ULGame688: Free-to-Play MMORPG Platform Migration from Alibaba Cloud to AWS

Customer Background

ULGame688 is a dynamic mobile gaming company specializing in the development and operation of Free-to-Play (F2P) Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), generating revenue primarily through in-app purchases. Its portfolio consists of several successful MMORPG titles for iOS and Android built on a proprietary game engine, serving large and active player communities in its initial launch markets. The company is at a pivotal moment — investing heavily in the final development stages of a highly anticipated battle royale title expected to attract millions of new users worldwide. Its production environment previously ran on Alibaba Cloud using Elastic Compute Service (ECS), ApsaraDB for RDS, and Object Storage Service (OSS).

Business Challenge

ULGame688 was poised for significant global expansion driven by its upcoming flagship launch, but its cloud infrastructure — designed for a geographically concentrated player base — was fundamentally misaligned with these strategic goals and presented a direct obstacle to success.

Key Challenges:

• High Latency for Global Players: The architecture was not designed for global traffic distribution, causing high latency and slow asset delivery for the growing international player base — directly compromising user experience and threatening retention
• Insufficient Launch Scalability: The infrastructure lacked robust, elastic scalability to handle the massive, unpredictable traffic spikes anticipated from the new game launch, risking degradation or outages during the most critical period of the product lifecycle
• Technology Ecosystem Limits: No native access to advanced analytics or modern container orchestration, inhibiting data-driven player engagement optimization and deployment pipeline modernization
• Competitive Disadvantage: The technological gap limited the development team's ability to innovate at the pace required of a global competitor

AWS Solution

DG Global Technology proposed a modern, secure, and scalable AWS architecture supporting both legacy and cloud-native workloads through a multi-account strategy and hybrid compute model. The environment spans five AWS accounts — ULG_Prod_01, ULG_Prod_02, ULG_Dev_01, ULG_Dev_02, and ULG_Mgmt_01 — each with two distinct VPCs: one for EC2-based deployments and one for containerized workloads on EKS. This hybrid model lets ULGame688 run existing monolithic applications while gradually transitioning to microservices, reducing technical risk.

AWS Services Utilized

Architecture Highlights

• Five-Account Structure: Dual production and dual development accounts plus a management account for shared services, security tooling, and CI/CD
• Dual-VPC Segmentation: Each account runs separate VPCs for EC2 and EKS workloads, enabling gradual monolith-to-microservices transition with reduced risk
• Multi-AZ Resilience: All VPCs deployed across two Availability Zones — public subnets host NAT Gateways and ALBs; private subnets host EC2 instances and EKS worker nodes
• Centralized CI/CD & Governance: The ULG_Mgmt_01 account hosts CI/CD pipelines, internal tooling, and organization-wide security policy enforcement
• Global Performance: AWS's globally distributed infrastructure delivers the low-latency experience international players require

Solution Architecture: Existing vs New

Implementation Details

Engagement Start Date: May 19, 2025
Engagement End Date (Migration Delivery): August 31, 2025
Managed Services: Ongoing AWS managed services under agreement following migration (6+ months minimum)
Project Status: In production (not pilot / proof of concept)

Timeline: Mobilize phase May 19, 2025 – August 31, 2025
Team Size: DG Global Technology engineers (Solution Architects, Cloud Engineers, DevOps Engineers) + ULGame688 technical stakeholders
Migration Strategy: Rehost (ECS to EC2) + Replatform (ApsaraDB RDS to Aurora MySQL, OSS to S3, containerized workloads to EKS)

Key Implementation Phases

• Discovery & Inventory Validation: Compiled and validated the full workload inventory across all five target accounts in collaboration with ULGame688's technical stakeholders and the AWS SA team
• Landing Zone Design: Established the five-account architecture with dual VPCs per account, Transit Gateway connectivity, NAT Gateways, and ALBs across two Availability Zones
• Security Baseline: Deployed Firewall Manager WAF policies, per-account CloudTrail audit logging, and IAM governance from the management account
• Pilot Migration: Piloted EC2, Aurora, EKS, and S3 workloads in each account to validate performance and migration procedures before full waves
• Wave-Based Migration: Migrated live game worlds, matchmaking services, backend APIs, and persistent data stores in structured waves with rollback procedures
• Launch Readiness: Validated elastic scaling behavior and global performance ahead of the anticipated battle royale launch

Partner Support Services: Pre & Post Migration

DG Global Technology supported ULGame688 across the full engagement lifecycle — from pre-migration discovery and planning, through migration execution, to ongoing AWS-based managed services delivered under agreement for a minimum of 6 months post-migration.

