To migrate from AWS to Akamai Cloud, first map your applications, data and AWS dependencies. Then build and test the target environment before you switch production traffic. A pilot workload, controlled data transfer and a written rollback plan reduce disruption.
As an Akamai Cloud partner in India, ZNetLive offers Akamai Cloud with INR billing and local support. Your AWS to Akamai migration can start with a workload-specific assessment.
This guide covers readiness checks, service mapping, data movement, cutover and the checks required before you retire AWS resources.
How Do I Migrate from AWS to Akamai Cloud?
Treat the move as a series of approved workload migrations. A simple website may need only a fresh server and a database transfer. An application built around AWS-managed services may need architecture changes first.
- Inventory the Workload: Record servers, databases, storage, dependencies, owners and recovery requirements.
- Design the Target: Select compatible services, a suitable region, and the required security controls.
- Run a Pilot: Deploy a representative workload and test its performance, integration and recovery process.
- Move the Data: Complete an initial copy, then plan how to capture changes before cutover.
- Switch and Validate: Move traffic during an approved window, monitor business transactions and keep a tested rollback path.
- Close the Migration: Obtain sign-off before removing old resources and access.
This checklist is a planning framework. Your implementation runbook should add the commands, named owners, and acceptance criteria for each workload.
What Should I Check Before Moving My Workloads off AWS?
Confirm that the target can support the application and that your team can operate it after the move. Use this readiness table before you approve a migration window.
| Check | Evidence required before approval |
| Application dependencies | A map of databases, queues, identity services, external APIs, scheduled jobs and network connections |
| Service compatibility | A tested replacement or an agreed redesign for each AWS dependency |
| Data protection | A verified backup, a successful restore test and agreed recovery requirements |
| Region and performance | Required services available in the selected region, with application latency and load tests |
| Security and access | Target access roles, secrets, firewall rules, encryption and logging reviewed |
| Cutover and rollback | Named decision-makers, a write-control plan and clear rollback triggers |
| Commercial scope | Approved target costs, migration effort, parallel running costs and remaining AWS commitments |
Keep one inventory that both application and infrastructure owners can review. A forgotten payment callback, IP allowlist, or background job can break a workflow even when the main website loads correctly.
Which AWS Services Need a Different Migration Plan?
Map services by the job they perform, then test their behaviour. A candidate replacement on Akamai Cloud does not guarantee feature parity, so each row below needs its own test.
| AWS component | Candidate path on Akamai Cloud | Check before migration |
| Amazon EC2 | Akamai Compute Instances | Operating system, CPU architecture, storage layout and deployment automation |
| Amazon EKS | Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) | Networking, persistent volumes, ingress and AWS-specific integrations |
| Amazon S3 | Akamai Object Storage | API behaviour, bucket configuration, request rate limits and application dependencies |
| Amazon RDS | A compatible managed or self-managed database | Engine, version, extensions, access and migration method |
| Elastic Load Balancing | NodeBalancers, where suitable | Required protocols, TLS handling, health checks and traffic behaviour |
| Lambda, DynamoDB, SQS, IAM or KMS | Redesign, an alternative service or a retained AWS integration | Application changes, identity, data access, latency and operational ownership |
Teams often consider this move to improve cloud economics, particularly when data transfer forms a large part of the bill.
Our Akamai Cloud vs AWS comparison explains why the answer depends on workload, traffic and architecture. This checklist covers the work that follows once you have identified a suitable workload.
How Should You Move Virtual Machines and Containers?
Use a repeatable deployment process and test the target before moving production traffic.
How Should You Move Virtual Machines?
Where practical, deploy fresh from source code and configuration automation. Recreate packages, environment variables, certificates, scheduled tasks and monitoring in the target environment.
A disk-image transfer is another route for suitable systems. An AWS machine image is not a universal import format, so check the requirements in Akamai’s migration guides before you choose it. The same guides cover moving secondary EBS data volumes.
How Should You Move Containers?
Redeploy tested container images and manifests to the target cluster. Test persistent storage, and replace dependencies on AWS identity, load balancers and storage drivers where needed.
How Should You Move Databases and Object Storage?
Give each data store its own migration and validation plan, with a consistent final cutover point.
What Should You Check for Databases?
Compatibility covers extensions, collation, permissions and application drivers, not just the engine name. Akamai publishes database migration guides, but check their prerequisites against your source database before you rely on them.
How Should You Transfer Object Storage?
Akamai’s AWS S3 migration guide uses rclone and describes two set-ups: rclone on an EC2 instance next to the source bucket, or on an Akamai instance next to the target bucket. In both, data crosses the public internet, so AWS bills it as outbound transfer.
Two practical points from that guide are worth planning for:
- Rate limits: Akamai Object Storage applies per-bucket request limits, so a large S3 bucket may need to be split by prefix across several target buckets.
- Parallel runs: running several rclone instances, one per bucket, shortens the transfer window for large estates.
Test a sample first, then compare object counts, total bytes and content integrity. Check metadata, permissions and any reliance on AWS-specific bucket features separately.
How Should You Handle Final Synchronisation?
Plan a final synchronisation for data that changes during the initial copy. Define how updates and deletions will be handled, and pause writers when required to establish a consistent cutover point.
How Do You Check Region, Security and Migration Costs?
