Nadica Gaber and Trajche Nikolovski are going to be speakers on our upcoming remote event on November 25th, 'Development is seamless and easy with Atlassian tools'.

The difficulty of managing several tools, combined with the difficulty of automating the process can be a barrier to getting software into the hands of customers faster. Has automated delivery using Atlassian tools improved the process?

Igor Totic: Automation is key in many parts of different processes. If we manage to automate even a tiny part of the process, we managed to save a huge amount of time and effort. Automation also enables us to reduce human errors in the process which saves managers headaches and lowers work-related stress. Atlassian has an extensive kit of automation tools throughout their products. This includes, but is not limited to, workflow conditions, triggers, post-functions, project-wide and global automation rules, Bitbucket pipelines, and many others. By combining all of these functionalities, we can configure a fully automated process based on customer’s needs.

How can a development project be planned and organized in Jira?

Nadica Gaber: Jira comes with built-in Agile functionalities such as “backlog,” “active sprint board,” and “version hub” which enable people involved into the development process to be able to easily plan, organize, and work on the development project. High level overview as well as drill-down ticket functionalities enable high visibility and ease of access to ensure quick response times and agile approaches to new features or bug resolutions. With seamless integration with other A,/tlassian tools, such as BitBucket, we can easily control the creation of branches, push and pull requests, and communication within Jira, without having to “surf” the applications. 

What are Bitbucket Deployments and how can they bring visibility into all software release process steps?

Trajce Nikolovski: Bitbucket Deployments are built-in functionalities in the BitBucket Cloud that enable the developers to build, test, and deploy their code on multiple environments with ease and control. All development steps can be tracked via Jira tickets so that the complete development process is highly visible and transparent. There is no need for developers to “chase down” information from other developers or from other resources since everything is kept in one place – the Jira ticket. 

Let’s talk about another topic. As of February 2nd, 2021, Atlassian will no longer be selling its new perpetual server licences. What benefits does the cloud-based Atlassian strategy bring?

Vlatko Bojkovski: We know that this news could frighten some users of the current server setup or even puzzle future potential users. However, Atlassian is prepared to help the partners and the clients seamlessly move to Cloud and offers greater functionalities and support for future customers. By moving to cloud, customers will have a great reduction in costs since they will no longer have to invest in the in-house infrastructure. Accessing a new instance for any Atlassian cloud product is done with a few clicks and you are up and running. There is no more need for upgrades and scalability is much easier on the cloud. Basically, Atlassian takes care of anything infrastructure-related and the customer instances are always up to date (no more need to plan robust server upgrades and test environments, everything is done instantly and is stable). By moving to Cloud, customers are always up to date with the latest features, and since Atlassian is now fully committed to the Cloud, new features are expected on a regular basis. All new features are announced ahead, so customers can always plan on improving their processes with the new features. 

What are the main challenges of implementing the cloud-based solutions in one company?

Igor Totic: Customers are always concerned about their data safety and availability. Atlassian is always investing in security and have a comprehensive set of security features available to the customers. They are focusing on removing single point of failures and user errors can only affect the user’s instance (only admins). Data protection is high on Atlassian’s list, making sure to keep communication with the customers transparent regarding data residency (which is always a global challenge). Availability is another challenge for cloud-based solutions, but Atlassian guarantees 99.9% uptime for Premium solutions and 99,95% for Enterprise solutions. Server solutions always required someone from the company to take care of them and have quick troubleshooting options, but now the challenge is that there is no backend access on the cloud. Atlassian’s support center offers 24/7 support for Premium customers and weekly 9-5 support for Standard customers. 

How can Seavus guide the companies by deciding which solution will be more suitable – the Atlassian Cloud or Atlassian Data Center?

Vlatko Bojkovski: Seavus thrives on challenges and on solving them. As Atlassian Gold Partners, this is one of our main goals. All customer stories are different and can have different challenges that require different solutions. Our experts talk to clients and analyze the best case and usage for the potential client. We do not offer one or the other but try to find the best solutions that will bring added value and exceed the customer’s expectations. Atlassian Data Center is focused more on Enterprise solutions that require more time to setup and configure so we could provide the best performance and stability. Atlassian Data Center customers are mostly enterprise customers that require specific rules and regulations regarding data access, data control, data localization, performance, disaster recovery, and traffic control. Atlassian Cloud provides quick and easy setup for customers that need an immediate solution, fast results, and ROI. 

How easy is it to migrate from Atlassian Server to Atlassian Cloud for existing customers? What are the most common challenges?

Nadica Gaber: On paper, it is simple to migrate from server to cloud. Assuming the server instance is not large and is mostly configured with out-of-box features, the migration is done via an official Migration Tool that does the work for you. Simply connecting the server to the cloud instance starts the migration process and when it is complete you are good to go. However, most customers try to maximize their usage of Atlassian tools, so they use different addons, custom fields, custom reports, and maybe even some scripted fields. This is how Jira and other Atlassian tools are meant to be used, but this provides some challenges when migrating. Luckily, Seavus Atlassian engineers have vast migration knowledge and experience that allows us to identify potential challenges easily and early on before the migration. One of those challenges are user migrations when using different Active Directories, User Provisioning to accommodate the customer, specific custom fields that cannot be populated via the tool, and links to other integrated systems. These are just a few challenges we have faced and tackled through our extensive migration experience. 

How can Seavus help improve the usability and the purpose of the Atlassian tools and help customers find their desired solution or process?

Trajce Nikolovski: Seavus Atlassian experts have broad experience with different industries and ITIL best practices. This enables us and makes us accountable to quickly and thoroughly analyze the existing customer’s processes, identify areas for improvement, and adapt the tools accordingly. Our Atlassian certified engineers always strive to go a few steps forward to provide added value, automate as much as possible, and showcase the vast capabilities of the used tools. We provide analysis for ITSM, DevOps, PM, and process solutions and try to improve them using our experience and knowledge. 

Register for our upcoming remote event here.