continue to explain how "the cloud is the future" all you want. But your customer base has made it VERY CLEAR that you and your team are NOT ready to convince us all of that. And there just are use cases for on-premise that will NEVER be in the cloud.

I think I speak for everyone here when I say, you only have a few options...

1. Bring back server

2. Lower the cost of entry for datacenter

3. Face the PR nightmare of all of your customers revolting

That's not a threat. That's just what everyone here is saying. I'm just reiterating it.

Take us seriously.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Alex, sorry for my delayed response as I had many customer meetings yesterday and was unable to get to the outstanding questions on this thread. I hope to respond to everyone's questions by the end of the week. 

We take all the feedback from the community seriously and are rapidly capturing all of it and discussing it. I will tell you, we are not going to reverse this decision to cease the sales of new Server licenses in February. I know this is not what many on this thread want to hear.

However, there are many things we can do to address the feedback all have you provided on this thread. 

And I hate to be a broken record here, but the best thing you can do is continue to provide clear feedback on where our cloud offerings don't meet your needs. You mention use cases that will never be in the cloud. I'd love to hear them.

[Alex Janes]

For me, we work with providers that require us to keep the data on-premise. There is nothing in our contracts that allows for me to host the data outside of my control. You can talk about Atlassian Trust all you want. That doesn't convince my providers its ok.

@Cameron Deatsch what annoys me right now though, is I know you have been reading this thread. So, I really feel like I shouldn't have to re-iterate ALL of the MANY use cases that people have already given you for why they can't be in the cloud.

This list of links below is just SOME of the use cases people have explained JUST IN THIS THREAD!!! I could list more, and even go into other threads and give you more, but how are all of these not good examples of why the cloud doesn't work for us?

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-he/qaq-p/1509086/comment-id/431#M431

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-he/qaq-p/1509122/comment-id/435#M435

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-hear-f/qaq-p/1509246/comment-id/439#M439

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-hear-f/qaq-p/1509120/comment-id/434#M434

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-he/qaq-p/1512734/comment-id/586#M586

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-hear-f/qaq-p/1510021/comment-id/477#M477

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-hear-f/qaq-p/1509719/comment-id/466#M466

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-he/qaq-p/1510594/comment-id/521#M521

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Atlassian-Cloud-Migration/Re-Re-To-all-Atlassian-server-champions-we-want-to-he/qaq-p/1510964/comment-id/541#M541

[ASTEN RATHBUN]

Cameron, I'm sorry, but there's OODLES of cases mentioned as to why cloud won't work.  This is either wishing they go away, or simply ignoring them.  



Your company's approach appears to be that you know better than your customers (very Apple-like, that) and that you can code your way out of it.  Some, yes, sure.  Others, there is NO technical solution that makes cloud work on a network without internet access.   There never will be.   There's also NO scenario where we pay $42k * 5-10 networks.  

I'd rather you just come out and say that you don't want those customers as customers any more, and move on.    Put the new motto right up front and center: "#%$! the Customer"

The initial thinking here was move to data center for our bigger networks where that might be possible, but I've shared this thread with some of those decision makers.  That changed their mind quickly.   

[Ralph Olsson]

Re "I hate to be a broken record here, but the best thing you can do is continue to provide clear feedback on where our cloud offerings don't meet your needs."

I hope this is clear: where your cloud offerings don't meet my needs is that they're in the cloud, not in my local network.

It really is that simple. My CI/CD tool needs to be on my local network where it has direct, fast and uninterrupted access to my data, my IP and my app hosts.

[Alex Janes]

I will tell you, we are not going to reverse this decision to cease the sales of new Server licenses in February. I know this is not what many on this thread want to hear.

Then give us data center! It's the same bits with some HA and redundancy added on. Why do you need to restrict the on-prem software to such high prices?

And I hate to be a broken record here, but the best thing you can do is continue to provide clear feedback on where our cloud offerings don't meet your needs. You mention use cases that will never be in the cloud. I'd love to hear them.

@Cameron Deatsch This comment also speaks volumes about Atlassian's plans here. It shows that you did not do enough research or consideration about why 75% of your customers are on-premise and not shifting to the cloud. You can't just tell customers "No more on-prem" before AT LEAST understanding why all of us are upset...

Why are we having to defend on-premise when 75% of your customers are on-premise? Don't you think this is feedback you should've gathered BEFORE this decision was made? Is data center going to be a lower price soon?

You see, you've made an announcement that affects all of these people, without a plan on how to actually help a large chunk of them. Now everyone is upset, and asking what your plan for them is, and you're simply responding "Why isn't our cloud good enough? We're trustworthy" For all of the reasons outlined in this thread!

We bring up data security concerns, and you bring up Atlassian Trust. But here's the thing, you broke ALL of our trust with this announcement. So how can we actually trust you? The answer is, we can't. Trust doesn't come freely. Trust is earned, and you lost it. A webpage explaining why we should trust you isn't 'earning our trust'. That's CYA for compliance purposes.

The only way you will restore a lot of our trust is if you announce that server customers can move to data center without huge investments or recurring costs. That would be a good example of not f%&$ing the customer, and actually saving them.

[ITMAGE]

To add to this -

Creating a lower tier DC option would only help our clients if it's affordable which means it needs to be on-par with the SERVER offerings. To be clear here is what we would like to see:

• Perpetual license (not an annual license)
• 25 user license not to exceed $5000 USD

Of course there are some which can afford perpetual licenses but most of our clients are small businesses who cannot. If the above does not happen then we need to look elsewhere for growth.

I am trying to understand what the issue is here as to why Atlassian seems resistant to do so. Does Atlassian believe we will capitulate and move to the cloud or fork over the money for DC? The issue is that many of us just cannot, it's a simple as that and so why not provide the above for us? What's the big deal here!??

[Dalectric]

@Cameron Deatsch this change has clearly not been thought through properly in how it will affect many of your loyal customers and has given many of us little time to work with. I don't have the budget in this financial year to upgrade to Data Centre, and if I don't upgrade before February then we get heavily penalised with an increased cost and frankly the cost of upgrading is outrageous, even before February.

You needed to give us more warning on this of at least a year.

[Alex Janes]

I hope to respond to everyone's questions by the end of the week. 

@Cameron Deatsch I hate to be that guy, but it's well past the end of last week. There are still a lot of unanswered questions on this forum. You said this quote, and then once again went quiet. Not one additional question answered.

This is not a small change. This is MASSIVELY IMPACTFUL to your small and medium customer base.

It's time to start directly answering our questions, because I think the community deserves answers. We've explained the use cases that don't work for us, and all you've done is deflect.

What are you doing for the smaller customers that can not afford Data Center, and can not and WILL NOT move to the cloud?

You mention use cases that will never be in the cloud. I'd love to hear them.

We did that. I consolidated them into a neat list for you. Now its your turn to give us better answers.

EDIT: I'm trying really hard to not come off as rude or angry. But it's really hard to do that when it feels like we are communicating with a brick wall. Canned talking points, and no actual substance as to what Atlassian is going to do about this.

I said it in another thread, and I will say it again here. For a company that makes project planning software, this feels like you are throwing together all of the important details at the last minute. Almost to gauge the reaction and see if you can get away with a massive price increase.

Again, I'm trying hard not to talk like this. You didn't directly make this decision Cameron, and are just dealing with the fallout. But when we don't get answers, we are left to come up with answers on our own. It's hard to not feel like you/Atlassian are not doing anything to help us.

[Scion]

@Alex Janes 

You aren't alone here.

We're all still watching this thread, waiting, hoping, for some sort of update or at least acknowledgment that something will be done to even attempt to address our concerns.

Unfortunately, that has not happened yet.

[Alex Janes]

Also tagging...

@Stephen Sifers

@Bryan Mayo 

@Maggie 

@Earl McCutcheon 

You all made a handful of posts on this topic (in various threads), and then went silent.

Yes, Earl, you answered my question, that non-profits are getting a better deal "soon™". Great. I hope those details actually come out soon, with enough time for me to start planning things.

But, that still doesn't answer to the many other use cases documented here. I may not be at a non-profit the rest of my life. I may decide to work for a corporation looking into a solution like this. I will know to steer them away from Atlassian if this is how they plan massive changes like this. I think everyone here agrees that they will steer small/medium customers away now that we know this is how you treat them.

Our use cases are not invalid. This new pricing is absurd for smaller customers.

The community is not getting the answers it deserves. We deserve more than "Well give us your feedback." We've done that. But beyond that, No! You should've collected this feedback before this MASSIVELY IMPACTFUL decision was made. Not after.

We need you to start picking up the pieces of this mess and get us all some real answers from the people who can make decisions. "Why not the cloud?" isn't good enough. You have enough feedback here from plenty of customers to tell you that you need to make some changes to your plan. Go get those decisions made, and deliver us some real answers on what your plan is to address this issue.