Pre-Migration Support Services

• Discovery Workshops & Inventory Validation: Detailed working sessions with ULGame688's technical stakeholders to inventory, classify, and validate all workloads with the AWS Solutions Architecture team
• Migration Readiness & Wave Planning: Dependency mapping, wave sequencing, defined change windows, Go/No-Go criteria, and documented rollback procedures
• Landing Zone & Security Baseline Design: Multi-account architecture design, network segmentation, IAM governance model, and security controls mapping
• Cost Modeling & Validation: AWS Pricing Calculator estimates validated with the AWS team, including Savings Plans strategy and cost allocation tagging design
• Global Launch Readiness Planning: Sized the target architecture for the anticipated battle royale launch traffic and validated the inventory across all five target accounts

Support During Migration

• Wave Execution & Cutover Coordination: Hands-on migration execution within defined change windows, with rehearsed cutover runbooks and rollback paths on standby
• Data Migration & Integrity Validation: Database and object storage migration with row-level data validation and reconciliation before each cutover
• Performance Benchmarking & UAT: Validated workload performance against the pre-migration baseline and coordinated user acceptance testing with ULGame688's team
• Cross-Cloud Migration Execution: Migrated ECS workloads to EC2/EKS, ApsaraDB RDS to Aurora MySQL, and OSS content to S3 with integrity validation
• Knowledge Transfer: Runbook development, operational documentation, and AWS onboarding sessions for ULGame688's engineering and operations teams

Post-Migration Managed Services (Ongoing — 6+ Months Under Agreement)

Since the August 2025 production cutover, DG Global Technology has delivered AWS-based managed services to ULGame688 under a managed services agreement, including:

• 24/7 Monitoring & Incident Response: Round-the-clock CloudWatch-based monitoring, alerting, and incident management with defined SLAs
• Security Management: Continuous security posture management, patching, vulnerability remediation, and security event triage
• Cost Optimization & Governance: Monthly cost reviews, Savings Plans coverage management, right-sizing recommendations, and per-account cost reporting
• Backup & Disaster Recovery: Backup lifecycle management, recovery testing, and Multi-AZ failover validation
• Continuous Improvement: Quarterly AWS Well-Architected reviews and proactive optimization aligned with ULGame688's product roadmap

Results and Benefits

Quantifiable Results

• Global Latency Reduction: AWS's distributed infrastructure and ALB-fronted Multi-AZ design deliver the low-latency experience required by an international player base
• Launch-Ready Elasticity: Elastic EC2 and EKS capacity absorbs the massive, unpredictable traffic spikes expected from the new battle royale launch
• Workload Isolation: Five isolated accounts with dual-VPC segmentation provide clear operational boundaries between production, development, and management workloads
• Resilient Data Layer: Aurora MySQL replaced ApsaraDB RDS with automated failover for player accounts, character data, and in-app purchase histories
• Unified Security: Organization-wide WAF and network policies enforced centrally while each account retains independent monitoring and audit trails

Business Impact

• Global Expansion Unlocked: Infrastructure no longer constrains the company's strategy to launch its flagship title to millions of players worldwide
• Player Retention Protected: Low-latency asset delivery and reliable gameplay protect the in-app purchase revenue model that depends on player satisfaction
• Modernization Path: The hybrid EC2/EKS model gives the development team a gradual, low-risk path from monolith to microservices
• Innovation Enabled: Access to AWS's analytics and container ecosystem empowers data-driven player engagement optimization and a modern deployment pipeline

About DG Global Technology

DG Global Technology is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner and Managed Service Partner specializing in enterprise cloud transformation across ASEAN markets. With 50+ AWS certifications and 5+ years of partnership experience, we deliver comprehensive managed services including 24/7 monitoring, proactive optimization, security management, and cost governance.