Exiting VMware: a Web3 game studio's first production wave on AWS

Summary. An Indonesia-based game studio operating Web3-enabled titles across Southeast Asia ran 129 server components on a self-managed VMware estate in a single facility, with twelve MySQL servers as the platform's single point of failure. Skybit Technologies designed a three-wave migration to AWS under the AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP Lite). The first production wave – the pilot – cut over in July 2026 with a seven-day hypercare period and a go-live confirmed by the customer's CTO; the remaining waves are scheduled through 2026.

At a glance

• Industry: Online gaming – Web3-enabled multiplayer titles
• Region: Indonesia; players across Southeast Asia
• Source: VMware on-premises – 129 migration components (116 application VMs, 12 MySQL database servers, 1 load-balancer replacement)
• Target: AWS Asia Pacific (Singapore), Multi-AZ
• Programme: AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP Lite): Assess → Mobilize → Migrate in three waves
• Timeline: Assess early 2026; Mobilize May – June 2026; Wave 1 live July 2026; Waves 2–3 scheduled 2026
• Key services: AWS Control Tower, AWS Application Migration Service, AWS Database Migration Service, Amazon EC2 with Auto Scaling, Amazon RDS for MySQL (Multi-AZ), Amazon CloudWatch, AWS WAF, Amazon GuardDuty, AWS Security Hub

The challenge

The studio's estate had grown into seven application groups – game engines, multiplayer socket servers, API, back office, game services and databases – on 128 VMware servers with 890 vCPU, over 3 TB of RAM and 60 TB of provisioned storage, all production. Three things drove the decision to move:

• Fixed cost and a hardware refresh cycle. VMware licensing and co-location were a significant annual fixed cost, with a refresh looming.
• Traffic that fixed capacity cannot absorb. NFT drops, token launches and on-chain events produce spikes many times the baseline; on-premises the only answer was over-provisioning against a forecast.
• Twelve MySQL servers with no cross-zone standby. The platform's transaction and player-state data had no automated failover, and availability sat below 99.9%.

The approach

Assess. Portfolio discovery with AWS Transform across the 128 servers, a Migration Readiness Assessment, 7Rs classification (116 rehost, 12 replatform, 1 replace) and a TCO comparison against the on-premises cost by category – compute, licences, data centre, network, security tooling and IT labour – presented to the customer before implementation.

Mobilize. An AWS Control Tower landing zone built with Account Factory Customization and Terraform, a security baseline aligned to the AWS Security Reference Architecture and the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark, per-tier security groups, and a cutover and SLO plan that fixed the recovery objectives (RTO under 90 minutes, RPO under 5 minutes) and the rollback triggers before any production traffic moved.

Migrate. Three waves. Wave 1 – the pilot – proved all migration methods at once: AWS Application Migration Service for the rehosted servers, AWS Database Migration Service for the MySQL servers into Amazon RDS for MySQL Multi-AZ, with an RDS failover test executed before the switch-over. Wave 2 moves the 100 game-engine and socket-server VMs on the validated runbooks; Wave 3 covers validation, cost optimisation, Auto Scaling tuning and operational handover.

The pilot wave

Wave 1 cut over in the off-peak window in late July 2026 after a cutover test two weeks ahead, functional and load validation, an RDS Multi-AZ failover test and customer UAT. Seven days of hypercare followed with daily CloudWatch review; the Wave 1 go-live was confirmed in writing by the customer's CTO and Skybit's project manager, and the lessons from the wave were written into the Wave 2 runbook.

Results and expected outcomes

• Achieved – July 2026, hypercare complete: first production wave live on AWS with the database tier on RDS Multi-AZ
• Achieved – Mobilize: landing zone with Control Tower guardrails, CIS-aligned security baseline, infrastructure as code
• Achieved – tested at Wave 1: recovery objectives defined and tested (RTO < 90 min, RPO < 5 min)
• In progress – Waves 2–3, 2026: full estate migrated; VMware licensing and co-location exited
• Projected – from the business case, measured after Wave 3: net TCO reduction of about 14% a year, driven by licence elimination, data-centre exit and lower operations effort
• Target – measured against CloudWatch after full migration: 99.9%+ availability through Multi-AZ and Auto Scaling

What this engagement shows

A first-time move to AWS does not have to wait for everything to be ready. Landing the pilot wave – including the riskiest part, the databases – on validated runbooks gives the customer a production reference point, a tested recovery position and real cost data before the bulk of the estate moves.

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Skybit Technologies (GoShare Asia) is an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner based in Malaysia, delivering migration and managed services for gaming and digital-native businesses across Southeast Asia. Customer identity withheld at the customer's request. This case study will be updated when the remaining waves complete.