You don't have to come back to us with, "Alright, here's the new, LOWER, pricing on data center." or "Alright, here's server back." What we need you to do is give us a concrete plan on what you are going to work on to fix this.

We, as smaller customers, feel like our voices don't matter right now. We need you to fix that.

[Scion]

I wrote a (self-hosted) Confluence blog post about how this change affects us and other adult content creators.
The site and the ones connected to it are SFW, but do talk professionally about adult content:
https://studiowhy.net/wiki/display/BLOG/2020/10/26/The+Tyranny+of+the+ToS

There is no future for creators like us if companies continue to move to the cloud and, like Atlassian, don't even want us to be a part of their cloud.

[Ralph Olsson]

Like @Scion I'm waiting and hoping, but I'm not hopeful. I've rather assumed from the tone of the responses we've had so far that if I'm unable to move to Cloud and too small (100 users) to move to Data Center, then Atlassian no longer wants my company as a customer.

[Alex Janes]

@Cameron Deatsch 

@Stephen Sifers 

@Bryan Mayo 

@Earl McCutcheon 

Hey guys! You are still ignoring LOTS of questions here. Your team started this thread. You can't just leave us like this...

Are you just abandoning us all?

Very respectful to your customers. Top notch. /sarcasm

At this point, I don't feel sorry for being rude. You are being incredibly disrespectful to us by leaving us all hanging like this. Especially while we all still have VERY SERIOUS CONCERNS about the moves you have made, and continue to explain that you have lost all of our trust.

Have you not noticed that most, if not all of the customers here have not been happy with your answers, and are still asking questions? And you still expect us to trust you and move our stuff to the cloud? HOW?! Like, how are you still sitting there saying, "This is fine."

Very much continuing to "F%&$ the customer" here...

EDIT...

However, there are many things we can do to address the feedback all have you provided on this thread. 

Ok, then do that!

[Dalectric]

I believe they've tried to summarise their response to feedback so far on this post

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Feedback-Forum-discussions/An-update-on-your-top-questions-and-concerns-about-our-recent/td-p/1527058

[David Willson]

Remember server isn't actually going away, its the same bits as data center, if you buy a datacenter license your server instance still continues to work, so things are status quo if your organization can afford data center.  Cloud is the future! No doubt about that, and everyone that can go there should!!! For the middle ground few of us that can't go cloud, even thought we want to, and can't afford datacenter we are stuck in a serious way. Atlassian products are THE FREAKING BEST please please please continue to make them affordable so we arn't pushed to another inferior crappy vendor. After all,  one of the main Atlassian values is "Don’t #@!% the customer".

[Taylor Huston]

It's not going away, it's just becoming completely unaffordable for most small to medium businesses.

[Cameron Deatsch]

David, thanks for your feedback and the last thing we want is for you to go to another vendor. We did not make these decisions lightly and you have a variety of options moving ahead.

First, I'd love to understand the specific reasons your organization can not adopt Atlassian's Cloud. We have a ton of development going into ensuring we eliminate the various scale, extensibility, compliance, and data privacy issues customers have when it comes to cloud. We also recently published our roadmaps across these areas which I suggest you explore here: https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/cloud

Also, we are offering all our Server customers cloud trial licenses for free that are co-termed with your Server license so you can explore cloud for your company at no expense: https://www.atlassian.com/migration/cloud

Second, you can absolutely move to Data Center and effectively preserve your current Server environment while unlocking a ton of new Data Center features. If this is the path that is best for your company I suggest you look to move prior to February to lock in the best price for your company. 

Third, you can renew Server for 3 more years which gives us ample time to work with you to make either of the options above a viable path for your company.

Lastly, you can go to another vendor as you mentioned and if your company is serious about this choice, please let me know as I'd like to jump on a call and understand your direction. 

[Thomas Dörfler]

"Cloud is the future! No doubt about that, and everyone that can go there should!!! "

What a statement. Yes, cloud removes customers from the need to set up a server. But what other benefits are really there when it comes to serious business?

From my (maybe rather conservative) point of view: Our company is loosing control and is forced to trust, that somebody else will properly backup data, upgrade software, ensure data security, continue service for our vital project information. BTW: We have to maintain access to our project information 10+ years.

And this "someone" obviously has no real idea about what it means for an European company to move its vital data to a cloud "hosted somewhere in the world".

So, once again:

why is cloud the future?

[Cameron Deatsch]

Thomas, you're absolutely correct that moving to Atlassian's cloud requires your organization to trust Atlassian with your data. We have a dedicated site to help with exactly this:

https://www.atlassian.com/trust

Additionally, Atlassian's cloud product unlock many new benefits purely beyond "hosting" your current deployment. You can learn more about those here although it's best to just go try it and see for yourself.

https://www.atlassian.com/migration/cloud/explore

Lastly, we are well aware of the requirements for running cloud products in Europe. While we still have more to do to provide full data residency for all of our cloud products we do have data centers in both Germany and Ireland and roadmaps to improve our capabilities in this area. You can track our roadmap progress here:

https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/cloud 

[Thomas Dörfler]

@Cam

"Thomas, you're absolutely correct that moving to Atlassian's cloud requires your organization to trust Atlassian with your data."

Sorry, that's not sufficient. It's not only us who have to trust (and can audit) Atlassian, it's also our customers. And not only now, but also in the future.

So: moving from a self-hosted server under our control to a Atlassian cloud service (based on Amazon cloud servers) makes things really more complicated to us regarding compliance rules. And I am sure the cloud services are fancy and much more functionality than we have now, but remember: Only part of it would really be a benefit for us.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Thanks Thomas. 

What auditing capabilities would you need to enable for your customers?

Are there specific compliance requirements/standards we need to address for your industry or the industries you serve?

[Thomas Dörfler]

"What auditing capabilities would you need to enable for your customers?"

Cameron,

we are developing embedded hardware and software for various industries and still broadening our customer basis. In the past 15 years, we were very successful due to our flexibility regarding customer requirements, technically and organizationally.

Currently we must provide prove, that the project data is only accessible for authorized personal, which is rather standard. No hacking, no hidden and/or lawful access from states other than Germany. And it's rather easy for a internally hosted jira server.

How about that in cloud? Can you, can the app providers ensure and prove, that neither Australian nor US, (nor GB, nor other) states may enforce access to our data?

On the other hand: we all are on the move. New customers will come up with more specific requirements. On a self hosted server, it's in our hand if and how we answer these requirements. And it's our decision whether it's worth the effort or not. On a cloud based service, we simply can't control this.

So: when Atlassian will urge us to move to the cloud, we are on uncertain grounds. And that's not the basis we want to rely on.

We have evaluated various project management systems three years ago and have chosen Jira due to its functionality. We have done that with the outlook to have a project management system for at least the next 10-15 years. It's hard for us to restart that process again, but better now than in three or five years.

What I would like to see is that Atlassian would learn from the current customer feedback. That you would reenter a phase of evaluating how many customers would be happy with the cloud. And if there is enough of a customer base who need their private servers, that Atlassian would decide to let the server version live on.

[Taylor Huston]

@Cameron Deatsch Cloud is the future. SaaS is not (for all things). And I think Atlassian is trying to conflate the two to trick it's customers.

Cloud, as in something like AWS where I don't have to set up a bunch of physical servers in my basement, is absolutely the future. The ability to scale up and down, set up things in multiple geographical regions, etc etc etc, that is the future. But it's still systems and things that I control. It's still on VMs that I configure, in a region I choose, behind firewalls that I manage, backed up on a schedule and to a location that I decide. Running applications that I decide when to update.

That is entirely different from what Atlassian is referring to as Cloud, which is using Jira as a SaaS product, where I have no control. No control over where the data is stored. How it's stored. How it's protected. When it's updated. Etc.

These are two entirely different things.

[Tom Shaffer]

Cloud is the future. SaaS is not (for all things). And I think Atlassian is trying to conflate the two to trick it's customers.

I think they are just using the term "cloud" here because it's a better known buzzword rather than trying to trick their customers. Kind of like how I use the term "computer virus" when talking to fellow employees or clients even if the malware is something else such as a trojan or worm. It just makes the conversation flow easier.

Don't get me wrong, you're completely right and I didn't really think about the differentiation between the two and it is important to make sure the correct terms are being used. SaaS isn't as "pretty" of a word as cloud and does lead to the thought of a subscription service and no one likes to hear that. You know what? I really hope you aren't right because if you are... wow, talk about a 180* switch from their own company values!

That said, I think Atlassian underestimated their customer base's expertise with this where we aren't falling for these general terms and we know much better about this whole thing than they thought. This isn't the first time I've had to deal with having a subscription service strong-armed over the previous offering but unfortunately for Atlassian, we don't use their products in a way that compliments having our data protected only by them in their cloud.

[Alexander Lehmann]

Hi @Cameron Deatsch 

in the past 10 years I have worked for many small and medium companies in Europe (especially Germany) as administrator and consultant introducing Atlassian products into their ecosystem.

