Migrating 1,000+ Workloads to AWS — Zero Downtime, 40% Lower Costs

RESULTS

~30%

improvement in operational efficiency

1,000+

workloads migrated to AWS

100TB+

data migrated with near-zero loss

downtime during migration

~40%

reduction in infrastructure and operational costs

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

After an acquisition, a global energy commodity company needed to extract a critical application from its legacy environment and consolidate hundreds of aging on-premises servers. EPAM built a new AWS foundation for the client, migrating 1,000+ workloads, 100TB of data and 800+ servers without disruption — cutting costs by up to 40% and enabling scalable spending.

STRATEGIC PARTNER

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

SERVICES

Cloud, Cloud Data Migration

INDUSTRY

Energy & Resources

THE CHALLENGE

The acquisition came with a complication: a critical data management application was still running inside the legacy AWS environment and had to move into infrastructure the client actually owned. There was no room for downtime — users were active and operations had to stay live.

This sat on top of a longer-term problem the company had been navigating for years: hundreds of on-premises servers, licensing agreements close to expiration and infrastructure costs that didn't go down when demand did. The setup still functioned, but growth was getting harder to justify.

That meant:

Establishing a cloud environment the client fully controlled
Aligning infrastructure costs with actual usage instead of fixed commitments
Standardizing architecture across fragmented legacy systems
Introducing governance and structure to support scale

At the same time, the client was looking to accelerate the transition without taking on additional upfront costs. Building off our previous successful work pre-acquisition, the client approached EPAM for our cloud and engineering expertise to separate the application and establish a new AWS foundation. We also worked with the client to apply for AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) funding, securing a portion of the migration cost.

THE SOLUTION

EPAM started by pulling the acquired application out of the legacy AWS environment and standing up a new foundation tailored to the client’s needs. Account setup, governance and core infrastructure were provisioned through Terraform — ensuring the environment was consistent and repeatable before the first workload moved.

The migration unfolded in two phases: first consolidating the existing AWS environment into the new foundation, then expanding to the client's on-premises infrastructure. Neither phase caused a service interruption for end users.

What began as an urgent extraction became a foundation the client fully owns — one it can scale and build on.

Phase 1: AWS-to-AWS Consolidation

The first phase focused on consolidating the acquired application into a newly established AWS environment owned by the client.

Key activities included:

Cross-account replication of millions of objects using Amazon S3
Migration of approximately 40TB of DynamoDB data using export/import with Streams for change data capture
Snapshot-based migration of RDS workloads
Transition of core application components and storage workloads
Establishment of centralized governance, security and access control

This phase enabled the application to operate independently while maintaining uninterrupted service.

Phase 2: On-Premises to AWS Migration

With the AWS foundation in place, the migration expanded to include the client's on-premises infrastructure.

Key activities included:

Migration of 800+ servers from data centers to AWS
High-speed data transfer using AWS DataSync
Amazon S3 used as a central ingestion layer for data consistency
Workload migration using EFS and RDS

This phase removed dependency on physical data centers and enabled a more flexible, usage-based operating model.

Phase 1: AWS-to-AWS Consolidation

The first phase focused on consolidating the acquired application into a newly established AWS environment owned by the client.

Key activities included:

Cross-account replication of millions of objects using Amazon S3
Migration of approximately 40TB of DynamoDB data using export/import with Streams for change data capture
Snapshot-based migration of RDS workloads
Transition of core application components and storage workloads
Establishment of centralized governance, security and access control

This phase enabled the application to operate independently while maintaining uninterrupted service.

Phase 2: On-Premises to AWS Migration

With the AWS foundation in place, the migration expanded to include the client's on-premises infrastructure.

Key activities included:

Migration of 800+ servers from data centers to AWS
High-speed data transfer using AWS DataSync
Amazon S3 used as a central ingestion layer for data consistency
Workload migration using EFS and RDS

This phase removed dependency on physical data centers and enabled a more flexible, usage-based operating model.

KEY FEATURES

01

Clean-Room AWS Foundation

New AWS organization, account structure and governance model built for the client using Terraform
02

Storage-First
Migration

Amazon S3 used as a central replication layer to ensure continuity across all workloads
03

Large-Scale Data Migration

100TB+ of data migrated, including ~40TB of DynamoDB and millions of S3 objects

04

Server Migration at
Scale

800+ servers migrated using AWS-native services (DataSync, S3, EFS, RDS)
05

Automated Infrastructure Provisioning

Terraform-enabled setup for consistent, repeatable environments
06

Zero-Downtime Execution

Migration completed with no customer-facing service interruptions