# Multi-cloud migration · ICE by Light Cloud

> Move workloads between AWS, Azure, and GCP without rewriting the design. ICE separates what you build from where it runs, so the canvas is portable by construction.

## Five steps

1. **Import the source.** Authenticate against the existing cloud account. ICE crawls the resource graph and turns it into a canvas. 45+ importers on GCP today.
2. **Review and clean up.** Orphans, undocumented services, drift between intent and reality. The canvas makes everything visible.
3. **Switch the target.** Change the canvas provider. Each block remaps to the equivalent service on the new cloud.
4. **Estimate cost and validate.** ICE projects monthly cost per block on the new provider and flags requirements that do not translate (region availability, IAM, network shape).
5. **Apply and watch.** Plan, apply, watch live progress. Logs and metrics surface on the canvas once new resources are healthy. Cut traffic over when ready.

## What gets translated

| Block | Source | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Scalable Backend | Cloud Run (GCP) | ECS Fargate (AWS) / Container Apps (Azure) |
| Postgres | Cloud SQL (GCP) | RDS (AWS) / Database for PostgreSQL (Azure) |
| Object Storage | Cloud Storage (GCP) | S3 (AWS) / Blob Storage (Azure) |
| Message Queue | Pub/Sub (GCP) | SQS (AWS) / Service Bus (Azure) |
| Observability | Cloud Logging (GCP) | CloudWatch (AWS) / Monitor (Azure) |
| Secret Store | Secret Manager (GCP) | Secrets Manager (AWS) / Key Vault (Azure) |

## What does not migrate automatically

- Data. ICE creates the new database but you copy the data. Migration tooling is on the roadmap.
- Custom IAM policies and org structures.
- Cloud-specific features without an equivalent on the target (Vertex AI Vector Search, Cosmos DB shapes).
- DNS cut-over. ICE prepares the new endpoint; you flip the records.

## Why this works

The graph engine is provider-agnostic. Per-provider deployers handle SDK calls. That separation is what makes "switch the target" a button, not a sprint. Architecture docs: https://github.com/light-cloud-com/ice/blob/main/docs/architecture.md