Updates to Atlassian Certifications

[#1]

👀 Read Looking ahead to new Certifications and Badges in 2021 for what's next!

This post was created in October 2020, and last updated on 17 February 2021.

Atlassian University is continuously considering how we can best support our customers, and sometimes that means making changes to a few of our existing offerings. As you look to migrate to cloud or data center, we have some updates for you about Atlassian Certifications.

This article covers information about:

• retiring server exams

• ongoing recognition of earned Server Certifications as Data Center credentials

• future opportunities for Certification

Retiring Exams

After 28 February 2021, you will no longer be able to take these exams:

• Agile Development with Jira Software (ACP-300)

• Jira Service Desk Server Administration (ACP-400)

• Confluence Server Administration (ACP-200)

• Atlassian System Administration (Server) (ACP-500)

These exams can currently be scheduled, but your exam needs to be completed by 28 February 2021.

If you currently hold one of these Certifications, it will still be valid—and can be renewed—until February 2, 2024. 

Path to Data Center for Certification Holders

Take a look at the table below – if you currently hold one of the retiring Certifications, it will still be recognized by Atlassian until 2 February 2024. 

Moving forward, we’ll be introducing some new Data Center Certifications with accelerated pathways for those already Certified.

*Your credential name will be automatically updated from server to Data Center before the retirements.

**For ACP-CA and ACP-SA credentials, if your Certification was Active or Suspended as of 16 October 2020, then before the end of 2020 it will be extended through 2 February 2024. If it was Expired as of 16 October 2020, it will not be extended. (If you earn one of these Certifications in 2021, we will not extend its active period out to February 2024 until March 2021.)

Have more questions? Check our University FAQ page or ask them in the discussion thread below.

What’s new and ahead for Atlassian Credentials

We'll bring you more offerings in 2021, including: 

• Cloud Certification for Jira Service Project Managers, expected in the first half of 2021.
• A handful of free Skillbuilder courses and Badges for Jira Software Cloud, Jira Service Management and Confluence.
• Simple paths for holders of the retiring Agile Development with Jira Software and  Jira Service Desk Administrator credentials to bridge into new Certifications.

We already have two Jira Cloud Certifications available for you to earn. Click their respective title links to get started today!

Managing Jira Cloud Projects

You’ll know this is the right Certification for you if…

• You live day-to-day in Jira boards and filters.

• You understand why, where and how to make configuration changes.

• You hold the key to your projects' permissions, access and roles.

• You can interpret reports to optimize your teams' efficiency.

Get prepared for the ACP-620 Managing Jira Cloud Projects exam by taking the hands-on Managing Jira Cloud Projects training course. Bonus: it comes bundled with an exam voucher and we’ve reduced the price for both to a package price of only $100.

Jira Cloud Administrator

You’ll know this is the right Certification for you if…

• You have 1-2 years of experience administering Jira Cloud.

• You can interpret and translate business requirements into product configurations.

• You’re a guru when it comes to workflows, security, permissions, project schemes, and system settings available through the user interface.

• You understand features specific to Jira Cloud.

• You grasp how administrative choices affect Jira's scalability and day-to-day manageability.

• You leverage Atlassian resources and community to help your team implement best practices within Jira.

Get ready for the ACP-120 Jira Cloud Administrator exam with our Jira Cloud Administrator Certification Prep course ($50 USD). Bonus: Get $100 off the ACP-120 Jira Cloud Administration exam for a limited time.

…

For more information about how Atlassian University is supporting you in your journey to cloud, click here.

[Jimmy Seddon]

As someone who literally passed the ACP-300 three days ago this was a little heartbreaking to read.

However, I appreciate the information and while I was a part of the beta program for the ACP-120 &ACP-620, I will definitely looks to what other things I can get involved in from the related articles.

[Jeff Tillett]

These were the first and only certs I've ever earned. My wall is about to get extremely barren. I've built my career with Atlassian, and Cisco will not allow for cloud. I'll be searching for the next big thing to jump on. Atlassian was a lot of fun for a very long time. But it seems like they have taken the "Don't fsck the customer"out of their values list. Extremely disappointing to say the very least.

[Kamil Beer]

Yeah, this is just mean.