Validate the whole deployment, its access controls and its operating costs before you approve the move.
What Should You Check for Region and Data Location?
As of November 2026, Akamai lists three core compute regions in India on its availability page: Mumbai (ap-west), Mumbai Expansion (in-bom-2) and Chennai (in-maa). Akamai also runs distributed regions, which support fewer services than core regions.
Confirm that compute, databases, storage, load balancing and backups are all available in your chosen region. Then test latency from the locations where your users actually connect.
Record where production data, replicas, backups and logs will reside. Ask your compliance team to review those locations and access controls against your obligations; a region choice alone does not establish compliance.
What Should You Check for Security and Access?
Replace AWS credentials and roles with appropriate target access controls. Review service accounts, secrets, firewall rules, TLS certificates, audit logs and alert ownership. Remove temporary migration access after validation.
What Should Your Migration Budget Include?
Compare the full migration cost: target resources, parallel environments, data transfer, tooling, licences, testing and support. Review remaining AWS Savings Plans and other commitments before assuming your AWS bill will disappear.
How Do You Estimate Data Transfer Costs?
Estimate both the one-time migration transfer and the cost of any cross-cloud connections you keep afterwards.
| Cost component | What to include in your estimate |
| Initial outbound transfer | Billable data leaving AWS for the initial server, database and object copies |
| Storage requests and retrieval | S3 LIST and GET requests, plus retrieval or restore charges where the storage class requires them |
| Repeat synchronisation | Changed data, retries and validation downloads that transfer data again before acceptance |
| Ongoing cross-cloud traffic | Application calls, replication and backups between retained AWS services and Akamai, in both directions |
On Akamai Cloud, inbound network transfer is free. Outbound transfer counts towards a monthly pool, and some newer data centres track their own regional pool, so check which pool your region uses.
For each chargeable route, multiply billable GB by the applicable rate, then add request, retrieval and tooling costs. Record the source region, direction, expected volume and pricing date so the estimate can be checked.
AWS offers free data transfer out to eligible customers moving their data off AWS. You must request it through AWS Support, and the credit covers data transfer out only. The time allowed to complete the move has changed more than once, so confirm eligibility, scope and deadline with AWS before you budget.
Akamai Cloud credits may also be available for eligible new workloads. Ask us for the current offer, its validity and eligible services before you build them into your estimate. Our Akamai Cloud pricing guide explains each cost component.
Planning a move from AWS? Request a workload migration assessment and our Akamai team will review your workloads, transfer volumes and costs in INR.
What Should Your Cutover Checklist Include?
Approve cutover only after the pilot meets agreed technical and business checks. Use this sequence as the basis for your workload-specific runbook.
- Confirm readiness: verify backups, restore tests, monitoring, access and named owners. Test key actions such as sign-in, checkout, uploads and background processing.
- Prepare traffic changes: update external allowlists and integration settings. Reduce DNS time-to-live in advance and let existing cached records expire.
- Control writes: pause relevant jobs and writers, complete the final data transfer and validate database consistency. Prevent both environments from accepting conflicting writes.
- Switch traffic: update DNS, routing or application endpoints as planned. Check TLS, health checks and real transactions from outside the environment.
- Monitor acceptance criteria: compare errors, latency, throughput and business outcomes with the baseline. Keep decision-makers available throughout the observation window.
- Apply the rollback decision: follow predefined triggers. If the target has accepted new writes, reconcile them before returning to the source; reversing DNS alone can lose data.
Record who can approve rollback and how customers or internal teams will be informed. A successful infrastructure health check is only one part of acceptance.
When Can You Retire the AWS Environment?
Retire resources only after application owners approve the migration and the agreed rollback and retention periods have passed. Confirm that old jobs cannot run twice and that backups remain accessible.
Review unused instances, volumes, snapshots, load balancers, IP addresses, logs and subscriptions. Revoke obsolete credentials and check later bills for residual charges. Hand over runbooks, alerts and escalation contacts to the team that will run the new environment.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Can I Migrate from AWS Without Downtime?
Some workloads can use replication and a controlled traffic switch to keep interruption short. How short depends on application design, data consistency and testing, so agree an acceptable window before migration.
2. Can I Move Only Part of My AWS Environment?
Yes. A phased or hybrid approach can keep selected AWS services. Test the connections between environments, and include latency, access controls and cross-cloud transfer costs in the design.
3. Is Linode Migration the Same as an AWS Migration?
Not necessarily. A Linode migration may mean a move between Akamai regions or accounts. An AWS migration also needs service mapping, credential changes and checks for dependencies on AWS services.
4. How Long Does an AWS to Akamai Migration Take?
It depends on data volume, transfer capacity, application changes, testing and the approved cutover window. Estimate it after discovery and a pilot, rather than assigning one fixed duration to every workload.
5. How Can ZNetLive Help with Migration Planning?
As an Akamai Cloud partner in India, we can review your workloads, INR billing and the support scope you need. We then confirm migration responsibilities, deliverables and commercial terms for your project.
What Is the Next Step in Your AWS to Akamai Migration?
Start with one workload that has clear dependencies and measurable acceptance criteria. Approve its target design, data plan and rollback process before you set a production date. Move to the next wave once the pilot proves the application works and your team can run it.
