Cross-Cloud · Intercontinental

AWS US East → Zadara Africa in 3 Minutes 20 Seconds

Why this matters

Cross-cloud migrations are fundamentally different from same-cloud migrations. Moving data between AWS and Zadara means working with different APIs, different disk formats, different authentication systems, and a transatlantic network path. Traditional tools often fail at this boundary — they're designed for one cloud vendor's ecosystem.

Z-Move was built specifically to handle this. Its abstraction layer works identically regardless of which cloud pair you're migrating between. The same engine that moves Zadara-to-Zadara migrations also handles AWS-to-Zadara.

Migration details

Source	AWS US East (Ohio)
Target	Zadara Luanda 02 (Angola, Africa)
Migration type	Cross-cloud, intercontinental
Network distance	~8,000 km (transatlantic)
Total duration	3 minutes 20 seconds
Migration errors	0
Agents installed	0
Post-migration residue	None — all workers destroyed

What made this possible

Z-Move's architecture is cloud-agnostic at every layer:

• Credential abstraction: AWS IAM and Zadara API keys are handled through the same credential vault, with provider-specific adapters under the hood.
• Worker placement: Ephemeral workers are provisioned in the source cloud (AWS) and the target cloud (Zadara) independently. They negotiate the transfer directly, without routing through Z-Move's control plane.
• Disk format translation: AWS EBS disk formats are converted to Zadara-compatible formats automatically during transfer. No manual conversion step.
• Network optimization: The workers use the most direct available network path between the two cloud regions, leveraging public internet peering where dedicated cloud interconnects aren't available.

Implications for cloud exit strategies

This migration is proof that leaving AWS for a regional cloud provider like Zadara is operationally viable — not just commercially attractive. If your organization is exploring data sovereignty, cost reduction, or regional cloud providers, Z-Move removes the technical barrier to migration.

Angola Cables now uses Zadara as the primary compute environment for this workload, with AWS retained for specific global services. The migration cost: $0.05 per GB transferred.