[Phill Fox]

Hi folks
I appreciate why it is important to remove certification that are exclusively aimed at the Atlassian Server products but will we see them be replaced with certification that focuses on Atlassian Data Center products or is this the end of all certification for On-premise products?

If anything those folks managing on DC need to be more skilled (and thus more recognised with certification for the management of DC). 

[Rodney Nissen - ReleaseTEAM]

Seriously, save for a few features, the feature set between DC and Server overlap a lot.  Removing the Server Certs instead of just converting them to a DC Version seems like a terrible decision that will hurt more ACP's than it will help.

[Jeff Tillett]

Totally agree with the points on DC. Certifications are how candidates differentiate themselves, and by not allowing anyone to prove their skills in DC, we are effectively telling the world that DC is also not a priority and will be following in Servers footsteps as soon as server is officially dead.

[Kiet Ngo]

Ok Atlassian, you're doing a very great job to us, people who dedicate to the company. I believe I'm in a very small group of champions who certify with every certs Atlassian ever published (100-600), and now you decided to retire literally ALL of them.

I should have been desperate by now, but as an always-have-plan-B guy, luckily I've already jumped into another ship (AWS). And I suppose I just have to put my trust on it, or other vendors, but not Atlassian, never ever gain.

[Jeff Tillett]

I'm with you @Kiet Ngo , I'm going to have a hard time trusting Atlassian after this, and I'm already researching other career paths and platforms for my teams and orgs that I work with, including my non-profits. :( This is a sad day indeed.

[Julia]

Don't forget that Atlassian will continue to recognize ALL your Certifications for more than three years -- until February 2024.

Meanwhile, we still have 2 on-prem focused Certifications that are NOT retiring -- the ones our customers and partners have told us are the most valuable for their careers and their work with their teams.  In 2021 we'll be focused on bringing you new credentials.

[Brian Jones]

But why would we bother maintaining something that is effectively a dead end career wise? Why would we even tell anyone else to do the same? I am with @Jeff Tillett  and @Kiet Ngo  I spent a lot of time and effort, just like many others, only to have it wasted. Why would I invest any more time into a company that is willing to do that to some of their strongest supporters? Please reconsider and make these DC and have a badge or something instead of flat out cancelling them.

[David Reif]

Really bad decision. A lot of people started to build their career on these certifications and now they will be lost. Why don't you convert these certs to a DC cert? For the system administration cert you could also make an "upgrade cert" that covers multi-node setup questions.

Remember that there are people who paid several hundred dollars for the certs and preperation by themselves. It doesn't matter if the certs are valid for three more years, by announcing the retirement they are lost now. 

I was preparing for the service desk certification, but now I can't get motivated to learn anymore for this certification. All the money and time spent preparing is lost. Thanks Atlassian :( 

[Taylor Huston]

So, first you screw over all of the small to medium businesses that rely on Server instances, forcing them to go to the still not completely viable Cloud or the much more expensive Data Center, and now you're screwing over the professionals who have built their careers around your Server products, helped "land and expand" your products, and have been instrumental in helping your company grow to the behemoth it is?

You went real evil real quick.

[Jeff Tillett]

It's funny, when the first big push on cloud came, I cited the certifications as a major problems. Certs were for server only, and the holders of the certs were the most vocal word of mouth advertisers for Atlassian. I know my company's Atlassian spend has more than tripled thanks to the expand motion of having multiple certified individuals promoting the products. 

Now the most vocal and influential users will be spreading word of mouth the opposite direction. I mean, if you're trying to get rid of us all so that you can focus on selling directly to C suites and PM's, and bypassing the people who actually do work, then I guess this is a success?

I've been hard at work all day researching product replacements for Jira, Jira Service Desk, Confluence, and Bitbucket all because of these two announcements. It just doesn't make sense for my career to promote this anymore, and I've been a Summit speaker and a two time case study participate. 

Atlassian heard my feedback early, and decided I didn't matter. Thanks for living up to your company values. /endsarcasm.

