Alluvium are Trusted Solution Partner of Atlassian

The State of Utah Successful Migration to Atlassian Cloud

Facing a wave of retirements and a need for modern tools, Utah’s Division of Technology Services accelerated its Atlassian Cloud migration, completing it years ahead of schedule. The shift has improved collaboration, cut deployment times, and transformed state operations.

90%+

Faster change reviews after cloud migration

2.5 years

Ahead of original migration schedule

1 system

13 project management systems eliminated

The Division of Technology Services (DTS) is the information technology (IT) service provider for the executive branch of the State of Utah, offering state agencies a wide variety of services. The vision of DTS is to be a technology leader that delivers value and simplifies the lives of Utah residents.

INDUSTRY

Government

LOCATIONS

Americas

NUMBER OF USERS

2,600

The State of Utah, through its Division of Technology Services (DTS), undertook a rapid digital transformation by migrating all Atlassian software to a cloud-based infrastructure. This move was driven by the upcoming retirement of a large portion of the workforce and the need to attract new talent by modernizing operations and supporting remote work.

“We upgraded to Jira and Confluence Cloud, which allowed our developers to move from silos to a collaborative culture, resulting in an overall faster, leaner, better team.”

CORONA NGATUVAI

Chief Technical Architect, Division of Technology Services

Challenges and Strategic Objectives

The State anticipated a “silver tsunami” of retiring employees, highlighting the need to retain institutional knowledge and make state jobs attractive to younger workers, who prefer flexibility and telework options. Launched in 2018, Utah’s telework initiative aimed to fully migrate state data from on-premises servers to the cloud by 2025. However, the COVID-19 pandemic expedited this plan, leading the State to complete the transition 2.5 years ahead of schedule.

Implementation Approach

The DTS developed a phased migration strategy, initially deploying cloud solutions across agencies, such as the Department of Human Services, while using a hybrid model to retain a few on-premises servers for specific functions. Using tools like the Jira Software Migration Assistant and Confluence Migration Assistant, the State migrated each agency’s data and systems in batches, ensuring compliance with legal and security protocols. This gradual approach facilitated a smoother adoption process and allowed stakeholders to adjust incrementally, fostering greater buy-in.

Impact and Outcomes

The migration dramatically improved collaboration and efficiency across Utah’s government. By using Jira, Bitbucket, Trello, Confluence, and Atlassian Guard, state teams established a unified framework for project management and software development. This enabled the State to implement agile practices and optimize project transparency, leading to faster, higher-quality service delivery. For example, development cycles that previously took weeks were reduced to under 24 hours, accelerating change management and deployment processes.

Long-term Vision

As one of the first state governments to complete such a comprehensive migration, Utah’s success serves as a model for other states. This cloud migration has not only modernized Utah’s development environment but also enabled agile practices, bolstering transparency and enhancing the work culture. Utah’s leadership believes their achievements will encourage other government agencies to pursue similar transformations, proving that incremental, collaborative approaches can deliver substantial and lasting benefits.