Atlassian ran a tabletop DR simulation that revealed it lived in dependency hell

Atlassian’s Long Battle with Dependency Chaos

Atlassian, the Australian software company behind popular collaboration tools like Jira and Confluence, conducted a tabletop disaster recovery (DR) simulation that exposed a web of complex interdependencies across its infrastructure. The exercise revealed that even small outages could trigger widespread disruptions due to overlapping and unclear relationships between systems.

The Discovery

During the DR test, engineers uncovered how deeply entangled services had become over years of product evolution. Each team built and maintained its own systems, creating a “spaghetti mess” of network calls, microservices, and shared databases. This made incident management challenging, as failures in one layer often cascaded into others.

A Four-Year Transformation

Realizing the fragility of its architecture, Atlassian initiated a four-year modernization effort. The company replaced this tangled web with a more resilient multi-layer cloud framework, which improved redundancy, visibility, and control. The new design allowed teams to isolate service failures more effectively and restore systems faster in case of downtime.

Lessons Learned

The simulation not only exposed technical weaknesses but also drove organizational changes. Teams were encouraged to adopt shared standards, clearer dependency documentation, and coordinated recovery strategies. The goal was to ensure that future incidents could be resolved quickly without amplifying risks.

“We learned that complexity can silently grow in large systems until it becomes a serious operational hazard,” said one Atlassian engineer involved in the exercise.

The experience reinforced the importance of regular testing, clear architecture ownership, and proactive simplification in large-scale cloud environments.

Author Summary: Atlassian’s simulated disaster revealed hidden system interdependencies, prompting a four-year restructuring toward a more resilient, layered cloud infrastructure.

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The Register on MSN The Register on MSN — 2025-11-25

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