Mercedes-Benz drives innovation on the low-maintenance, high-performance Atlassian cloud platform

Gaining confidence in the cloud

Mercedes-Benz had originally chosen Data Center deployments for their Atlassian tools for security and compliance reasons. 

However, several things changed over the years, including the launch of data residency on Atlassian cloud, encouraging Mercedes-Benz to revisit the decision to migrate to the cloud.  Not only was their IT team growing more encumbered with maintenance responsibilities, but the Atlassian cloud platform also had matured and began offering customers more control over where their data is stored. “With data centers, we had to maintain a big team that was only checking networks, seeing if servers were running, installing updates, checking availability, things like that. With Atlassian cloud, everything regarding server maintenance is done for us, and there’s less downtime and better performance,” Mehmet says. 

What’s more, Mercedes-Benz hired an independent information security architect, who analyzed Atlassian cloud tools and gave the company added confidence in their decision. 

While Mercedes-Benz was already leaning toward migrating to the cloud, Mehmet recalls a conversation that resolved one of the team’s biggest hesitations: the ongoing need to add users as the company grows. “We’re at about 30,000 users, and we’re going to need more. We did an Enterprise License Agreement with Atlassian, so we pay one time and that’s it. It’s really nice because we don’t have to negotiate every year,” he says. 

Feeling even more sure that Atlassian cloud would meet their requirements, solve their pain points, and make change management easier, Mercedes-Benz opted to officially migrate and create their Modern Collaboration Platform powered by Atlassian cloud. 

Preparations, communication, and partnership made this migration “as smooth as possible”

As Mercedes-Benz prepared for their migration, they began by showing admins of existing Jira Software projects and Confluence spaces the differences between Data Center and Cloud, then giving them the option of whether to migrate now or in the future. All data centers would eventually be sunset, but the company hoped giving users choices at first would help make the transition smoother. 

Out of almost 7,000 projects and spaces across their Atlassian solutions, admins chose to migrate about 1,000 Jira Software projects and almost 1,500 Confluence spaces (over 30,000 users total) to MCP to take advantage of new features and benefits, such as better performance and automation.

For the next six months, the MCP team completed in-depth preparations using Jira Cloud Migration Assistant and Confluence Cloud Migration Assistant; tested the new solutions; and communicated with users to inform and train them about the upcoming changes. Then, the team migrated the projects and spaces in four-week waves so they could learn from each one and help employees customize their solution.

Through each step, the migration team worked closely with admins through Jira Service Management tickets to review, test, and approve each project and space before moving them. The team also collaborated with partners at Atlassian on both a strategic and execution level. “We were having weekly migration calls internally to organize migration waves and check for problems. Once Atlassian joined those calls, problems were solved much faster, and the whole process was much easier,” Mehmet says. 

About a year after starting the process, Mehmet and his team seamlessly finished the final wave of the migration. “We heard no complaints,” Mehmet recalls. “The migration was as smooth as possible.”

30,000+ users discover the perks of their new cloud platform

Now over 30,000 users are discovering the beauty of using their Atlassian tools on the cloud. Self-service options, automation, and higher uptime have saved countless hours of toil. For example, the process for creating a new project or space has been significantly streamlined on the cloud. “Before, there was too much manual work involved with creating new projects, spaces, and customizations. Users had to file tickets and wait for someone to respond. Now, they can do it themselves in a couple of minutes,” Mehmet says. Plus, with less administrative work required, the MCP team can spend their time on higher-value work. “We can focus on more complex use cases and consult with people more,” he explains. 

Working on the cloud has also provided access to valuable new features and tools. For instance, Mercedes-Benz maintained their high security standards and simple login process with cloud’s multi-factor authentication and Atlassian Access single sign-on. Certain departments also enjoyed using Jira Service Management so much during the migration that they spotted opportunities to apply the tool to external customer service too, which would not have been possible on the company’s Data Center deployment. 

“To be competitive, we have to enable R&D, Support, and all our teams,” Mehmet says. “We do that by making it easier for them to collaborate with each other and enabling them to work faster on the cloud.” 

Fewer resources needed for maintenance means more time for strategy and service

While their Atlassian cloud migration was a massive initiative for Mercedes-Benz, they’re now driving fast into the future and not looking back. Migrating has already made noticeable impacts on resourcing, availability, and performance, which will no doubt continue to improve over time. 

“Other companies are dealing with downtime and rising server costs. But not us,” Mehmet says proudly. He and the MCP team are also enjoying being able to focus more on people than platform maintenance. “Our old team was 80 people and managed 11-12 applications. Now we’re a team of 15 managing 3-4, and the old team is managing other important work. It’s much easier to manage, and we have more time to talk to our customers, do more consultation, and get more involved in their work.” 

Users are feeling the difference too. Mehmet says he has heard feedback that those who experienced latency before have noticed how much faster the system is on the cloud, no matter where in the world they’re working. 

Overall, Mehmet feels their migration was the right decision and encourages others to make the shift too. “Create a free organization in Atlassian cloud and try it out. It will be worth it.”