Overview
Biobank UK manages highly sensitive data, requiring all information to remain within the UK. As legacy tooling reached end-of-life, they needed a compliant, modern alternative that supported their development processes without breaching data residency requirements.
The Challenge
Biobank UK had historically relied on on-premises systems to meet strict data sovereignty obligations. This approach became unsustainable when Atlassian discontinued on-premises hosting for Jira, with no suitable UK-hosted cloud alternative available. A new solution was needed that maintained UK-only data residency while enabling continued collaboration and delivery across development teams.
The Approach
Biobank UK selected an Azure DevOps instance hosted in a UK Azure datacentre as the foundation for their new platform. Black Marble supported the transition by developing migration tooling and process customisations to move existing Jira and GitLab content from on-premises environments into Azure DevOps. This ensured continuity of existing workflows while aligning with modern development practices and regulatory constraints.
Knowledge Transfer
Alongside the technical delivery, guidance and training were provided to support adoption of Azure DevOps and to help teams evolve their agile development approaches.
Outcome
Biobank UK established a compliant, cloud-based development platform aligned to their data residency requirements. The migration reduced reliance on legacy infrastructure and enabled teams to continue delivering without interruption. Access to experienced external support also accelerated delivery, allowing internal teams to stay focused on core research and development activities rather than platform migration.