[David Reif]

If you are really living up to your "open company" values, you should explain the reasons why you don't convert the server certs to a DC cert. The topics between DC and server are 90-99% identical (a Confluence Server Space is a Confluence DC Space, a Server Agent queue is a DC queue, and so on)

I hope the following quote is familiar to you:

"Trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair"

[Taylor Huston]

Good thing I have been working on my AWS certs. Being an Atlassian admin is quickly becoming a less than viable career path.

[Deekshith Musthyala]

Hi,

This is not good .This is not expected from Atlassian because when admins choose Atlassian tools as their career and when they get certified there is a lot of hard work and failures they might have encountered to achieve that certification. I understand your business and profit associated to move everything to cloud but why would Atlassian admins who are certified need to loose their credentials. Atlassian need to give us a path to go to cloud like there need to be skill badges or something for existing certified admins to convert their credentials to cloud not invalidate them all together and start from scratch it doesn’t make sense that’s not morally right.

[Julia]

When Atlassian stops selling new Server licenses, most Server Certifications will be converted to Data Center Certifications.  In other words, depending on which Certifications you hold, some or all of your credentials will simply become Data Center credentials with no action needed from you!

[Ben Thoma]

@David Reif @Phill Fox @Rodney Nissen - ReleaseTEAM Please see @Julia 's comment. We've also added this info to the original article text (highlighted).

We continue to read everyone's feedback and acknowledge that these changes are not ideal for everyone.

[Patricia Francezi]

Service desk should be converted too. 

Considering that the base of cloud and dc for JSD is the same, don't understand why converting ACP-100 and 600 and not 400?

[Krishna]

I still don't understand why Atlassian can't convert all the existing server certifications to DC  certifications. Previously in the list ACP-100 was mentioned as it is going to retire and now it is taken back. In my opinion all the server related certifications need's to be retained and converted to DC certification's. There is lot of hard-work and dedication for each and every individual who holds these certification's.

[Patricia Francezi]

@Julia  and @Ben Thoma 

First comment I put above, i was reading from mobile. Communication is not clear, as we assume that "if is not in the list of

"Atlassian will continue to offer these Certifications:"

Then It will not be converted to DC.

I guess you might work on this text again. Would be helpful to know (except for 500, that is more related to the server itself and may require a new certification to replace), if 200, 300, 400 will be converted or not. 
Another question: Will 600 gain ACP status finally after the changes?

[Antoine Berry]

Atlassian is making it tough for us. Not even sure if we will be able to keep using Jira without Server licences, and losing my fresh certifications is not going to help on a personal level. :(

[Mirek]

When Atlassian stops selling Server licenses, some of our six Server credentials will become Data Center Certifications, with no action needed from you.

@Julia& @Ben Thoma  - This is the most important clarification that many of us was waiting for.. Overall I still do not get this why Server and DC was not simply merged into one project/offering called "On-Prem" or simply keep the name Server (just change the perpetual to subscription model.. ) and do not make that whole communication a big thing..

[Jeff Tillett]

With DC being recurring revenue, but with lower cost of overhead than SaaS, I simply cannot fathom why this is not acceptable for Atlassian. I've shared this feedback with numerous teams across Atlassian, but it seems like all of the hours of recorded calls I've had with teams all over the company was all for show, as nothing mattered in the end. Thanks for stringing me along.

Comments like "some of your certs" or "many of our certs" is yet another example of you stringing us along. Tell us which ones. Clearly. Succinctly. Explain to us why not all of them? If you can justify one, you can justify them all using the same justification. 

This seems like backpedaling with no concrete details because someone got scared that the biggest advocates of your products are beginning to turn their backs. 

After this grievous breach of trust, it's going to take more than thinly veiled, vague comments to try and earn our trust back. Obviously you ignored the feedback in this thread, so I will re-post it again for you here with full credit to @David Reif 

"Trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair"

[Taylor Huston]

I still don't know why things like the 300 and 400 are being retired? Those certs were just as applicable to a Data Center environment as they were Server? I have my 100 and 300, and wanted to get my 400 soon just to round it out, it's not like the knowledge that the 400 tests on doesn't apply to Data Center (the company I work for now has a Data Center Service Desk instance...). I can see how the 500 might want to be retooled to be more Data Center focused. Why not just keep the 300 and 400, maybe add some more Data Center stuff to the next version of them?