In light of the policy change I want to share my experience to give an insight why server products (or at least Data Center tiers below 500 users) are so important:

Let's say the company has 500 employees. The usually use case is the following: a small team (for example in development) starts evaluating Jira using a $10-licence. They like what you can do with the tool. The company is buying a 50-user-licence so the whole team can use Jira. After a while other teams learn from the experience of the first team or evaluate Jira for themself. Sometimes the company upgrades to a higher tier (i.e. 200), sometimes there are even two or more parallel licences in place because Team B didn't know that Team A already uses Jira. (Yes, this happens very often!)

The user tier in the company is rising over several month sometimes years. Suddenly the marketing team wants to use Confluence, but only for 50 users. But now the development team needs access to Confluence. A higher tier of Confluence is necessary. Step-by-step the Atlassian tools are getting more and more important. Isolated solutions in different teams get consolidated to one solutions (i.e. as a 500-user-tier).

Finally the switch to Data Center may take place.

But it took the company several years of using Atlassian Server products in lower tiers before finally making this step. Often the company needs this time to build trust in your products and see what they are capable to achieve with them. Only after all this time the company is willing to invest in a Data Center solution.

I've seen and supported this exact process many times. But with the new model this process will never happen. The company will use other inferior tools.

Cloud products will never be considerated by those companies, because of company policies and/or the strict EU GDPR or the even stricter German DSGVO. Fact is, the most companies I know want full control over their data on their own infrastructure.

In my opinion the solution is simple: please consider offering lower user tiers for your Data Center products (i.e. 50, 100 & 200 for Jira and Confluence). That way Atlassian still supports the described process for small and medium companies. Otherwise you will not only loose the customers who would start using server products in the next years. You will also loose the customers who just started using your products at a low entry tier and are willing to switch to Data Center in the next 5 to 10 years.

[Kensuke Karukomi （軽込 健介）]

Totally I agreed. 

I'm an ATSP and also a server administrator. 
In Japan, many companies (even in enterprise) will take similar 'bottom-up' approach to introduce and expand software products. Due to some reasons (laws, industry regulations, comany regulations, available apps, customizations), Cloud is not a solution for us and some (not a few) customers.  

New licensing model definitely will kill that approach. 
I would much appreciate if Atlassian will offer an alternative way.
ie) Adding lower user-tiers for DC upto 500 users - like 50, 100, 250.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Alexander, 

You're absolutely correct. The incremental expansion from a Starter license to a Data Center deployment is something we have spent a lot of time building over the last decade. This is actually a key reason we launched 10 users for free on our cloud products to lower the barrier even more to getting started with Atlassian's products.

Additionally, with cloud we offer even more flexible per-user pricing that is dynamic with customer's usage so when the market teams want to join, they just can, you don't have to wait to purchase an upgrade. Because of these reasons we actually see user expansion in cloud outpace server across all customer types.

Lastly, on your quote, "Cloud products will never be considered by those companies, because of company policies and/or the strict EU GDPR or the even stricter German DSGVO." You are correct that Atlassian can do more to address these customers' requirements and we are working to do so. However, while your experience in the companies you work with may be counter to this, we actually see the adoption of our Cloud product growing as fast in Germany, or faster than many other markets we currently serve. 

But know that your request for lower Data Center tiers has been heard and we will continue to take feedback from customers and partners in this area. 

[Steve Kipping]

Alexander makes a fantastic point, and something Atlassian seems to have clearly misunerstood when making this decision. Stop pushing cloud as an option for this, it's a non-starter for many companies who need control of their data and the server. You MUST implement lower user license tiers for Data Centre if you are to persist with this path.

I've still yet to see a good reason given for why the Server versions are being discontinued, especially if you are continuing to offer the Data Centre version which is pretty much identical. All I can determine so far is that it's purely financial. I understand you're a company that ultimately exists to make money, but I believe you've severaly misunderstood how Server can be used to start engagement with Atlassian products in a company.

[Martin Poirier]

The cloud version of Atlassian software has severe limitation, if you ever used Structure or Scriptrunner on the server side you will see what I talk about.

On our structure we easily have 30000 issues, and there's lot of feature like SJQL that are not on cloud, also on scriptrunner side most of the most useful issuefunction are not there.

Lastly we have  lot of CUSTOM plugin internally done that would never be compatible on cloud.   We have a dockered environment with 6 nodes which work well but the cloud version of atlassian is VERY far to be able to customize the way we can do it right now on the server/data center.

The price increase and the 'include' product are not really that useful, the Jira portfolio if we don't want it, we cannot anymore.  They include their 'support' but we honestly never used it in 10 years since usually problem come from plugins.

The big part is the jira server desk, we do not need the data center, we have 10000 users on server and its working fine, we pay like 40k? not 350k, this increase justify changing software most likely or stopping using jira server desk for us, we will have to find another solution within jira most likely and do our own custom plugin that would be way to chapter then 300k + increase.

Martin Poirier

Ubisoft

[Cameron Deatsch]

Thanks Martin. I'll have one of our Enterprise Advocates reach out to you. For an environment of that size and complexity Data Center should be the answer at least for the interim. In fact, I know Ubisoft already has multiple Data Center deployments so maybe there are other ways to address this challenge. 

[David Willson]

An open letter to the founders - https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-articles/An-Open-Letter-Atlassian-s-Forgotten-Middle-re-The/ba-p/1510036#M3448 - please make data center licensing more affordable.

[Kyb IT]

As a part of a large non-profit organization, we need to look closer into Data Center options, but for now am taking a deep breath to avoid switching to more colorful language as response to the recent announcement to discontinue the server line.

And please spare use with the "journey" and "partnership" euphemisms while you are effectively pulling the carpet from underneath all of us that cannot use any cloud service.

What I would like to hear are realistic non-cloud offerings, as otherwise we will start looking for a different product effectively Monday. 

What this move already did is massively undermine the trust in Atlassian as a strategic partner and this will have a multiplicative effect in our organization unless some mediating measure for non-cloud options is announced very soon.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Hi Kyb, let me know if you want to speak directly over Zoom as I have no problem hearing the more colorful language directly and I promise to avoid the euphemisms.

I'd also like to understand why your non-profit organization can not adopt Atlassian's cloud. We offer very friendly terms for non-profit companies: https://www.atlassian.com/software/views/community-license-request

However, if Data Center is the best path for you, I'd like to make sure you have all the information you need to make this decision. The last thing we want is to lose you as a customer. 

[Kyb IT]

Thank you for the reply.

zoom might actually be a good idea, as there are many other units of our organization in the same situation and I'd be happy to share with them whatever good news there are. Especially since the information prepared for this announcement seems not to cover Community license holders.

As to why we cannot go into the cloud (not to mention the GDPR headaches that such a move would create):

We used Jira and Confluence (and some more) as the main tool for all our internal communication, documentation, discussion and project management. For these things, we cannot accept the risk of a user or Atlassian being compromised and our information being exposed.

Hence we run Atlassian products only on our internal network - they are not exposed to the internet (and never will be). And this policy will stay in place for the foreseeable future. We'd rather switch products entirely than migrate into the cloud.

In addition, we run shell scripts on the server itself to automate certain aspects in combination with other intranet-only "on premise" services which I cannot see happening "in the cloud".

And last but not least there is user management - we maintain our internal user directories for all employees and also use that to manage use/access to our Atlassian installations. The amount of effort needed to securely(!) connect our directories to an Atlassian-owned cloud is a showstopper on its own.

In the past, Atlassian has been very generous with Community licenses for which we are very grateful! But the only remaining non-cloud option for the future seems to be the very expensive Data Center license, which turns the generosity upside down. Please correct me if I missed some other non-cloud alternative.

Assuming that the decision to stop selling/supporting Server licenses is irreversible, the only option I see for us to continue using Atlassian products are massively discounted Data Center licenses for former Community license holders..

[Cameron Deatsch]

Thanks Kyb. I'll reach out to you via email so we can get some time to connect.

Atlassian does offer 75% off cloud licenses as part of our community licensing program but we understand this may be an issue for regulated environments.

[Kyle Hardin]

@Cameron Deatsch 

We're a non-profit in a similar situation - and I expect many non-profits are as well due to the nature of their work in serving remote and underprivileged communities. 

We live in remote Alaska and have a WAN connection of about 4mbps with a low bandwidth cap. Cloud is 100 percent not an option for us given our current WAN options and intermittent connectivity.  The discontinuation of Atlassian's on-prem nonprofit licensing program will be crippling for our on-prem environment and the services we provide to the community.  

[Cameron Deatsch]

Thanks Kyle. 

First, how are you using our products in those communities? This is a really interesting use case?

Second, we're working on how to address the feedback we are getting from community license customers. Expect more here. 

Lastly, if you need additional licenses you can definitely apply for them now and remember they will work for perpetuity in your environments.

