The Looming Deadline: DC EOL and the Crowd Crisis

You already know it: the countdown to the Data Center End-of-Life (DC EOL) is in full swing, and if you’re an existing Atlassian Data Center customer, you’re likely grappling with the complexities of migration. The shift to the Atlassian Cloud can feel like navigating a maze, and for those who relied heavily on Crowd for user and group management, the path is especially foggy.

We at Jaanga Inc. have recently experienced this panic with Atlassian users first hand. Since September, our support channels have been overwhelmed with tickets from customers who were never previously associated with us; migrating from Data Center, attempting to bring their Crowd functionality to the Cloud, only to be faced with a jarring reality: There is no Crowd in Cloud.

The Technical Gap: Why Guard Isn’t Enough

Atlassian’s recommended path for user management involves migrating to their Teamwork Collection, which includes Atlassian Guard (formerly Atlassian Access) – a fine choice. While Guard offers single sign-on (SSO) and some user functionalities, it critically fails to provide the full user and group delegation capabilities that Crowd users depend on.

If your process depends on delegated group membership management (example: HR ops needs to add contractors to a specific access group today), Cloud and Guard cover the identity side but they don’t necessarily give you “group owners” who can safely self-manage membership for selected groups.

That’s why teams often add a Marketplace app focused specifically on delegated group operations e.g. Group Ambassadors (delegated group managers + optional limits/logs).

“We were busy with our migration for five months now and when we realized that Guard is not good enough and there’s no Crowd in Cloud, it was a logical choice for Group Ambassadors.”

Navigating Your Migration with Group Ambassadors

We understand that migrations are long and stressful and the past three months our team has been increasing the hands-on help for customers migrating from Data Center Crowd to our Group Ambassadors Cloud app. We are not just selling an app; we are actively helping customers through a difficult, confusing process as part of our service as an App Provider.

In fact, we have been assisting with challenges like Dual Licensing: helping customers avoid paying twice during their multi-month migration period by providing necessary trial extension. We are focused on turning you into a long-term customer by providing high-level support right from the start.

🛠️ Self-Service Migration Guide

To better serve the surge of customers, our development team is actively working on ways to make this transition a self-service experience. While the standard migration path from Group Ambassadors DC to Cloud is straight-forward, the Crowd-to-Group-Ambassadors migration requires additional support, which is what we are simplifying:

We are compiling our support ticket learnings into a streamlined process to help you get 95% of the way there on your own! No need to talk to Sales, no need for extensive support tickets.

• View Our Comprehensive Self-Serve Migration Documentation Now:

  https://jaanga.atlassian.net/wiki/x/DIDJIQ

Technical Comparison: The specific gap Crowd teams feel

When you migrate from Data Center to Cloud, it’s normal to discover that “same goal” doesn’t always mean “same workflow.” If you relied on Crowd, you probably weren’t using it just for identity – you were using it to make group changes manageable across teams.

Cloud admin + Guard are strong for central identity/security, while Group Ambassadors is strong for day-to-day delegated group operations that many Crowd teams relied on.

* For Group Ambassadors, the point is not “replacing Cloud admin,” it’s adding safe delegation on top of Cloud’s directory/groups.

Your Solution for Group Management in the Cloud

Group Ambassadors provides the seamless user and group management you need to successfully complete your migration.

If delegated group management is the piece you’re missing after migrating, Group Ambassadors helps you restore that operational workflow in Cloud without handing out broad admin permissions.

🚀 Install Group Ambassadors for Jira and Confluence on the Atlassian Marketplace today:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1218225/group-ambassadors