Atlassian, a maker of messaging products for the workplace, plans to move those applications and customer data associated with them to Amazon Web Services from its own data centers.
The company, based in Sydney with U.S. Headquarters in San Francisco, currently operates a mix of its own data centers and AWS. Some of its products, such as Trello, which it it bought, in January, already run on Amazon’s cloud.
This is the latest example of a big software company moving its IT operations to AWS or another public cloud so it doesn’t have to build or manage data center infrastructure on its own. The stated advantage is that this lets the company offload the nitty gritty of server, storage, and network management to a provider that is expert at that work, and focus on its core business.
Atlassian’s (TEAM) shift to Amazon’s (AMZN) Dublin-area cloud region is underway and the company will continue with similar moves to AWS facilities in Australia and the U.S., chief technology officer Sri Viswanath told Coins2Day in advance of the news to be announced Tuesday at a company event in Barcelona.
This is part of a long evolution Atlassian, which was founded in 2002 before the advent of public clouds. Atlassian’s flagship Jira software for programmers initially ran only on customers’ servers.
“We started as an on-premises company, but 75% of our new customers are on the cloud,” Viswanath said.
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Now, Atlassian needs infrastructure worldwide because it has customers in 170 countries. The fact that AWS runs data center farms in 16 geographic areas worldwide, with plans for three more, can be a big help.
“Going to AWS gives us speed in terms of being able to build and deploy products faster and give us adaptability in being able to add more regions quickly,” he said.
By opening up shop in Amazon’s Dublin region, Atlassian can offer European customers faster performance because there is less delay or latency involved IT operations when data centers are closer to the customer.
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Atlassian joins a long line of software companies that are opting to use shared public cloud infrastructure instead of building more of their own data centers. Two years ago, Infor, which sells financial and manufacturing software, said it would move all of its IT operations to AWS.
More recently Box (BOX) Salesforce (CRM), Tableau (DATA) Workday (WDAY), and SAP (SAP)—all announced plans to use a public cloud for deploying new software.
Related: Why Some Cloud Deals Are Fake News
He said Atlassian preferred focusing on one public cloud vendor so it can focus on that infrastructure and make use of all of its associated services. The beauty of sticking with one cloud with it is the customer can take advantage of both the basic and higher level services that cloud provider offers.
And he discounted concern that relying on one public cloud supplier is risky because Microsoft (MSFT) Azure and Google (GOOGL) Cloud Platform will ensure there will be alternatives. AWS, Azure, and GCP are seen as the leaders in public cloud, and all three are adding data centers worldwide.
Related: CEO Says Oracle Can Beat AWS With Fewer Data Centers
“Lock-in is not an issue. All three of the big clouds will be around, so there is competition,” he said.