If any of these sound familiar, you’re likely feeling the pressure to get ready for your own migration. While change can feel overwhelming, migrating to Atlassian Cloud can be a seamless transition with the right preparation and planning.

According to Atlassian, it’s well worth the effort — more than 75% of their customers see benefits within three months of migrating to Cloud from either Server or Data Center (DC). 

This article aims to answer any initial questions you might have about migrating Refined along with your Atlassian platform, but you can visit our migration center for more-detailed documentation plus feature comparisons, migration support, and more.

Learn the difference between Refined on Server/DC and Cloud

There are more similarities between Refined on Cloud and on Server/DC than there are differences. Despite that, it’s nice to know what the practical differences are. 

Off the bat, whether you are using it for Confluence, Jira Service Management, or both, the most important things to know about using Refined on Cloud versus on Server/DC are:

• On Server/DC, Refined acts as a skin on top of your Confluence or JSM instance — everything is done in the same interface. But on Cloud, Refined is a site that runs parallel to your Atlassian instance.
• On Cloud, users do most of their work in native Confluence or JSM, but the content is published on the Refined site where it’s accessible in a navigable, branded, and user-friendly way.

Because Refined on Cloud is separate from your Atlassian environment, you’ll enjoy some added benefits:

• You can have many sites that users access from the URLs of your choosing. An intranet living at one URL, a documentation site living at another, for example. In fact, there is no limit to the number of Refined sites you can build from one Atlassian platform.
• You can build sites that blend functionality from Confluence and Jira Service Management (if you have both Refined Sites for Confluence and Refined Sites for Jira Service Management).
• Sites contain only the content from Confluence or JSM that you want them to, and each site can use a unique mix of Confluence spaces and/or JSM portals. Plus you can use the same content on different sites if you choose. For example, one Confluence knowledge base space could live on multiple, separate support sites simultaneously. Or request types from one JSM portal could live on a number of separate support sites.

Watch a demo of Refined Sites for Confluence or JSM.

Pricing and billing 

Understanding the cost and payment structure on Cloud is crucial as you scope the full impact of your migration. You’ll be charged for Refined and Atlassian at the same time and at the same intervals. If you’re paying for Atlassian yearly, you’ll do the same for Refined.

The Atlassian Marketplace will automatically select the appropriate user tier based on the size of your Atlassian license. For Refined Sites for Confluence, this is based on the amount of users. For Refined Sites for Jira Service Management, it’s based on the number of agents or users, whichever is greater. 

Note that we’ve made the pricing for our Cloud products more flexible, with more user tiers than Server and Data Center. Read more about pricing here.

Data residency 

The biggest difference between Cloud and Server/DC is of course where your data is hosted. When you’re using Refined on Cloud, you’re able to choose between hosting your data in the US or the EU. This might be crucial to you depending on rules and regulations that affect your organization, particularly if you operate in a tightly regulated industry like finance, defense, or healthcare. 

For a full feature comparison of Server/DC and Cloud, check out our help site. 

Key benefits of using Refined Sites on Cloud

Cloud promotes flexibility as you don’t have to worry about the hardware or the server-side maintenance. On top of all that, you have the ability to combine Refined Sites for Confluence and/or JSM with other apps on the marketplace, giving you the possibility to build customizations that simply aren’t possible on Server/DC. 

Here are some of the features that stand out on Cloud:

It’s always up-to-date

Hosting Refined on Cloud lets us update the product as frequently as needed and gives you real-time access to the latest features Refined has to offer. You get a fresher Refined experience and a constantly improving product.

What-you-see-is-what-you-get site-building

Our newly launched Page Builder is intuitive, and makes it easy to build beautiful and navigable landing pages. You see exactly what you build — while building — making it easy even for the inexperienced site builder. Learn more about it here.

One instance, multiple sites

On Cloud, you get to build as many sites, public or private, as needed — all from the same Confluence and JSM instances. That way, you can build customized sites for every use case that your organization has, without the hassle of setting up a myriad of Confluence and JSM instances. Explore common Refined use cases here.

You can use Confluence & JSM together in new, more powerful ways

If you’re using both Confluence and JSM in your organization, you can get more out of each by using them together on a Refined site. In addition to adding service portals to your sites (such as IT and HR service desks to your intranet), you can weave JSM requests directly into the content of Confluence pages and blog posts. That would allow your colleagues to apply for vacation straight from the vacation policy page, for example, instead of hopping into a separate portal.

Coming soon: an easier migration path

We’re currently developing a migration assistant that will allow you to export your Refined sites from Server/DC and import them to Cloud. The whole process shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. We’re expecting this tool to launch before the end of 2023. Keep an eye out for updates here on our blog and on our Migration Center.

If you're in a hurry to start your migration, we have comprehensive guides to help you make a seamless transition today: 

• Migrate Refined for Confluence
• Migrate Refined for Jira Service Management (formerly Refined for Jira)
• Migrate Refined Toolkit for Confluence

Still pondering? Book a migration assessment

Unsure whether a migration to Refined Cloud is right for you and your organization? We understand — you need all of your questions answered before making a move.

We’ve helped many of our customers migrate to Cloud, and we’d love to help you too. We’ve gathered the most common questions in regards to migration here, but if you can’t find your answer there, book a migration assessment. 

Try Refined Sites on Cloud for Free for 30 days on the Atlassian Marketplace.