Modernizing government starts with secure, connected cloud workflows

Government agencies have always strived to serve their communities with coordination, consistency, and care. However, as the environment around them grows more complex, efforts to deliver modern, reliable services are increasingly constrained by aging technology, fragmented data, and a near-constant wave of cyber threats.

Digital transformation is widely recognized as the path forward, and for many organizations that now begins with cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools that can replace legacy systems and support more connected ways of working. But the transition is rarely simple. Agencies must evaluate risk, navigate stringent security requirements, and ensure compliance remains traceable end-to-end. Change management adds yet another challenge, as aligning multiple stakeholders and onboarding large teams can slow the rollout of new tools.

Decades of siloed data only exacerbate these challenges.

“A study we conducted with GovExec found that 94% of government leaders say their work is slowed by legacy or outdated tools,” said Matthew Graviss, Atlassian’s Public Sector Chief Technology Officer. “These outdated systems are a major barrier to progress and to building cohesive, modern workflows. In addition, critical functions like security and governance often create unintentional silos that prevent information from being shared across programs and departments.“ 

To move forward successfully, agencies need solutions that enable teams to collaborate securely, access detailed insights, and maintain the compliance posture their missions demand. 

A cloud foundation to break the silos and connect the mission

Atlassian Government Cloud answers that call. Grounded in Atlassian’s two decades of public sector work, the FedRAMP Moderate-authorized solution is designed specifically to help agencies clear the hurdles that typically stall new implementations. 

“The majority of our government customers use our on-prem Data Center tools today, and we built our SaaS offering, Atlassian Government Cloud, with current and future mission needs in mind,” said Rob Bissett, Head of Product at Atlassian, noting that a key advantage of the platform is that it connects and underpins core Atlassian applications such as Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management. 

“That shared platform makes it a lot easier for teams to collaborate, for individuals to find the work they need without context switching between siloed products, for data to be shared and, of course, to do so in a secure and compliant way,” Bissett said. 

In practice, that means daily workflows become increasingly seamless. For example, an IT team might receive an incident report through Jira Service Management, which handles incoming requests and service tickets. They then hand it off to developers working in Jira where they track and resolve technical issues. Later, the team documents the resolution or retrospective in Confluence, where knowledge and project notes are captured for future reference. In the cloud, those records stay linked, giving teams a complete view of what happened and why. 

This unified environment also opens up richer analytics, helping agencies identify trends in response times, recurring bottlenecks, and opportunities to streamline processes.

“That's our vision for how teams should ideally be working together; connecting the dots and sharing information,” Bissett said.

Compliance without slowing transformation

Because security governs so much of modernization, agencies often need both confidence and flexibility to successfully make these transformations. Atlassian’s compliance posture helps create space for that balance.

“Having FedRAMP Moderate authorization gives agencies the assurance they need in order to adopt the SaaS model and connect teams,” Bissett said. “They can be confident their requirements are met and their data isn't going to be at risk, and so they can be more open and collaborative.”

At the same time, agencies still have the ability to separate sensitive information from the rest of their data, preserving necessary security boundaries while enabling more transparency across everyday work.

As enterprise customers move from legacy deployments to Atlassian’s SaaS solutions, they have observed consistent improvements that set a clear baseline for what public sector organizations can anticipate, including shorter project timelines, greater individual productivity, and more informed, data-driven decision-making. 

“A key part of this is that when you move to a SaaS solution, maintenance responsibility is shared with the vendor,” Bissett said. “We're running updates, shipping new features as they come out, and ensuring that security fixes are rolled out, which saves IT teams a significant  maintenance burden.”

Atlassian is pursuing FedRAMP High and Impact Level 5 authorizations which will further support mission critical and classified workloads.

“Atlassian is making long-term investments in our public sector customers,” Graviss said. “We are committed to their missions, and want them to unlock all of the value of the cloud that our commercial customers are seeing.”

Modernization will not wait, and secure, connected cloud workflows give agencies the speed, clarity, and confidence to deliver reliable services at scale.

Learn more about how Atlassian Government Cloud can help drive your agency’s modernization goals.