[Kyle Hardin]

On-prem is not an interesting use case.  We use Jira and Confluence how I imagine many do, for internal process documentation, forms and form-based workflows, organizing and collaborating on tasks within teams.  We have community development programs tracking and accepting grant applications internally, as well as caseworkers who track their work activities relating to external clients.  

We've spent the past two years moving all of our resources into Atlassian's on-prem tools, and it saddens me to realize that we'll likely need to find another solution after a lot of effort to get everyone on board with Atlassian.  

[Haddon Fisher]

Adding my voice to the multitudes. This decision infuriates me because...

1) I don't like being lied to. Atlassian says the rationale is to "focus on Cloud" but the Server and Data Center codebases are the same and they say they're not getting rid of Data Center. This makes negative sense: if you are keeping Data Center then, unless I'm missing something big, you are not gaining any efficiencies by dropping server.

2) I don't like transparent money grabs. If the answer is not focusing on Cloud, what could it be? Well after doing the cost comparison, it seems pretty obvious: Data Center and Cloud are more expensive and involve higher recurring costs!

My costs for DC are not dramatically higher; Data Center would actually allow us to step down a user tier (Server doesn't have a 1k option), so while the yearly full-cost renewal is a kick in the downstairs and we get absolutely no needed benefit from Data Center it's at least something I think I can get management to agree to. For fun, I did also cost out Cloud, and just the platform alone costs about double what we pay (including add-ons) for Server. Even if it was an option from a technical perspective, I'd get laughed out of the room presenting it at this price.

3) I don't like being ignored. I have had the luck to speak with a great many Atlassian people over my 10+ years of administering their products, and every single time Cloud comes up, I hear "Oh Cloud is great, why haven't you switched yet?". And every....single...time...I give them the exact same answer "well that new UI you got is atrocious, you can't keep making unannounced and uncontrolled changes to the platform, its slower than my self-hosted Server, and about 60% of my add-on functionality (the 60% I really can't do without) doesn't work on Cloud yet. The pricing is also outrageous. Oh, and did I mention that the UI is garbage?".

It's been like 8 years of this feedback and I think half of one of those things has been addressed. Super glad you spent all that time on the UI though, I'm sure lots of people really like it.

4) I don't like being treated like I'm stupid. Atlassian has treated me like a valued customer for the years I've been one, and so I really wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I was boiling with rage about this decision, but one of your company values is literally "Don't !@&^$ the customer" so I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I reached out directly, explained why I felt this was a bad decision, and listed some specific functionality I would need to even begin considering Cloud. Your response was a slightly better-worded version of "well add-on functionality has nothing to do with us, so we really wouldn't know when they plan on fixing their product...but you should totally switch, it's a much better option for you!" You expect me to believe that it's a developer's choice to have one vastly inferior add-on for Cloud, not to mention the sheer joy of maintaining a second codebase, documentation, and support? And nothing to do with the fact that Cloud simply does not give them the option to do whatever it is they're trying to do? And you've had however many years to address it, haven't, and it's their problem?

At the end of the day, you gotta do you. If you dislike those jabronis on the Server team and want to fire them, are getting pressure from your new corporate overlords to "do the SaasS thing because my money mattress isn't full enough" or just care more about the population on Cloud, so be it. That's your call. My call is whether I am going to continue to be an Atlassian advocate and customer.

[Alex Janes]

I don't like being treated like I'm stupid. 

Atlassian, we're not stupid. We're system administrators. We know how your software works. We know that data center is just server with HA bits added on.

So don't act like this is some efficiency move. Because it isn't.

[Brandon Barlow]

Can you, with a straight face, please tell me how I (a US Department of Defense contractor) can justify the price hike from 50 or 100 user on-prem stacks (JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket) to 500 user Data Center licenses on FOUR different secure / CLASSIFIED networks ? My napkin math says my organization’s Atlassian bill goes from $30K / year to $500K / year. There is no way we aren’t already looking at competitors. 

[Mehran Moss]

I agree and similarly for our small company, going from 25 tier Server users to 500 tier users rather than 50 users! It would be next to impossible. Atlassian needs to come up with a better solution for Server users.

[Stephen Sifers]

Hello Brandon,

Atlassian is committed to helping government teams get things done faster, easier, and with greater security. We are also currently putting our cloud products through the FedRAMP compliance process, though we recognize that you may have additional requirements that prevent you from moving to cloud.

On your request for lower Data Center tiers, we’ve heard your feedback. At this time, the entry point for Data Center is the 500 user license, and we have no plans to add lower tiers. However, we will continue to capture input from our customers and partners in this area to make sure we have offerings that meet your needs. And to ease the transition to Data Center, we also offer existing server customers multi-year discounts on your subscription. Special pricing and purchasing options are also available to the United States Federal, State, and Local government entities through Atlassian's Government Aggregator, Carahsoft.

We get that this is really challenging news for you to hear right now, but we’re here to help you. Reach out to your local Atlassian or partner rep and enlist their help in planning a path forward. And, if you don’t know who that is; govsales@atlassian.com can connect you.

Respectfully,
Stephen Sifers

[ITMAGE]

@Stephen Sifers  How about my suggestion to extend the deadline date for the purchase of new server licenses to 31 December 2021 rather than Feb 2021? In this way we will still be able to purchase additional client licenses and have some added flexibility in terms of time to work on a budget for next steps?

Surely this is quite a reasonable request and a show of good faith for all of us 'server champions', would you not agree?

If the answer is no, then please help me understand the challenges faced by Atlassian in honouring this request?

Thanks.

[Dalectric]

If Atlassian are truly listening to us then at the very least they need to push back the changes and price increases to the end of 2021 so all companies have time to plan and budget for moving to cloud/Data Centre. At the moment the Feb 2021 deadline is unreasonable and impractical for many of us.

[Lara Ramsay]

Data residency is a huge issue. The cloud roadmap says you maybe might have a local location but won't have an answer until 2022. I think you need to answer that now so we can make decisions and plan.

I'm speaking for myself, not my organization (I'm replying from my personal, not corporate Atlassian account) but I feel hesitant about the DC option given that two months ago an Atlassian representative reached out to "discuss our Atlassian environment" and we were told there were no plans to cease updating or supporting the server product in the foreseeable future.

There is no way this wasn't in the works two months ago - I feel lied to. How can I trust any information about the roadmap/life expectancy for DC?

[Julius Zatroch]

You are right. There is Atlassian Shareholder letter from  30.July 2020

https://s2.q4cdn.com/141359120/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/TEAM-Q4-2020-Shareholder-Letter.pdf

In one table you can find this:. "2021 - 100% new customers
cloud-based"

It proves Atlassian lied to your company.....

[Dalectric]

That letter is very revealing of their intentions

"Going cloud-first is our most important priority because our customers want to be in the cloud."

How have they judged that? There's no qualification for that statement apart from the 95% of new customers choosing the cloud, which I come onto later.

Earlier in the letter 

" we still have a large on-premises installed base, comprising approximately 75% of paid users for Jira Software and Confluence."

So we're not a minority.

"Our customers know their future with Atlassian is in the cloud. 95% of new customers choose our cloud products. "

What are they including in that? The free cloud offerings? That's hardly comparable with Server or Data Centre users. The free cloud license seems to be supported by this statement later on

"widespread rollout of free delaying paid customer conversion"

This one's a peach:

"One of our core values is “Don’t #@!% the Customer,” and we will be sensitive to customers facing challenges due to COVID-19. Pricing will have a modest contribution to our growth in fiscal 2021, in contrast to prior years. We will also continue supporting customers by providing extended terms and concessions to the subset most in need. "

And yet they've gone and announced this fundamental change that will push up costs for server users!

[Metin Savignano]

"we still have a large on-premises installed base, comprising approximately 75% of paid users for Jira Software and Confluence."

That's astounding me. How can Atlassian assume they're all better off on Cloud when they chose on-premise?

I really do not understand it then.

[ASTEN RATHBUN]

Right, a LOT of us have SPECIFICALLY chosen Server.  Some of the things are features that perhaps, eventually could be addressed via development work on Cloud. 

Most of them aren't.   Customer requirements, independent networks, integrations with other tools, security, etc.   There is no technical solution that can be implemented on Cloud to overcome these requirements.  

That is pretty much the definition of "#@!% the Customer".

[Alex Janes]

we still have a large on-premises installed base, comprising approximately 75% of paid users for Jira Software and Confluence.

Are you kidding me? 75% of your current customers are not in the cloud, and you are eliminating the cheaper non-cloud option?

Please Atlassian, explain how this isn't just a cash grab...

[Erick van Rijk]

Further on in the document:

•5,892 customers spending $50,000+, up 44% year-over-year.
•267 customers spending $500,000+, up 56% year-over-year.
•104 customers spending $1,000,000+, up 76% year-over-year.

Total revenue for Q4’20 was $430.5 million, up 29% year-over-year.

