The Commonwealth Bank has initiated a migration to cloud-based versions of Atlassian software, starting with the migration of 25,000 Jira users to Atlassian Cloud in November last year. A similar migration is currently underway for its Confluence environment. The decision to move to the cloud was driven by performance issues observed with the on-premises instance of Jira in late 2021. The bank’s growing adoption of agile and DevOps principles and tooling necessitated a shift to a more scalable and efficient solution.
In 2022, the Commonwealth Bank successfully migrated 25,000 Jira users to Atlassian Cloud, a decision that was initially impeded by data residency requirements for regulatory approval. However, through collaboration with Atlassian engineers, the bank was able to pin its cloud instance to an Australian data center, ensuring compliance with regulatory obligations. The migration process involved careful planning and consideration of potential challenges, such as data migration, team interdependencies, and technical differences between the on-premises and cloud versions.
During the migration, a 60-hour window was allocated, with Jira operating in read-only mode for most of the duration to minimize disruption to users. The migration was executed over a Thursday-to-Friday night, and on Monday morning, all users seamlessly transitioned to Atlassian Cloud. The project team, comprising CBA and Atlassian engineers, worked closely onsite throughout the pre-migration, migration, and post-migration phases to ensure a smooth transition.
With the successful migration of Jira, the Commonwealth Bank plans to proceed with a similar migration for Confluence, its collaboration tool, which will involve shifting 30,000 users from an on-premises version to a cloud-based version. This transition is expected to unlock the full potential of the platform within the bank, further enhancing collaboration and productivity.
