How the State of Utah exited all Atlassian data centers years ahead of schedule and migrated to the cloud

A vision for the future

When the Utah Governor’s Office launched a strategic project to uncover the top pain points of various state agencies, they pinpointed several key challenges related to digital transformation: inability to securely access files when working remotely; development delays due to siloed teams and infrastructure; and the significant resources required to maintain and update server-based systems. A cloud migration presented the opportunity to solve these challenges and help teams across the state optimize their operations. "As essential workers, the State of Utah ran towards change,” says Atlassian Enterprise Advocate Elisa Aviles-Bodoin. “They did not shy away and saw this as an opportunity to really be the change they sought and lead their modernization practices into a new era. This empowered their teams to be efficient at an accelerated pace." 

Corona Ngatuvai, former Chief Technical Architect for Utah’s Department of Government Operations' Division of Technology Services (DTS), recalls that exploring a cloud migration also opened the door to modernize processes and tools in order to deliver faster, optimize budgets, and take advantage of cloud benefits. This would enable the organization to become more agile and deliver maximum output to Utah citizens with fewer resources.

Several teams across the State government were already using Atlassian tools, including Trello, Jira Software, Bitbucket, Confluence, and Atlassian Access. Trello had become particularly popular as an intuitive project management tool that anyone could learn fast. As it spread quickly and organically, many employees had created their own instances, thus unknowingly creating security risks. Fortunately, IT caught these issues with help from Atlassian Access and strategically reinforced to leadership the need for a more centralized, secure, cloud-based ecosystem to address pain points in addition to cost.

As Utah’s Department of Government Operations' Division of Technology Services (DTS) put together a cloud migration plan to present to leadership, they collaborated with Atlassian Enterprise Advocate Elisa Aviles-Bodoin to map out a phased migration strategy based on each agency’s readiness, budget, and license renewal timeline. This phased approach, along with providing transparency into the migration plan, helped gain buy-in from users and stakeholders in order to develop a new level of trust between constituents and partners.

After several conversations with key stakeholders within the State of Utah, the DTS team gained approval to migrate to Atlassian Cloud Enterprise and refocused on developing a plan to make the State’s vision a reality.

Multiple data centers, 1 iterative migration, 2.5 years ahead of schedule

As DTS planned the State’s migration, they opted to embrace cloud infrastructure in a hybrid model by migrating the state’s Atlassian software from data centers onto a multi-cloud network with single-domain support, while keeping a few special exceptions on servers at a smaller, state-run data center. 

The Department of Health and Human Services was the first to begin migrating their Atlassian tools to the cloud, with other agencies following suit. DTS used Jira Software Migration Assistant, Confluence Migration Assistant, Cloud Migration Manager, and an Atlassian Cloud Migration Support Engineer to help navigate the process. After legal and security reviews, the team audited each State agency’s Atlassian Marketplace apps to determine which ones should be moved to the cloud based on usage, requirements, and compatibility, as well as which ones would need to be modified or re-architected. 

Batch by batch, the State migrated agencies to Atlassian Cloud Enterprise after all reviews, audits, and mapping were complete. Corona’s role as a champion was key throughout this phased process. With his leadership and the collaboration of hundreds of colleagues across the state, Utah successfully completed their cloud implementation in June 2022. 

Corona continued to meet on a monthly basis with Atlassian Customer Success Manager Nicole Enriquez to review usage metrics for the State’s core Atlassian products and identify key features that were being underutilized. Using this data, Nicole and her Atlassian colleagues developed a strategic success plan to help the State maximize the value gained from the platform and maintain accountability for all parties to help meet the organization’s goals.

Unlocking efficiency and effectiveness in the cloud

Today, the State of Utah relies on an integrated ecosystem of Atlassian Cloud Enterprise tools to serve their constituents: Jira Software for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), Bitbucket for securely storing code, Trello for non-technical project management, Confluence for knowledge management, and Atlassian Access for single sign-on and enterprise-grade identity management. 

Together, these tools have helped teams across the state transform the way they work by aligning with higher level goals to implement SAFe agile development practices, consolidating 14 different project management systems prior to Jira, and benefiting from better provisioning with Jira Cloud for the future.

Perhaps nowhere have these improvements been more apparent than in software development. For example, IT teams throughout Utah’s agencies unlocked the ability to embrace DevSecOps by integrating security early and often using Atlassian collaboration and development tools. Although the perception is often that increasing Security’s involvement extends timelines, the State of Utah found the opposite to be true. 

Before, IT and Security operated as two separate departments. Security checks happened once IT was ready to deploy, which often lead to delays. Since migrating to the cloud, IT has been engaging Security earlier and often, helping over hurdles well in advance of implementation.

The State’s migration to Atlassian Cloud Enterprise also rapidly increased the speed with which IT can securely implement changes. The change control process used to take around two weeks, which was frustrating for developers. With their new Atlassian software development tools, change deployments now take less than 24 hours, and in some cases, minutes.

What’s more, cloud access has made it possible for more people to participate in the change management process. Change management meetings were being held every week by phone. By shifting to video calls, people can now join remotely or watch a recording if they can't attend. DTS applied this same approach to processes and meetings across the state, facilitating remote work and collaboration at all levels – making a meaningful improvement for current team members and adding attractive benefits for new employees.

Paving the way for transformation in Utah and beyond

In an era of unprecedented government transformation, the State of Utah completed a 100% data migration to the cloud in less than three years.

Today, the State's teams rely on Atlassian's agile tools to build, test, release, and continuously improve new applications and services. Modernizing their processes and platform with Jira and Confluence Cloud enabled developers to move from silos to a collaborative culture, resulting in faster, leaner, better delivery.

Utah may be one of the first state governments to fully migrate to Atlassian Cloud, but they surely won’t be the last. Although migrations are significant undertakings, Utah has demonstrated that with an iterative and strategic approach, passionate champions, a dedicated team, and collaborative support, the results are worth it. “Change always looks scarier before you begin,” says Trello Enterprise Advocate Diana Castiblanco. “Take it one step at a time, and know that Atlassian is here for support.”

This advice and guidance served the State of Utah well, and they hope to be a shining example for other states who also want to modernize for the benefit of their employees, constituents, and community.