Moving Confluence to the Cloud - Need Atlassian guidance

[Mireille Gennaro]

Our company needs professional guidance on how we can move Confluence from the server to the cloud.

Before we do this, we'd like to verify the following:

1. Are there any requirements that are needed before we make this transfer?

2. How would we go about transferring to the cloud?

3. Can we maintain "Anonymous" access once the transfer to the cloud is made? We restrict access to Confluence based on an approved IP address (organizations we have white-listed.) Does this still stand when moving to the cloud?

[Maren · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

We're excited to share some recent updates since this question was originally posted. Below are some updated answers to some of the questions posed.

New migration tools

We've recently released the Cloud Migration Assistant for Confluence, a free Atlassian-built app that helps you migrate all of your content and users to Confluence Cloud. At the time of this writing, you only need to be on version 5.10.0 and above of Confluence Server, rather than the latest version, to use the app.

If you use the migration assistant, you also shouldn't need to worry about import size limits. 

Migrating Confluence only

Yes, you can keep Jira Server and move Confluence from server to cloud. After migrating, if you want the two linked, you'll just need to set up links between the two. You may also need to consider how you will manage users across the two products after you migrate.

Migration support

While we do not offer professional services for migrations, our support team can help you plan your migration. 

For help with a full end to end migration, we also have a wide network of partners globally that are experienced in Atlassian migrations. Visit our Atlassian Partners page to find one who can help with your migration.

Additional resources

You can find all the information you need to plan, conduct, and optimize your migration at:

• Atlassian Cloud Migration Center
• Cloud migration documentation
• Plan your cloud migration
• Migration FAQs
• Cloud Migration Assistant for Confluence

I hope this helps, and please don't hesitate to reach out with additional questions. 

[Shannon S]

Hello Mireille,

1. The main requirement is that your Confluence Server application is completely up-to-date. A migration to Cloud should only be done with the most recent version of Confluence.
2. You will also want to make sure the data on your Confluence Server instance is small enough that it will successfully migrate to Cloud. I'm providing a link in the step below that will explain to you how you can check that.
3. If you are migrating to a Confluence-only Cloud instance, you can proceed following the instructions at Migrate from Confluence Server to Cloud. This includes making a backup of the destination Confluence Cloud instance and making a full site backup of the Confluence Server instance. These steps are outlined at the above link.
4. Finally, you can import the site backup into Confluence Cloud. At this point, you will then activate any compatible add-ons that you have been using on Confluence Server. Some add-ons will not be compatible with Cloud. You can find out if an add-on is available for Cloud by viewing it on marketplace.atlassian.com.

Just one thing to note; if you are migrating to a JIRA+Confluence Cloud instance, then it is only possible to migrate Confluence one space at a time. This will require you to export each space individually and re-import them onto the Confluence Cloud instance. See Import a Confluence Space for details on this.

Please take any time you need to review the above information, and if you have any questions at all, I'll be happy to answer them for you.

Kind Regards,

Shannon
Atlassian Support

[Mireille Gennaro]

Thank you, Shannon! I was starting to feel discouraged that no one wrote me back but your response is awesome. We have a few follow-up questions:

1. We do have JIRA + Confluence but what if we were to keep JIRA locally (not migrate it to the cloud); could we still migrate Confluence to the cloud? Could they be separated so to speak?

2.  Does Atlassian offer a service to migrate Confluence from the server to the cloud on behalf of an organization? If so, can you tell me how much this would be? We are extremely interested in completing this migration but with a lack of company resources (namely, no one to manage IT-related tasks such as this one) we don't have the bandwidth to make this happen as quickly as we'd like. And seeing the breakdown of what needs to occur on the front-end before the actual migration takes place, we are really quite limited on resources. Does Atlassian offer any Professional Services in this light?

Thank you!

[AnnWorley]

Shannon can still reply as well but I thought I would barge in if that's ok.

It is possible to have JIRA locally and Confluence in the Cloud, but there are a lot of caveats: Link to server apps from Cloud

Atlassian does not offer professional services but we have excellent Solution Partners. You may find one at: Find Solution Partners. The solution partner should have the expertise to manage the migration with minimal resources from your side. 

[Mireille Gennaro]

Thank you, Ann!!

[Mireille Gennaro]

Ann and/or Shannon,

Can you address this additional question I had posed initially?

3. Can we maintain "Anonymous" access once the transfer to the cloud is made? We restrict access to Confluence based on an approved IP address (organizations we have white-listed.) Does this still stand when moving to the cloud?

[AnnWorley]

You can allow anonymous access but it will be wide open - we don't have a way to restrict by source IPs (whitelist).

It has been suggested that we add the functionality:Allow customers to configure IP whitelist

Please vote for it so it will get more attention from the development team. You may also comment to emphasize your use case.

[Mireille Gennaro]

Thank you very much!

[Mireille Gennaro]

Ann Worley --

You've been very helpful with  my questions; I am hoping you can answer another one.

We just upgraded our Confluence to the latest version and now we are seeing a "duplicate" page tree in the panel on the left. This was not there before. What is this and how can we remove?

[Mireille Gennaro]

Nevermind -- I just figured it out!!! 

[Mireille Gennaro]

Ann -- I came across something else as a result of upgrading our Confluence.

I noticed some of the text (content on a published page) that was originally in black is now gray. This is especially prevalent in text boxes (macros) that I've placed on the page and have text entered into the box. Some of the text has become gray and other text has remained black. In the previous version, this was not the case -- all of the text is black -- as intended. Can you shed some light?