Revenue by line item in Q4’20:
•Subscription revenue was $257.5 million, up 42% year-over-year.
•Maintenance revenue was $122.8 million, up 16% year-over-year.
•Perpetual license revenue was $20.4 million, down 11% year-over-year.
•Other revenue was $29.8 million, up 19% year-over-year.

So they are seeing a drop of server sales (Perpetual Licence) due to cloud increase.
Looking at the total value Subscriptions take up 60% the income, while server sales takes up 4% (maintenance adds 29% to that) (pg 15)

In fiscal 2021, we expect to see the following trends:
•Perpetual license revenue (driven by new server sales and upgrades) will decline by approximately 50% year-over-year.
•Maintenance revenue (driven by server renewals) will be approximately flat year-over-year as we expect a smaller impact from price increases and a growing impact from server migrations.
•The decline in license and maintenance revenues will be more pronounced in 2H relative to 1H.

Perhaps I am a bit biased but they are expecting this drop of server customers and planned for it back in July 2020. I think we are beating a dead horse here.

[Alex Janes]

I don't disagree with you or them that on-premise installations of any and all software (not just Atlassian) are shrinking. And frankly, I agree with Atlassian on one point; the cloud version makes sense for most customers.

But I believe this entire thread has proven that there is value to the on-premise versions of their products, and there simply are plenty of indisputable reasons against the cloud for some customers and use cases.

[Andy Heinzer]

We understand your frustration, and hope you’ll keep in mind that this change won’t happen overnight. We’ll continue to offer maintenance and support for your server products through February 2, 2024 – more than three years – so you’re able to evaluate options at your own pace.

We currently have no plans to discontinue Data Center. No matter where you are in your journey, we want to empower you with choices. We will continue to build great products in our own cloud, or you can deploy Data Center on-premise or in public cloud providers like AWS or Azure. As you can see from our roadmap, we have a lot of exciting work planned for Data Center, with more coming as our roadmap evolves.

We’ve heard your and many other customers' feedback, and know data residency – currently offered with our cloud Enterprise plan – is a requirement for many of you to move to cloud. We don’t currently offer the Enterprise plan to customers with fewer than 1,000 cloud users, but we’re looking at options for supporting customers that require Enterprise on smaller tiers and plan to provide an update in the near future. If this applies to you, we’ve created a tracking ticket (CLOUD-11064) that you can follow for updates on the availability of Enterprise at lower user tiers. You can also keep an eye on our cloud roadmap to see what we have planned to improve our data residency capabilities, including data residency for additional locations, data residency for apps, and more.

[Tom Shaffer]

@Andy Heinzer Can you please clarify something for us please? I'm wanting to make sure my company makes the right decision here.

1. What your co-CEO Scott Farquhar said during the latest earnings call, namely:

...whether they're in a regulated industry or a European customer, and it's just a matter of when (they will migrate to the cloud). And so, our data center product is going to be critical in making sure those customers are supported over the time frame for migration. But we expect that all our customers will migrate to cloud over the medium term. 

2. And in the Q4 2020 Shareholders letter where it was written:

FY21 and beyond - 100% new customers cloud-based 

3. And what you wrote down:

We currently have no plans to discontinue Data Center

So is Data Center going cloud-only coming soon? That's what I'm gathering here based on what you're company is telling investors and what customer support is telling us here. Otherwise there are some very mixed signals being relayed here and only adds to the confusion of this mess.

[Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California)]

@Tom Shaffer good catch. And I am concerned as well as I am considering Data Center as an intermediate step. My problem is HIPAA and HIPAA attestation for Cloud is in 2023 product published roadmap.

So if the statement full cloud after FY21 is true... Houston,.... I have a problem ;)

[Alex Janes]

@Tom Shaffer I hadn't even considered it that way. Very good catch indeed.

@Andy Heinzer Definitely want a follow up on this. Is it Atlassian's future intention to completely discontinue on-premise versions of Jira, Confluence, etc?

We really need a more clear answer on this.

[Dustin Sneath]

Want to hear from me? Well, hear it loud and clear: We're out.

We are a tiny, tiny blip of a customer for you. Less than 10 users. There's no way I'm going to migrate us to Cloud or DC when all we're looking for is a simple documentation system, and by the way, one that we can secure ourselves on-premise without having to worry about someone else's "whoopsie" in a firewall config somewhere letting people access all of our technical notes.

Confluence was beginning to act as a gateway drug of sorts -- we were starting to look seriously at Jira, and already signed up for Statuspage. We've been Trello users for several years now. We love the products, but not enough to pay what you're asking. I feel that there's a lot of other organizations in a similar boat, and you're going to miss out on more business than you realize. Or, maybe the plan is just to jack prices up on the poor suckers who stay to the point where the lost customers won't matter.

Either way, we're done. I'm sorry, but that's just reality. You really screwed the pooch on this one.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Sorry to hear this Dustin. It sounds like you've already made the decision but I hope you realize your current 10 user starter licenses will continue to work in perpetuity. Additionally, we offer our cloud products for up to 10 users for absolutely no cost whatsoever. 

All I ask is you go try Confluence cloud. Go check out the new editor. We moved to Confluence cloud at Atlassian a couple of years back and the new editing experience is pretty incredible. If you try it and you think it sucks come post here and tell us why, or, I'm happy to broker a call directly with our product management team so you can tell them directly.

Granted, if we lost you forever, I'm sorry to hear that.

[Brandon Barlow]

Please explain to all of your US DoD contractor customers how their small classified <50 user Atlassian stacks that CAN NEVER GO TO A CLOUD and currently cost less than 20K/year total are now going to have to be 500 user Data Center Stacks that cost 60K+ each?

[ASTEN RATHBUN]

Precisely.  Classified stuff will. not. go. cloud.

[Andy Heinzer]

Atlassian is committed to helping government teams get things done faster, easier, and with greater security. We get that this is really challenging news for you to hear right now, but we’re here to help you. Reach out to your local Atlassian or partner rep and enlist their help in planning a path forward. And, if you don’t know who that is; govsales@atlassian.com can connect you.

On your request for lower Data Center tiers, we’ve heard your feedback. At this time the entry point for Data Center is the 500 user license and we have no plans to add lower tiers. However, we will continue to capture input from our customers and partners in this area to make sure we have offerings that meet your needs. And to ease the transition to Data Center, we also offer existing server customers multi-year discounts on your subscription. Special pricing and purchasing options are also available to the United States Federal, State and Local government entities through Atlassian's Government Aggregator, Carahsoft.

We are also currently putting our cloud products through the FedRAMP compliance process, though we recognize that you may have additional requirements that prevent you from moving to cloud.

[Steven F Behnke]

So I have to literally dismantle a dozen systems now. Great. I'm sure my reputation will only be tarnished a little bit by personally recommending jira server for small classified use. 

[Barry Millar]

This announcement has both saddened and angered me. If this isn't a great example of "#@!%ing the customer", I would hate to see what Atlassian thinks is.

I have been a champion of Atlassian in my company for the last 7 years. In my part of the business, we use Server versions of JIRA, Bitbucket and Confluence. On Monday we started the process of calculating whether a move to Data Center was even possible as, like many other customers, Cloud is not and never will be an option.

This will be a decision made not just on whether it is affordable or not, but after this announcement, whether Atlassian can be trusted enough, to move to Data Center. I believe that I can license my Server instances immediately with Data Center licenses without even having to reboot so I can see no justifiable reason for the end of the Server versions, unless it is a precursor to the end of the Data Center versions also.

Regards,

Atlassian Server Champion (retired)

[Nuno Gomes]

I'm in a very similar and uncomfortable position: I was responsible for bringing Jira Software in and for having the resources allocated to migrate all our data (very successfully, I should add).

As Atlassian would have it, I had to announce their decision to my colleagues. Like I mentioned elsewhere in this site, it did not go down very well and left me feeling royally screwed over.

Went from champion to loser in a nick of time.

[Tom Shaffer]

Went from champion to loser in a nick of time.

Exactly. I don't think a lot of us feel like champions any longer.

Wow, I bragged to everyone with what I was able to do with Confluence in our company and I've had a lot of colleagues ask how it was done and what the cost was. I guess I will soon be able to stick out my tongue and let them know that I'm part of an exclusive club now and they can't be a part of it any longer - at least, not without a steep entrance fee.

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi @Barry Millar,

Everyone at Atlassian takes our value "Don’t #@!% the customer" very seriously. This is a big change but we have never been shy with our customers about our cloud investments and future. Additionally, we spent a lot of time ensuring that all of our customers have the time to make the decision that is right for them. We’re here to work with you through these changes as partners.

We currently have no plans to discontinue Data Center. If you have requirements that prevent you from ever operating in the cloud, we recommend Data Center.

To help ease the financial impact, we offer a multi-year loyalty discount to existing server customers who migrate to Data Center. If you don’t require high availability, you can migrate to Data Center in a non-cluster environment, enabling you to immediately use enterprise features and capabilities that don’t require clustering.

