What happens when years of collaboration, documentation, and project work accumulate in a single platform? As Cornell prepares to migrate Confluence to the cloud in 2027, Information Technology (IT) at Cornell is taking a closer look at the spaces, content, and communities that make up one of the university's largest knowledge-sharing resources. A survey of Confluence space owners and users will help identify active spaces, confirm ownership, and determine how the platform is being used across teaching, research, administration, and project work.

Managing what Matters

The review is about more than preparing for a technology migration. It reflects a growing need to manage institutional knowledge intentionally as cloud-based storage, licensing, and security models evolve. Like many organizations, Cornell is balancing the value of preserving information with the costs and risks of retaining content indefinitely. By identifying which spaces remain active and which no longer serve a current purpose, Cornell can improve search results, reduce outdated information, and help users more easily find content they can trust.

Strengthen Security

The cleanup efforts will also strengthen security as Confluence moves to the cloud. Spaces that currently allow anonymous access are being reviewed to determine whether that access is still needed, and future access to Confluence content is expected to rely on authenticated Cornell identities such as NetIDs and CWIDs. While the cloud migration provides the opportunity to assess existing content, the larger objective is to ensure that Confluence remains a trusted, secure, and sustainable knowledge resource for the Cornell community well into the future.

For full details, see the Cleaning Up Confluence knowledge base article.