Absolute Security’s Atlassian cloud migration unlocks collaboration & saves 100+ maintenance hours/year

Challenge: Absolute Security and the firm they acquired both had on-premise deployments of Jira and Confluence, which were approaching end of support. Firewalls prevented collaboration.

Solution: In partnership with Highway Three Solutions, Absolute migrated 20 development teams from two companies onto one secure Atlassian cloud platform within six months.

Impact: Teams can now easily collaborate with each other, spend time on innovation and optimization instead of maintenance, and access new tools to enhance end-to-end product development.

A journey toward collaboration and innovation

Over 21,000 enterprises, government agencies, and educational clients around the world trust Absolute Security (formerly Absolute Software) to ensure cyber resilience in the face of growing and ever-changing threats. Building a cutting-edge cyber resilience platform requires an equally strong, secure collaboration platform. For that, Absolute turns to Atlassian cloud.

Absolute’s teams originally started using Atlassian Server tools in 2016. After considering a cloud migration for many years, Absolute decided to make the switch in 2023 after acquiring another firm that had its own Atlassian Server products.

Since migrating 25 development teams from two companies onto one Atlassian cloud platform, Absolute has unlocked the ability to collaborate more efficiently across teams and organizations; saved hundreds of hours on maintenance and manual tasks; while uncovering new ways to help their customers – and their own company – become more resilient than ever.

Confirming security and picking the perfect partner

Absolute’s first two priorities were evaluating whether Atlassian cloud would meet their requirements and determining the best path for migration. Senior Program Manager Brendan Byers and his team had already vetted Atlassian tools’ capabilities in the cloud, but they needed to confirm security.

“Atlassian's security documentation facilitated the evaluation process for us. We could easily review a current SOC2 report and ensure the encryption, segmentation, and secure disposal of our data when no longer required,” he says. “Two-factor authentication and the ability to use our own identity provider were key. If our Security and Risk Team are confident in the security and minimizing risk, certainly I am,” he says.

Brendan then worked with his team to assess whether they could do the migration themselves. Although they had expertise and support from Atlassian, they realized bringing in a partner would offer additional knowledge and support. “If we were to do it ourselves, it would mean clearing the deck for myself and maybe one or two other people to focus on the migration full-time,” Brendan says. “When you’re managing your own products and projects, that’s just not feasible. Going with an external migration partner who does this repeatedly, with lessons learned from multiple migrations, made far more sense for us.”

Brendan reached out to fellow Canadian Highway Three Solutions as a Solution Partner because “Highway Three does this type of migration every other week.” Their specialization in complex migrations instilled confidence with Absolute that they could gain parity in the cloud and make the change as smooth as possible for users.

Many hands make light work – and smart solutions

Highway Three began the process with a pre-migration assessment. In addition to Absolute’s two servers running Jira and Confluence, Highway Three discovered the organization had a significant amount of data and multiple third-party apps.

To address these challenges and minimize issues, Highway Three developed a custom migration plan for the following six months. During that time, Highway Three and Absolute collaborated on data cleanup, app evaluation, platform setup, data migration using Jira Cloud Migration Assistant and Confluence Cloud Migration Assistant, user acceptance testing, training, and more.

Analyzing Absolute’s Marketplace app collection was particularly eye-opening. After reviewing their existing apps with Highway Three, Brendan and his team recognized that several weren’t being used or weren’t needed at all thanks to native functionality in the cloud. For example, a few apps needed for Absolute’s legacy single sign-on program would no longer be needed once they had Atlassian Guard in the cloud. The team had also relied on ScriptRunner for automation, which could be replaced by Atlassian Automation in the cloud. Through this analysis, Absolute found that the native functionality of Atlassian cloud could reduce the number of apps that needed to be migrated by 20%.

Although the preparation process was relatively smooth, the team did face a few challenges, as is normal with any large project. For instance, the change log for one of Absolute’s vital Marketplace apps had grown to the point that it was too large to migrate. With support from Highway Three and Atlassian, they cleaned up the data and reduced the file size so it could be moved to the cloud.

“Highway Three helped the process feel less overwhelming, facilitate problem-solving, and achieve our deadlines,” Brendan says. Natasha Martens with Highway Three adds, “This project was a joy to be part of. It is a good example of a cloud migration not only because it went well in the end, but also because there were challenges that we overcame together.”