Additionally, here are some of the ways we’re investing in Data Center:

• New enterprise-grade features that help you comply with new security regulations, and enhance the ease and security of managing users in your Data Center products.

• A bridge to the cloud with new capabilities that make using cloud and Data Center together easier.

• New native functionality from Atlassian-built apps such as Advanced Roadmaps for Jira Software and Mindville Insight for Jira Service Desk.

See our Data Center roadmap to learn more.

[Fabian A. Lopez (Community Leader - Argentina, Florida, California)]

@Andy Heinzer It looks like the link is about Cloud loyalty discounts
I didn’t find server to data center discount there

[Dalectric]

Even with a discount the upgrade to Data Centre is a huge increase in cost for us, and the later we leave the decision to upgrade the more expensive it is. If we don't upgrade before Feb 21 then the upgrade costs increase.
How is 3 months enough time to make this decision, yet alone find any budget to pay for this when our financial year ends at the end of March?

I don't see how this price increase doesn't hurt your customers!

I'm sure 3 years ago you didn't have plans to discontinue the Server product, yet here we are.
From the July 2020 shareholder letter
https://s2.q4cdn.com/141359120/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/TEAM-Q4-2020-Shareholder-Letter.pdf
there is the following statement
"Starting in fiscal 2021, we will be laser-focused on bringing all Atlassian customers to the cloud over the coming years."
Plus the statement here
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3623014-atlassian-shares-climb-after-announcing-focus-on-cloud-ending-server-products
that Atlassian will be a cloud first company.
That doesn't inspire confidence that Data Centre is part of Atlassian's long term vision.

[Alex Janes]

@Andy Heinzer how can we trust that datacenter will stick around when you make those statements in your shareholder letters and public statements? The roadmap shows no new features coming to service desk. So, it's really hard to believe that data center isn't going anywhere either when you have no plan on what to bring to the product next.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. For a company that makes project planning software, it really seems like you didn't plan this out correctly. That, or, this is the plan. To sow confusion and begging for a lower price, where you eventually will back down, and offer lower tiers on DC at a price way higher than server ever was.

I don't see how it could be anything other than those two at this point. But both of those are good examples of f$%&ing the customer.

Prove me wrong.

EDIT:

This is a big change but we have never been shy with our customers about our cloud investments and future.

No, but you were very shy from telling us you would discontinue server, now weren't you? And how does this statement help me believe that data center is sticking around?

EDIT Again:

One of my friends who actually manages a Data Center instance, has told me he is now looking into new products, because the writing is on the wall for him. He doesn't trust that Atlassian will keep their promises of keeping Data Center alive. He can't go to the cloud, as he works in a regulated industry like me that Atlassian just doesn't support.

He is starting to move to another product now, because if he eventually is forced to the cloud, he would have to pick a new product anyway.

Even your high paying data center customers are shying away from you now because they don't trust you.

How does the Atlassian team not see a problem here?

[Vicky Blease]

Interestingly, Andy made the following 2 comments yesterday:

"We currently have no plans to discontinue Data Center. If you have requirements that prevent you from ever operating in the cloud, we recommend Data Center."

...and...

"No matter where you are in your journey, we want to empower you with choices. If you anticipate a longer journey to cloud, we’ll continue to invest in Data Center and are offering multi-year loyalty discounts to existing server customers help ease the transition."

I too would be cautious about a move to Data Center... :(

[Dalectric]

The latest shareholder letter doubles down on the message that are driven by getting more money by pushing customers to the cloud and see server users as a minority and a stagnant market.

https://s2.q4cdn.com/141359120/files/doc_financials/2021/q1/TEAM-Q1-2021-Shareholder-Letter.pdf

[Thomas Dörfler]

Interesting letter.

"The cloud allows us to see how users engage with our products. We capture real-time
analytics that help us understand usage patterns and make improvements that delight
customers."

So: Atlassian is monitoring the use pattern of our cloud instances. Do we really want that?

"Today, roughly 85% of all customers enjoy these cloud benefits. Yet, approximately 75% of all paying users still use at least one on-premises deployment, creating a massive opportunity to bring them more value in the cloud."

Wow, so 75% of the paying customers are NOT (entirely) in the cloud. What a whole bunch of stupid companies this must be?

The most interesting part for me is the one which reported, what the customers actually *want* to get. Why? Because this section simply isn't there...

Dear Atlassian team: I need cooperation partners/service providers which work professionally, which deliver up-to-date technology and provide the functionality I need in the environment that fulfills my safety and privacy requirements.

What I don't need is a nanny, pushing me the way he/she thinks is good for me.

[Barry]

@Andy Heinzer 

Just from your response...

Don’t #@!% the customer #1

This is a big change but we have never been shy with our customers about our cloud investments and future

Eh? You weren't particularly forward about telling me about the future of Server when one of my Server licences was renewed at the start of October. Even though you were pretty much telling your shareholders all about it back in July.

Don’t #@!% the customer #2

Additionally, we spent a lot of time ensuring that all of our customers have the time to make the decision that is right for them.

Like most companies, our budgets are set (at most) yearly. So giving customers 3 months until February 2021 to snap up your offer is no offer at all and really not helpful.

We have been using Atlassian server products over many years and the integration we have used, customised and extended took a significant amount of time to develop and implement. If I had nothing else to do then 3 years would be fine to substitute Atlassian our 5 Server products, but hey, I have a day job too.

Don’t #@!% the customer #3

To help ease the financial impact, we offer a multi-year loyalty discount to existing server customers who migrate to Data Center.

It might be a discount on Data Center but stop selling this as a discount. This is still a significant price hike.

Don’t #@!% the customer #4

We currently have no plans to discontinue Data Center. If you have requirements that prevent you from ever operating in the cloud, we recommend Data Center.

Read your own web pages. It states "We recommend Data Center for those who have stricter requirements and can’t move to cloud just yet.". You hardly need to read between the lines to understand that that statement is a nail in the coffin for on-prem, Data Center or otherwise.

No matter what hoops you jump through with Cloud, we can not move to it.

Don’t #@!% the customer #5

If you don’t require high availability, you can migrate to Data Center in a non-cluster environment, enabling you to immediately use enterprise features and capabilities that don’t require clustering.

Stop patronising this forum. Do you think the majority of customers here stumbled upon their solution? I don't use or require Data Center features. So "migrating" to Data Center would mean using my Server instances in exactly the same way as before but pay for Data Center licenses. We all know that Data Center and Server share the same codebase so this "migration" would be solely a commercial one for us.

Don’t #@!% the customer #6

Additionally, here are some of the ways we’re investing in Data Center:

• A bridge to the cloud with new capabilities that make using cloud and Data Center together easier.

Am I reading between the lines again or is this Atlassian laying the ground for enabling a fair percentage of Data Center customers to Cloud before ending Data Center?

Don’t #@!% the customer #7

Additionally, here are some of the ways we’re investing in Data Center:

• New native functionality from Atlassian-built apps such as Advanced Roadmaps for Jira Software and Mindville Insight for Jira Service Desk.

Well I am pleased that you are investing in Data Center add-ons because if I was an add-on provider I might be thinking twice before investing in, or providing future support for, any on-prem add-ons. You might be able to decide on whether you invest in Data Center or not but you have no control over the add-on providers future investment. And this announcement won't help matters.

Don’t #@!% the customer #8

Everyone at Atlassian takes our value "Don’t #@!% the customer" very seriously.

After reading the above and the posts on this forum, which part do you take seriously? My irritation and anger is because I have been on this journey with Atlassian, growing and extending along the way. Championing the products to overcome attitudes, technical challenges, business processes etc. Now, like may others in this forum, I have to tuck my tail between my legs and tell my peers, superiors and *my* customers alike that, actually, I was wrong, and this is the proverbial garden path. In our discipline we have to deal with change all the time - it comes with the territory. But sadly, this is much more than that. You have pulled the rug from under our feet.

I have responded to this just to be clear that this is my personal professional opinion and not necessarily that of any company that I am associated with.

[Dalectric]

I was thinking of a similar reply, but you've put it much better than I could @Bazzer . Totally agree.

[Luke Johnson]

Almost worth deleting my own post and putting a +1 against this one.

[Christopher Pfaffinger]

As a small startup cloud migration will not happen for us.

- due to project sizes 2gb of storage total won't meet our needs (talking about a lot of projects here)

- the first non-free plan is way too expensive compared to our previously used starter license

- we don't want our data in the cloud due to liability concerns with our clients

- we prefer on premises

So our way of migration will be gitlab somewhat in 2022, which is free

Thanks for all the happy years but good bye

[Cameron Deatsch]

Christopher, I'm sorry to hear you go. Small startups are a perfect customer for our free cloud offerings.

What storage limits do you require?

What are the liability requirements you have for your customers?

[Tom Shaffer]

@Cameron Deatsch 

- we prefer on premises

This, this right here. This exact statement and your response sums up why this has been so frustrating for a lot of us. Respect us, respect that we've looked plenty into your cloud and have decided it's not for us. Stop telling us we're wrong, because we are not wrong.

