Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2024 23:10:26 +1100 (AEDT) Message-ID: <1635760440.280.1711714226577@radish-2023.lxd> Subject: Exported From Confluence MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_Part_279_1404198040.1711714226571" ------=_Part_279_1404198040.1711714226571 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: file:///C:/exported.html
When buying Atlassian products, you have a choice: host JIRA and Confluenc=
e on your own hardware, or let Atlassian do the hosting:
Should you self-host, or go with Atlassian Cloud hosting?
=20It is worth considering for a moment how unique this is. The industry ha= s moved strongly to a SaaS, subscription model. Virtually every new product= management app these days is SaaS-only. Companies love it when th= ey have your data, a steady income stream, and fewer environments to suppor= t. Customers mostly like SaaS too - who wants to spend their time maintaini= ng software?
So why do we strongly recommend self-hosting ?&= nbsp; In short: if you don't self-host, you miss out on the plugin= s, extensibility and integration possibilities that make Atlassian products= really great.
JIRA and Confluence have a thriving plugin ecosystem, visible at https://marketplace.atlassian.com.
Plugins are why you can't go wrong with JIRA and Confluence: you're not = just buying a product, you're buying into a platform upon which hundreds of= companies are madly building and making lots of money.
The dirty secret is this: most plugins don't work on Atlassian's= Cloud-hosted version. Here are logarithmic graphs showing plugins= by popularity (as per marketplace.atlassian.com stats), excluding unmainta= ined plugins incompatible with the past 3 releases.
Blue plugins are self-hosted= only, red are cloud-ready, and= yellow are cloud-only.
There is not a lot of red.
Things are improving for Cloud customers. Atlassian is pushing it's new = cloud-compatible 'Connect' plugin framework, and in the 2015 Summit, Mike notes that Cloud-compatible plugins have grown f= rom 50 to 300 in a year. If you consider only the top 50 plugins, the situa= tion looks better:
However, given that:
it seems likely that outside the money-making top 50, the "long tail" co= mprising the vast majority of plugins will never be Connect-enabled.
This applies especially to Confluence. Your wiki does not exist in a vac= uum.
How about embedding HTML or Javascript,= e.g. an iframe of your latest build results, or widgets on the web
A Javascript clock widget |
Javascript pulling JSON from the web to render a table |
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|
Latest produ= ct versions |
The second most popular JIRA plugin, Sc= riptRunner, is not available for Cloud. Script Runner (aka Groovy plugi= n) adds a fantastic degree of extensibility to JIRA. One can script up new = custom fields, new behaviours (e.g. show field X if field Y has th= is value), run arbitrary code on workflow transitions, expose custom R= EST endpoints, and so forth.
Adaptavist now have a 'Cloud' version of ScriptRunner, but don't be fool= ed: the Cloud version is virtually worthless, lacking proper scripted fields, Behaviours, REST = endpoints, and workflow conditions/validators.
Most data loss is caused by user error - an admin accidentally deletes t= he wrong space or project, or performs a bulk update on Jira issues that go= es wrong.
If you self-host, you'll probably have backups, and can restore whatever= needs restoring.
If you are on Cloud and delete a space or delete = a project, you're out of luck: Atlassian have backups, but they're not going to restore them for you. Is th= ere a difference between a backup you can't restore and no backup at all?= p>
With self-hosted, your data is yours:
Note that it is possible (with some effort) to move from self-hosted to cloud, and cloud to self-hosted
All these Cloud hosting limitations are itemized on the Restricted functions in JIRA Cloud applications page (and children),= but the implications are not spelled out. Essentially, new Atlassian Cloud= customers don't know what they're missing. They get the products, goo= d in themselves, but without the extensibility and ecosystem that makes the= m truly great. Frustrating limitations are encountered one by one, by vario= us users, and a desire for change never overcomes corporate inertia.
Put another way: Cloud has undeniable benefits and shortcomings, but the= se are asymmetrically felt: the benefits are financial and up-front (reduce= d IT burden), liked by managers, whereas the shortcomings are unclear, disc= overed over time as daily frustrations and paper cuts, felt by dis-empowere= d end users who have no say in purchasing.
If your company wants the full flexibility of self-hosted, the costs com= e at four levels:
Red Radish offers services which we like to think gives you the best of = both worlds:
Please contact us if you'd like to discuss, or find an Atlassian Expert near you.