Next Reason partnered with the China division of a global energy company to extract and securely transfer nearly 20 million customer identity records from Akamai Identity Cloud to a locally hosted CIAM platform, enabling the organization to meet regional data residency requirements while maintaining continuity across its consumer-facing digital ecosystem.
Background
A global energy company operating in China needed to transition its customer identity infrastructure from Akamai Identity Cloud (AIC) to a regionally hosted CIAM provider within China. The move was driven by the need for an in-region technology partner that could better support their specific operational requirements and align with China’s data residency requirements.
The challenge was significant: the company’s identity platform served nearly 20 million consumer profiles and was deeply integrated with a complex ecosystem of regional applications including WeChat and Alipay miniprograms, customer service platforms, and multiple backend systems. Any disruption during the transition risked impacting millions of active users across these channels.
The Challenge
Several factors made this engagement particularly complex:
- Scale of data. Nearly 20 million user profiles, each containing approximately 100 data attributes including PII, consent records, and custom fields, needed to be extracted with precision.
- Complex application ecosystem. The identity platform was interconnected with WeChat service accounts, WeChat and Alipay mini programs, customer service tools, and several backend systems — all of which needed to be transitioned without service interruption.
- Coordination across regions. The engagement required close collaboration with the client’s China-based team across time zones and languages.
Approach
Next Reason leveraged its deep expertise with the Akamai Identity Cloud platform and complex CIAM data migrations to design and execute a reliable data extraction and transfer strategy:
- Custom extraction tooling. Built purpose-specific scripts to handle the complexity of AIC’s data model — including plural data structures and nested objects — at scale across nearly 20 million profiles.
- Secure data transfer. Extracted data was securely uploaded to the client’s China-hosted SFTP environment, with careful operational controls throughout the process.
- Phased execution with live sync. A two-way data synchronization was enabled between the source and target platforms, allowing the client to cut over applications in controlled batches while the migration was still in progress — eliminating the need for a disruptive big-bang transition.
- Continuous monitoring. The extraction process was monitored around the clock to ensure stability and data integrity throughout execution.
Application Cutover
With the data successfully extracted and transferred, the client executed a structured, three-phase application cutover including their customer service platform; CMS, mobile app, and backend systems; and their WeChat and Alipay integrations.
After all applications were successfully transitioned, the legacy Akamai Identity Cloud environment was decommissioned to align with the company’s data compliance requirements.
Results
- 19.3 million profiles successfully extracted and transferred
- ~100 attributes per profile — including PII, consent, and custom data
- Only 17 records out of 19.3 million required manual intervention — all resolved during the migration
- 99.99% migration success rate with no reported downtime or user-facing disruption
- Zero data loss across the full extraction and transfer process
- Bidirectional sync enabled a seamless, phased transition with no service interruption to end users
Why It Mattered
This engagement demonstrated that large-scale CIAM migrations within China don’t have to be high-risk events. By combining deep platform expertise with disciplined execution and a phased migration strategy, Next Reason enabled the client to meet its regional requirements on schedule, without disrupting the digital experiences of nearly 20 million consumers.