Can you please hold your customers to a high enough regard and not question their judgement?

[Being Appalled]

We have customers who need Server because they must run Jira and/or Confluence inhouse for indisputable reasons. It must be understood that Jira and Confluence are used to manage and store a lot of internal confidential information. Often this information is crucial to their business and an important competitive advantage. It is therefore unthinkable to put this know-how on a cloud that is not under their very own control.

Now these customers are urged to switch to Data Center, and at the same time, prices are raised significantly. I wonder if Atlassian did not consider that both of these steps, and especially in this combination, would destroy their customer's trust in Atlassian as a reliable software provider? Should our customers ask us if we think that Data Center has a future, I must say I would not know what to answer.

In addition to that, while for a larger enterprise customers, Data Center would at least be an option, we also have a lot of small business customers. We have always adored how Atlassian supports small businesses by offering very affordable prices for them. We've also contributed to this idea by making sure that the prices for our apps have been very affordable for the lowest tiers.

But now, Atlassian has completely removed the low entry barriers for small businesses. Data Center start at 500 users with prices that are simply not affordable for small companies. Let's face it: you're kicking them out.

Atlassian's step has significantly changed they way we see this company. And not for the better, I'm afraid.

[Cameron Deatsch]

Mr. Appalled, what are these indisputable reasons you mention?

I have yet to meet a customer that has absolutely no SAAS technology in their companies. If there is something unique about the data stored in Atlassian, I'm sure we will be able to address their concerns with our roadmap of security, compliance, and data residency.

We know this change will frustrate some customers but we are investing heavily to continue to maintain the trust we have earned with our customers over the years. I'm personally available to jump on Zoom with any customer that may have concerns trusting Atlassian going forward. 

[Scion]

@Cameron Deatsch Here is one. Your Acceptable Use Policy prohibits us from using your cloud services at the risk of having our data deleted without prior notice.

I represent a small studio that makes art, animations, and games for an adult audience. There are many companies and artists like mine that are in the same boat as us.

This is what your policy states you do not allow:

Is deceptive, fraudulent, illegal, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, harmful to minors, pornographic (including child pornography, which we will remove and report to law enforcement, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), indecent, harassing, hateful

Furthermore...

Atlassian may permanently or temporarily terminate or suspend a user’s account or access to the services without notice or liability if Atlassian (in its sole discretion) determines that a user has violated this Acceptable Use Policy.

Who decides what is 'obscene' or 'indecent'? Our professional every-day work contains much data that many would consider as being such. At the same time, it's completely benign!

How can you ask any company to take on the risk of having their legitimate business data deleted without notice?

I have already filed a ticket about this, and the response was that "This (policy) is not something that we have plans to alter."

I hate to feel the need to address this issue publicly like this, but we have been incredibly frustrated by this issue.

Personally, I would have no problem moving to the cloud. It was your Acceptable Use Policy that made us move to server in the first place. Despite, however, claiming that you want to help enable every business to move to the cloud, you very obviously are saying that you not want 'our' type of business.

We'd happily join the cloud if you would just let us!

[Scion]

Edit: spam Apparently the spam filter resulted in a double-post of my original.

To follow up:

I have yet to meet a customer that has absolutely no SAAS technology in their companies.

We do not use SaaS for most operations in our company. Only IaaS, specifically because of the tyranny of Terms of Service policies allowing said companies to delete any data they find objectionable without notice, even if it is totally benign.
Our file storage and sync are self-hosted.
Our email is self-hosted.
Our Atlassian products are self-hosted.

It's not that we don't want to, it's that almost every SaaS company does not want us. The ones that do, such as Dropbox, are prohibitively expensive for the value that they provide.

We do use Adobe CC, but that is only because their ToS permits our content, and the content made is hosted locally.

[Being Appalled]

@Cameron Deatsch, these are just some of the reasons that are indisputable:

• Contractual:
  The customer is a service provider and manages projects for their customers with the help of Jira and Confluence, and their customers insist that all information is strictly confidential and kept locally. It's indisputable to start negotiating  contracts with all of their customers to allow cloud usage. And the risk would be high that those customers switch to another service provider that doesn't require them to accept cloud usage. So no discussion about that, it's that simple.
• Legal:
  Laws require personal data to be kept under the company's own control. It's even so that only a specific group of employees is given access to these data, often only for a certain period of time (like 24 hrs). It's unthinkable to  store these data outside where it's impossible to have full control over it.
• Integration:
  Hosted Jira and Confluence can be tightly integrated in a company's workflow and infrastructure, and it's a level 1 requirement.

I call these reasons indisputable, because the customers insist that these are hard requirements. Apps not meeting these requirements are out however useful and feature-rich they may be.

I have yet to meet a customer that has absolutely no SAAS technology in their companies.

That is absolutely true, but the customers I know do make differences between critical and non-critical apps. Since project and knowledge management store a lot of confidential and often mission-critical data, Atlassian should be flattered by the fact that these companies categorize Atlassian apps as critical, and therefore require them to be on-premise. Yet, Atlassian seems to think that these customers don't know about their own requirements or have no idea about cloud technologies. How arrogant.

I will let my customers know that you are ready to jump on a Zoom with them, but sorry to say that, I fear they will find it is just a waste of their time.

[Tom Shaffer]

I have yet to meet a customer that has absolutely no SAAS technology in their companies.

And? What does that have to do with any of their concerns? Was this a talking point that you really needed to burn off your list so you just stuck it in that response?

Having SaaS for our company doesn't mean everything needs to be SaaS. I honestly am not sure how else this can be spelled out to you - how some of your customers use your products differ than how others use it. You can have that nugget of information for free. Not everyone can go into your cloud for various reasons. They are telling you why, and you're telling them that they need to switch to an immature product and hope you can fulfill your roadmap.

Atlassian - get your horse out of the stable and ready for the journey you want us to take before trying to shoving us into that cart.

[Metin Savignano]

I have yet to meet a customer that has absolutely no SAAS technology in their companies.

This statement is kind of ridiculous. It doesn't mean anything.

"I have yet to meet someone who has never traveled by airplane."

So what? Does this prove that airplane is the right means of transport for every travel? Definitely not! 

Your customers explain to you why they cannot or do not want to migrate to your SaaS in this case. Please take them seriously. 

[Scion]

After communicating more with Atlassian, our company finally received a definite response:

I apologize, but our Cloud option will not be available as an option to satisfy your needs.

At least we recieved a definite answer and an official admission of how Atlassian is insincere when they state:

"these changes are in service of your organization’s long-term success"

"we believe we can address every concern a customer might have well before the end of server maintenance in 2024."

They care about facilitating teamwork but not for 'those' types of teams.
They believe in helping companies move to the cloud, but not 'those' types of companies.

Just like almost every SaaS company out there, they are looking the other way as companies in our industry are shut out from more and more professional working solutions.
I trusted Atlassian. I personally have over $20,000 invested in their company.  But they lied to us.

If there is one thing I can give them credit for, it's for having to guts to admit defeat. To admit that they lied. To admit that they #@!%ed us just because our company happens to create art and games of people #@!%ing.

They believe that they can accept the insane risks of meeting the highest level of security standards demanded by organizations and governments all across the globe, but adult content is just too much of a risk.

Atlassian thought they could conquer the world, but the real world ended up being too much for them.

It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of changes for them to regain our trust. I sincerely hope that they can do it.

[Tom Shaffer]

Thank you for the followup @Scion . I was legitimately curious about cases like yours and what the conversations were going to be like. Too bad it's not going to work for you along with a lot of other customers but at least they told you.

There really should be a bit more conceding here by Atlassian instead of trying to pretend like they can fulfill every need with their cloud offering. I think many of us already know that the cloud won't work for them and for those who are going to trust Atlassian with a promise of something that doesn't exist today (such as the various compliances), I wish those organizations the very best that they won't regret that decision moving forward. It's just such a huge risk and feels like one that doesn't need to be taken.

I'm still shaking my head at how this whole thing was approached. Having the licensing for Data Center so out of reach for most small/mid-sized teams is such a strange way to try to convince your customers that you're really trying to do the best for them at a time when you're taking away support for important and established tools. It doesn't feel right. It feels like someone accidentally deleted the PowerPoint slide that contained the more affordable options when they were planning all of this out but we all know that isn't the case. We can see right through this.

[ITMAGE]

Yeah, I'm shaking my head as well and it's truly unfortunate as I like Atlassian's products. Over the years they have been reasonable and responsive which makes this move even  more unbelievable. I've introduced a few companies to Jira and Confluence, some of which went for a cloud option whereas a others opted for the Server solution with the intent to acquire a 25 or 50 user license within the next two years. Also been working with one of the largest university systems (several hundred thousand potential users) who might have been interested in one or more of the server products, but certainly not at these annually recurrent DC prices as they just would not be able to afford it, especially during this pandemic. I think Atlassian is making a huge mistake here by alienating us and many won't forget. But hey, this cloud move seems to be working for other companies and their stock bumped up a bit as well, so.... Anyway this now opens the door for competition and I look forward to that.

