Atlassian Data Centre EOL Announcement – Keep Calm and Carry on

This week, Atlassian announced that support for its on-premise Data Center products will reach end-of-life (EOL) on March 28, 2029, catching much of the ecosystem off guard. While EOL for Data Center was always inevitable, the general consensus had been that it would occur much further in the future.

Atlassian states that 99% of its over 300,000 customers are already benefiting from the Cloud platform, and with nearly all new customers choosing cloud, the company's goal of becoming cloud-only prompted this decision to act now.

There's a small caveat, however. Atlassian did confirm that: "We’re committed to offering extended maintenance for certain Data Center customers by exception after March 28, 2029, ensuring you have the flexibility and support you need for a successful transformation."

In this blog, we will

• Summarise the announcement
• Highlight the key dates
• Provide an overview of the new/improved Atlassian Ascend and FastTrack programs to help make a transition to Cloud as smooth as possible for customers.

Which Products are Affected?

The following Data Center products will be affected by the recent announcement:

• Jira Software

• Jira Service Management

• Confluence

• Bamboo

• Crowd

Bitbucket and Jira Align is notably absent from this list.

Regarding Bitbucket, Atlassian acknowledged that “your source code is particularly sensitive, and it may take longer to move it to the cloud. In order to give you maximum flexibility for this data, we are offering a new license that provides both Bitbucket Data Center and Bitbucket Cloud access, so you can operate in whichever environment your business prefers going forward after EOL.”

The new look Bitbucket dual license will be available mid-2026, but we have no indication on how this will be priced.

No additional info regarding Jira Align was provided other than “Jira Align Data Center is not included in Data Center EOL”.

Timeline & Key Dates

In summary, it's business as usual for existing Data Centre customers until March 30, 2028.

After this date existing Data Centre customers will be unable to purchase marketplace apps or expand their existing Data Center licenses, as the official EOL date of March 28, 2029 approaches.

What Help is Available?

Atlassian has announced two new programs (Ascend and FastShift) which will provide additional support for customer upgrades and transformation to the cloud.

Atlassian Ascend: The Ascend program includes migrations resources, and key motions like Data Center EOL that will propel customers into a brighter future in Atlassian Cloud.

Atlassian FastShift: A new program designed to accelerate large-scale migrations from on-premise Data Center products to Atlassian Cloud, targeting organisations with over 1,000 users. It provides hands-on support through a dedicated team of experts, offering strategic guidance and tools to expedite the process—typically reducing migration timelines from 12-16 months to just 2-6 months while maximising cloud value.

Final Words

You may feel uneasy about the next steps, but it’s important not to panic or rush. We have considerable amount of time before the official EOL date,  and at Accxia we are here to support and guide you through the process. The Accxia team will be attending Team 25 in Barcelona in October, where we expect to be provided with more detail regarding the announcement and the ways in which Atlassian and partners can support customer cloud migrations, which we will share. 

In the mean time, please contact us for a free consultation / conversation on how you will be affected. We can also present our unique Atlassian approved, cost saving plugin - Intelligent User Manager, which can be leveraged to ensure budgets for a migration to cloud are not an issue.