Amadeus watched productivity take off after connecting 20k+ employees on Confluence Cloud Enterprise

Challenge: Amadeus, a global travel technology firm headquartered in Spain, wanted to offload maintenance, improve system speed and performance, and get access to new features for productivity and user satisfaction.

Solution: Amadeus partnered with Atlassian to migrate more than 20,000 people across 11,000 spaces to Confluence Cloud Enterprise.

Impact: Productivity, efficiency, and security have improved on the cloud. Engineers can focus on higher-value work, and users are freeing up time with features like automation and Rovo.

Embarking on a cloud journey for productivity, performance, and protection

Every year, more than 180,000 travel agencies and airline sales offices use Amadeus to book trips for almost two billion passengers around the world. The company powers the travel and tourism industry in its home country of France and around the world with advanced technology from ticketing platforms and passenger service systems, to travel intelligence, flight management, and more.

Amadeus employees have long used Atlassian tools to build and deliver their world-renowned travel solutions. Confluence in particular grew in popularity as the teams’ collaborative workspace. 

After first implementing Confluence Server and then migrating to Data Center, adoption grew to more than 18,000 people. With the company’s user base continuing to expand, they needed a high-performance solution that could help them scale and innovate.

 To provide the best technology for their customers, Amadeus set out to do the same for their employees by migrating to Confluence Cloud Enterprise, powered by AWS. The company’s ambitious cloud journey has increased performance, productivity, security, and satisfaction – not only improving the employee experience, but also supporting their mission: to make the travel experience better for everyone, everywhere. 

Packing list: Phased approach ✅ Expert support ✅
Enterprise plan ✅ 

While company-wide cloud transformations are daunting, Amadeus’ Collaboration and Content Management Services Team knew the work would be worth it to alleviate resource-intensive maintenance, improve operations, and elevate the user experience. “Atlassian’s vision for cloud was aligned with ours,” says Head of Collaboration Hermann Jahn. “We were striving to achieve operational excellence, free up highly skilled engineers, and take advantage of cloud functionality and integrations.”

In partnership with Atlassian, Hermann and his team began migrating 11,000+ Confluence spaces – more than 1.4 TB of data – from Data Center to Cloud Enterprise. The migration was complex not only due to the size of Amadeus’ instance, but also because of the 25+ third-party apps, intricate integrations, and custom apps. Amadeus worked closely with Atlassian to map out the journey, create a phased migration plan, and work through each wave – all while guiding users through the process to make it as smooth and successful as possible. 

“Atlassian supported us tremendously to tweak and tune throughout the migration journey. They also helped us develop functionality, customizations, and integrations in the cloud, such as connecting our Active Directory with Atlassian Guard for enterprise security and single sign-on,” Hermann recalls. “That’s also one of the reasons we chose the Cloud Enterprise plan. We wanted integrations like Guard and Active Directory for the utmost security, plus a 99.95% uptime guarantee, 24/7 enterprise support, and audit logging for greater visibility into user activity.”

Fewer pains, plus productivity gains

Wave by wave, Atlassian and Amadeus collaborated to move thousands of Confluence users and spaces to the cloud. Completing the migration not only saved valuable resources previously tied up in maintenance, but also improved security and unlocked access to new features and functionality.

“By migrating to Confluence Cloud, we shifted all responsibility for the infrastructure to Atlassian, which freed up two highly skilled engineers who are now able to focus on other projects that move the needle. On top of that, we increased our security level by ensuring our instance is always up to date,” says Hermann.

While Amadeus worked through the migration, usage continued to increase as the company grew and more people discovered how much faster and easier it is to collaborate on the cloud. 

“Almost the whole company relies heavily on Confluence Cloud, from engineering and product, to HR, finance, and marketing,” Hermann says. “It’s our daily routine and single source of truth. The more people we add to Confluence, the more productive we get.”

Using the Cloud Fortified App Program and native cloud features, like AI, automation, and tighter integrations with other daily tools (like Microsoft Teams), have taken productivity, performance, and security to another level. “The Cloud Fortified Apps Program was a game changer because the apps, privacy, and security improved significantly,” Hermann says.

Product Manager Arunkumar Mohan adds that users are enjoying how much easier certain tasks are with cloud features like AI and automation. “AI and automation are icing on the cake. With Atlassian Automation, you can just type a sentence using natural language, and it creates an automation rule for you. This enhances the user experience, especially for developers who use Confluence and Jira together,” he explains. “Using Rovo along with Confluence has increased the efficiency and productivity of our people. It’s like advanced search, giving us direction to go forward.”

Looking ahead to the next destination

Now that the migration is complete, Hermann’s team is already planning the next phase of Amadeus’ Atlassian cloud journey. Leaders have set several goals that they hope to achieve with their Atlassian cloud platform, such as:

• Give users back 10% of their time by expanding AI capabilities and connecting more teams and tools

• Elevate security and governance with Atlassian Guard Premium and third-party integrations

• Train more employees on how to get the most value out of Rovo

• Enable guest accounts for a smoother, secure customer experience

“Our team’s objective is to improve the user experience and free up time for our employees so they can focus on upskilling themselves, participating in other programs, and advancing the business,” Arunkumar says. “That’s the main advantage of working on Atlassian cloud.”