Smooth cloud migrations: impossible alone

As Absolute inched closer to launch, they prepared to complete the process over one weekend. The final stages of the migration went smoothly, and Brendan says users were pleasantly surprised at how uneventful the official launch was, thanks to extensive preparation and communication. “Confluence and Jira served as our central hub during the process, ensuring transparent collaboration and communication among team members throughout the whole migration…Everyone was very concerned about the switch, but the teams weren’t disrupted and were able to carry on their work.”

People were not only relieved that the switch didn’t interrupt their work but also that they could finally collaborate with one another. “Our biggest challenge was that several of our teams couldn’t collaborate. They had their own Jira Server system behind a separate set of firewalls. Being on one cloud instance allows cross-organization collaboration that simply wasn’t possible before,” Brendan explains. “For example, when we had to make design changes to one product in the past, we had to export PDFs to share with other teams who would be affected. Now, we can just share links to the relevant Jira ticket or Confluence page.”

Efficiency, visibility, and security in one comprehensive cloud platform

Today, departments across both companies are coming together on the Atlassian cloud platform to collaborate as they build and maintain Absolute’s products. Development and operations teams manage their work in Jira Cloud, while relying on Confluence Cloud as their connected workspace to collaborate with product and finance teams.

“It’s vital to have communication and a shared understanding of the work. More than anything, it’s about getting the right features out to customers as quickly as possible,” Brendan says. “With Jira, we can compartmentalize and break down work into small chunks. And Confluence helps us see the big picture, long-term plans, and links to details.”

Absolute’s users have also loved using Automation rules in Atlassian cloud to save time on manual tasks (like cloning frequently used epics and subtasks) and self-serve in certain areas that used to require technical support. “We had Scriptrunner, which did a lot of powerful automation but required a lot of knowledge to work it. With the Automation tools, team members have a low-code/no-code solution. They have taken to it like ducks to water,” Brendan says. “It allows teams a certain degree of freedom to work the way they work best.”

Absolute is maintaining freedom and security with help from Atlassian Guard. The team previously integrated their on-premises deployments with Azure Active Directory for access management. Migrating to the cloud not only enabled them to maintain this integration for continuity, but also take advantage of new features for greater control and visibility. Brendan explains, “We have found that the new controls within Atlassian Guard offer a more comprehensive overview of current usage and users…The Discovered Products feature also provides us with reassurance in addressing shadow IT, although fortunately we haven't needed to use it thus far.”

Less maintenance frees up time to focus and innovate

Absolute’s Atlassian admins are enjoying the newfound freedom of working on the cloud just as much as users are. Now that they don’t have to worry about server maintenance or security updates, Brendan’s team has been able to redirect their focus toward more strategic endeavors.

“Before, we had to pull people off their main initiatives for a day or two each month to do maintenance. By freeing them up, they have over 100 more hours every year to spend on our own development pipeline, which is the crucial aspect of our business,” he says. “The enhanced security framework has not only fortified our data protection but has also liberated resources and reduced the need for constant security monitoring.”

Brendan has dedicated some of the time he previously spent on maintenance exploring new tools that could help Absolute optimize different phases of their product development process. For instance, he sees how Atlas could help many teams stay aligned and how Jira Product Discovery could support ideation and prioritization.

“We’re rapidly seeing Jira Product Discovery be a big boon to our ideation process. We used to have a variety of documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoints. Having a Jira issue as the central spine of Jira Product Discovery allows us to do a lot more in terms of organizing and getting our product ideas in the right order,” Brendan says.

Brendan has also been experimenting with Confluence databases for organizing data across multiple sources. “Confluence Databases enable us to consolidate vital information into a unified location, eliminating the need for copying and pasting data across various pages within our instance,” he adds. “A single change can now be disseminated across multiple pages and even other databases. We have only scratched the surface of how it can streamline our processes, saving time and establishing a definitive single source of truth.”

Cyber threats are constantly evolving, so Absolute must always be one step ahead with its ideas and implementation. Now that their teams are working together on Atlassian cloud, they feel more equipped than ever to help their customers – and company – maintain cyber resilience.