Atlassian Data Center is not ending someday. It has three dated gates, the first of which has already passed. If you run Jira, Confluence, or Jira Service Management on Server or Data Center, this article gives you the timeline, the decisions that matter, and a checklist you can complete before the end of the quarter.
The timeline, from Atlassian’s own announcement
| Date | What changes | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| March 30, 2026 | New Data Center licenses are no longer sold | You cannot add a new DC product; existing renewals continue |
| March 30, 2028 | No new purchases or expansions of DC products or DC Marketplace apps | User-tier growth stops; renewals only |
| March 28, 2029 | DC product and Marketplace app licenses become read-only | Users can view but not create or edit; effectively the end of service |
Source: Atlassian, “Reminder: upcoming changes to Data Center products,” March 2026. Bitbucket Data Center is excluded and continues under the Hybrid License.
Why 2028 is the real deadline, not 2029
Most organizations plan against the read-only date. The expansion freeze in March 2028 bites earlier. If a program grows, a division is acquired, or a Marketplace app needs more seats, you will have no way to buy them. Any migration that has not finished its last wave by early 2028 is exposed to growth it cannot license. Treat March 2028 as the date your last production wave must complete, and back-plan from there.
Four decisions to make this quarter
- Which cloud. Atlassian Cloud Enterprise covers most financial services and healthcare tenants with Guard Premium, data residency, and a 99.95% SLA. Atlassian Government Cloud (FedRAMP Moderate, now labeled Certification Class C) is for agencies, contractors, and state programs handling federal data. Isolated Cloud is for organizations that require single-tenant isolation by policy.
- What happens to each app. Every Marketplace app is a keep, replace, or retire decision. Cloud equivalents differ in data-migration support, and some vendors have no path at all. Decide app strategy in planning, not at cutover.
- How identity and compliance move. SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, MFA enforcement, and external-user policies live in Atlassian Guard. Map SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR requirements to Cloud controls before the first test migration.
- Who owns the cutover. A migration is a change program. Name a single accountable lead, a wave plan, and a hypercare period for each wave.
A 30-day checklist
- Inventory every instance, version, user count, app, and integration; run Atlassian’s Portfolio Insights readiness assessment.
- Archive or delete projects and spaces with no activity in 12 months; reduce what you migrate.
- Consolidate workflow schemes, screens, and custom fields; Cloud migrations surface every duplicate.
- Classify data and pick a data-residency region.
- Draft the app keep/replace/retire list and request vendor migration guides.
- Stand up a sandbox Cloud tenant and run the first test migration of a low-risk project.
- Write the wave plan with dates that end before March 2028.
What a migration actually costs
Three costs matter: the Cloud subscription delta (usually offset by retiring DC infrastructure and admin overhead), Marketplace app replacements, and the migration program itself. For small instances a migration runs six to ten weeks. Large, app-heavy, multi-instance environments run four to nine months in waves. The most expensive migration is the one that starts in late 2027.
Your licenses become read-only. Users can view content but cannot create or edit, and app licenses stop as well. In practice, no.
No. Bitbucket Data Center is excluded and continues under Atlassian’s Hybrid License.
Yes. It holds FedRAMP Moderate authorization, now labeled Certification Class C under the FedRAMP 20x terminology introduced in May 2026, with FedRAMP High and DoD IL5 as stated goals.
Talk to a practitioner
VTPMO runs Data Center to Cloud migrations on an 8-step roadmap with security, compliance, and app strategy decided up front.