[Osama Dengler]

"I have yet to meet a customer that has absolutely no SAAS technology in their companies."

Here's the prove of existence: we're one of them... =:o)

I'd like to add one to all the very good technical, legal, financial and other arguments: we simply don't want it. Full stop.

Go to Your favourite grocery store for milk but they've decided that milk is no longer available in favor of extended lemonade offerings. I'm sure: they can tell You a million times that lemonade fills all Your needs, has more sugar, looks nicer, healthier, safer, whatever. And even if they give You a massive discount, You'll leave that store and shop Your milk next door. Simply because You want milk and nothing else.

[Julius Zatroch]

Hello @Cameron Deatsch 

We want to ask you one question:  Why 02/2021 ?

Do you and your bosses live on Moon now? We are struggling with pandemic, all countries are reporting daily records now, companies are trying to survive. And Atlassian came up with a date 02/2021 as death line.... How should IT admins ask own CEOs for decission now?  Maybe he is now in hospital fighting for his live....   Please look to the mirror and think about it.

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Well @Julius Zatroch

it's not like the deadline of moving to Cloud/DC is 02/2021. The sales of new server licenses will be ended then.

Support end will be 02/2024

[Julius Zatroch]

Hi @Dirk Ronsmans 

I know other dates, but everybody see first one. Many companies are evaluating first or second or third Atlassian product now, many Atlassian partners have prepared project for customers but are waiting from March because of pandemic. This all must be finished till 02/21... Atlassian placed bomb and it will smash not only thousand customers, but thousand peoples working by partners...

It looks Atlassian is using pandemic to force companies go to own cloud... It's disgusted and its disgracefull to all workers in first line helping people in this hard times.

[ASTEN RATHBUN]

Our projects pay for our licenses.  I cannot pay in February 2021 for a project that might not come until 2022.   I can't pay for 3 years up front because that's not how budgets work in much of the real world.  

The only option for us is to renew what we can by February and spend the next year migrating to another solution.  

[Cameron Deatsch]

Julius, you're absolutely right to ask about the timing of this announcement and our program. This is something we spent a lot of time debating and rolling out to ensure that all customers have plenty of time to make the right decisions for their business. 

For new purchases, you will see that our cloud products at the lower tiers are not too much different from our current Server products. I know that many of our customers do not believe they can use our Cloud products yet but we are actively working to address these many issues. Additionally, we offered all our cloud products for up to 10 users for free.

For existing customers, we have an entire program in place to help accommodate customers that are affected by the pandemic. You can read about that here: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/atlassians-commitment-to-our-customers-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

Or just reach out to us via: https://www.atlassian.com/company/contact

[Steven F Behnke]

I guess it's time for some of us to find a new career. I fail to see room for me with Atlassian anymore. I should have seen the writing on the wall a long time ago, with the deterioration of their Development Kit to their split of products to Cloud and Server and Data Center. The insistence that every conversation start about Cloud even though I firmly believe that there still exist on premise-only usecases.

I was always worried about the risk of centering on a particular variety of software like the Atlassian suite, but as they are hell bent on screwing those that have helped build their business on their platform I guess sticking around at this point amounts to masochism. 

"One of our core values is “Don’t #@!% the Customer,” and we will be sensitive to customers facing challenges due to COVID-19."

LOL yall really take the piss

[Taylor Huston]

I mean, we should have known better than to put all of our eggs in one basket anyway. There will still be work for us for the next few years, even if it's supporting Cloud instances, but I am personally glad that I have been doing a lot of AWS administration lately. I'm going to work on getting those certs and spend the bulk of 2021 trying to transition into more of a Cloud Solutions Architect/SRE role at my current company. We're on Jira Data Center, and that's probably not going to change anytime soon, but I probably won't work for this company forever so it's definitely time to branch out.

[Steven F Behnke]

The only way we able to build solutions was because of the on premise hosting and low price. 

I literally run small jiras even today. I don't need data center for a 50 user app! Wtf. And they cannot be cloud because of compliance rules that people can go to jail for. There's absolutely no where for me to go except some other product now.

Time and time again you make moves that make it clear my choice to work with Atlassian software was wrong. 

[Taylor Huston]

I'm looking into https://www.openproject.org/, for some smaller personal stuff. I like that it's open source. There is a paid for version, but even at it's most expensive tier it's a fraction of Data Center's cost.

[Vicky Blease]

This looks really good Taylor, thanks for the share.

[Vicky Blease]

I'm the server champion in my office, and I'm now tasked with finding a replacement solution for Confluence and Jira. It's bad enough that you've landed this 'big reveal' on us, but to now want increased licenses on server products year on year till 2024 is just an insult. Our costs have literally doubled overnight.

So genuine question to the other server champions - what alternative products do you recommend for on premise help desk and wiki solutions? I'm all ears.

[Sven]

Clever people already opened a community platform for this:

https://bye-bye-server.com/

(on github everybody can add other suggestions)

Our current favourites are XWiki or Bluespice (MediaWiki with some Addons).

https://bluespice.com/

[Vicky Blease]

hahaha - fantastic!

[Fabian Arndt]

wrong place

[Jörg Godau]

@Cameron Deatsch how many of Atlassian‘s own services and teams internally don't use your saas-cloud offering? I know this to be a non-zero integer.

Why don't your teams all use your SaaS-Cloud?

Where do you document financially relevant and sensitive materials - mergers and acquisitions? Plans to cancel server? Etc.?

Perhaps the answers to your questions are available internally, if you cannot or will not understand our reasons or the reasons of our customers?

I love Atlassian, I've loved them since way back when I was a developer at a 16 person company in early 2000s. I've sold them to major companies and tiny shops, all of them and Atlassian profited. Right now I'm sitting on 10000/unlimited user licences...

On reflection many things are clearer - higher targets for partners, cloud targets, Atlassian recruiting own sales and enablement staff.

I want to believe, so many of us customers and partners want to believe.

But I don't think we can anymore and that makes me very sad.

The future is cloud

A privileged push for rightness

My heart is bleeding

[Javier E]

As Jira system admin for almost 14 years, I consider this decision quite bad for customers who can't migrate to Cloud  and can't increase the bill for afford buy a Data Center license for the same number of active users .

I have admin a Jira Cloud instance for 5 years until 2019, and I really know that Jira Cloud is lack of a lot of server functionalities and IT teams lose the control about the system administration a lot . In Cloud  Atlassian support dependency turns very high  . And well.. Jira Cloud UI changes are very frecuent what makes crazy to the customers (vertical bar first,   horizontal top bar later back (better)  , changes in the issues view layout  , buttons positions , missing functionality for jira admins in the System area etc etc ). 

Now I am admin a Jira server instance again in another project.

We can't afford a Server to Cloud Jira migration due to at least the following reasons :

\- Several add-ons not available or available with less functionality in Cloud and more expensive or paid (free for server) .

\- Connection to internal LDAP directory (Sun Directory Server EE)  is neccesary in our company and the expose of internal ldap to the internet is not allowed. Moreover if exposed would possible, the connection to ldap requires pay more for another extra Atlassian module in Cloud...

\- Limited Storage, at least the last year Cloud only offers only 250GB storage for all Jira site in standard, to be unlimited is neccesary a premium licence (more expensive) , our current storage is near 1T and growing. 

\- No possibility to have a stage/dev environment in Cloud as a exact copy  of production environment to make tests .

\- No access to server logs or database ( sometimes we need to execute  queries in the Data Base tables for information that are not way to get with JQL in the application)

\- Integration with internal tools like Jenkins , Sonar , Github etc  through webhooks, It is not possible in cloud as this tools in the company are not exposed to the internet.

\- Python scripts stored in the server able with a scripting plugin ( for workflows transition validations in some projects) 

For confluence there are similar reasons..

For sure there will be a lot of more reasons for not to migrate to Cloud that  people is telling you in all the answers , so force to companies that are currently using Jira/Confluence Server to buy a DataCenter license to keep working in a similar way  is another really bad decision made by Atlassian again , it seems it is mainly for making more money and force to use your Cloud keeping the control (and data) of as many company Jira sites.

So having said that,  after knowing about your intentions , in my current company they are starting to consider and think about searching  other cheaper ON PREMISE tools  for  issue tracking and projects management aswell as another Documentation/wiki  tool for a future migration process in the next 3 years,  in case you keep the current way to close your on premise products.

I think this is the feeling we have a lot of local system admins and systems project leads in many companies but Atlassian seems doesn't care much about ours..

Please reconsider your decisition if you don't want  to lose your reputation in so many  companies using your products and lose many clients . Maybe  you can offer more competitive and adjusted prices on Data Center licenses (currently they are really expensives) to keep using it even for a single server instances or something else to keep updating server back again .

Regards