Atlassian Access - is it needed?

[Scott McDonald]

Hello - 

We're looking to migrate both JIRA and Confluence to the cloud and it appears Atlassian has a product 'Atlassian Access' that can manage provisioning, etc.  My question is the additional cost of Atlassian Access absolutely needed?  We use Okta and can manage everything under Okta, but a few of the reviews make it sound like Atlassian Access is the middleware needed to connect Okta and JIRA/Confluence/Statuspage and that it's the only way the products will be secure.

Thanks in advance,
Scott  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Atlassian Cloud can use two and a half types of user directory.  

One is Atlassian accounts, like the ones we are using to post here.  They belong to individuals (or an organisation if the organisation claims the domain), and are managed by the owners, who may not be you.

The "half" is Google accounts, where a parallel Atlassian Account is created and linked to Google, so authentication and maintenance is done via Google, although there's still an Atlassian account there.

The last is Atlassian Access, which can be a directory itself, but can also be connected to other directory data sources to get users from, ones such as Okta or AD etc.

You don't need Atlassian access to be secure, the other methods are secure in most senses of the word.  But they are messier to manage than "doing everything in Okta", and using Access to implement Okta for cloud makes your user maintenance easier, plus it's a doddle to add 2 factor authentication, and SSO with it.

[John Funk]

Hi Scott,

Do you need it? No. Will it go better for you if you have it? Yes. Also, it is expensive, so it might depend on how many users you have across the org and how much effort it is to provision and de-provision your users. 

Will it be more secure with Okta? Most definitely in my opinion. It's really an easy process to setup and maintain, assuming your groups and needs are pretty straight forward in the Atlassian Admin Hub (i.e. User Management). 

[Scott McDonald]

Hi @John Funk ,

We will have roughly 110 users to start the instance and build from there.  We could be to 150 within several months, but all depends on the hiring process, etc.

We do have an IAM person on staff that is Okta certified, however, when you say it will be easier to manage via Atlassian Admin Hub, does this mean once we connect Okta the hub will essentially take over the user management?

[John Funk]

No, it will actually be Okta that takes over user management. Since they are Okta certified, that seems like the route to go for you. 

[Peter DeWitt]

@Scott McDonald As a fellow Okta user, yes you will need Access.

cheers -dewitt

[Scott McDonald]

@Peter DeWitt

Thank you.  Why is Access needed?  Is it more streamlined to manage with Access? 

[Peter DeWitt]

Access will give you the options for SAML Single Sign-on, Authentication Policies, and the ability to manage your user accounts through your IdP.

The products will all work fine without the integration but if your company is already using Okta for identity management, access should be in the mix for Cloud.