The value of local data sovereignty. Migrating data between CDEs and regions.
Introducing CDE Migrate: Solving the Data Problem in CDE Platform Transitions.
For years, one of the most persistent barriers to platform adoption in the architecture, engineering, construction, and operations (AECO) industry has not been cost, capability, or even change management. It has been legacy data.
Project teams sitting on years of accumulated project history across Common Data Environments (CDEs) face a real and practical problem when a better platform becomes available: how do you move without leaving everything behind?
That question is what CDE Migrate was built to answer.
What is CDE Migrate?
CDE Migrate is a purpose-built migration platform developed by Utopia Digital, designed to move complete project data between Common Data Environments with full fidelity. It handles the full complexity of a real-world CDE migration, not just file transfers, but the entire fabric of a live project environment.
That means everything migrated, preserved, and validated in transit:
All historical file versions, not just the latest revision
Metadata mapping and transformation across platform schemas
Issues, both standalone and model-linked
Transmittals and RFIs
Users and security permissions
All cross-platform structural differences, resolved automatically in transit
Nothing is left behind. Nothing needs to be rebuilt from scratch on the other side.
The Autodesk Regional Hub Problem.
One of the most immediate and pressing use cases for CDE Migrate is the Autodesk regional hub transition.
Autodesk Forma has recently introduced regional hub availability. This is a significant development for global project teams, particularly those working on infrastructure, defence, and government programmes where data residency requirements are not optional.
The problem is that many of these teams originally set up their BIM 360, ACC, or Forma projects on the US hub, because at the time it was the only option available. Now that a local hub exists, they face a choice: stay on the US hub and accept the data residency risk, or migrate to another regional hub and figure out how to move years of project history cleanly.
Until now, that second option has been extremely difficult to execute. There has been no straightforward, validated pathway for moving a live project environment from one Autodesk hub to another without significant manual effort, data loss risk, or structural compromise.
CDE Migrate provides that pathway.
What CDE Migrate Handles for Autodesk Customers.
For teams running BIM 360, ACC, or Forma on the US hub, CDE Migrate manages the entire hub-to-hub migration end-to-end:
Full project replication from source to destination hub
All file versions migrated with complete version history intact
Metadata mapped and transformed to match the destination environment
Issues migrated in full, including model-linked issues and their associations
Transmittals and RFIs carried across with structural integrity
Users, roles, and security permissions replicated accurately
All cross-platform and cross-hub structural differences resolved automatically
The result is a clean, validated destination environment that accurately reflects the source, without requiring manual exports, re-uploads, or reconstruction of project structures.
Beyond Autodesk: Full CDE Vendor Coverage.
CDE Migrate is not limited to Autodesk hub-to-hub migrations. The platform handles migrations across all major CDE vendors, including:
Autodesk BIM 360, ACC, and Forma
Bentley ProjectWise
Oracle Aconex
Procore
Asite
Microsoft SharePoint
InEight
12D Synergy
This means that regardless of where your legacy data sits today, CDE Migrate provides a validated path to your destination platform of choice. Whether you are consolidating platforms, responding to a procurement decision, or moving to meet data residency obligations, legacy data is no longer the blocker it once was.
Deployed at Scale Through Arkance.
CDE Migrate is already live and executing migrations at scale. Through our global partnership with Arkance, an Autodesk Platinum Partner with one of the largest Autodesk customer bases in the world, we are actively rolling out hub-to-hub migrations across the Autodesk customer portfolio.
The current rollout includes an active programme moving customers from the Forma US hub to the Forma AU hub, with further migrations planned across Arkance's broader customer base. The partnership gives CDE Migrate significant distribution and commercial reach from day one, with the infrastructure to deploy at scale across large project portfolios.
Why Legacy Data Has Always Been the Real Barrier.
It is worth understanding why legacy data has been such a persistent problem in platform transitions, because it explains why a purpose-built solution like CDE Migrate is necessary.
When a project team evaluates a new CDE platform, the conversation almost always reaches the same point: the new platform looks better, but moving across feels too hard. The files alone are one thing. But the version history, the linked issues, the transmittal records, the user permissions, the metadata structures that tie everything together, these do not travel cleanly between platforms using generic tools or manual processes.
The consequence is that teams stay on platforms they have outgrown, or they accept a clean break and lose the continuity of their project record. Neither outcome is acceptable for large infrastructure programmes where traceability and audit continuity are non-negotiable.
CDE Migrate was built specifically to remove that constraint. It embeds domain-specific logic for AECO environments, including versioning rules, metadata schema mapping, issue linkage resolution, and structural transformation between platforms. It is not a generic data transfer tool. It understands the environments it is working within and handles the complexity that generic tools cannot.
The Relationship Between CDE Migrate and CDE Sync.
CDE Migrate and CDE Sync serve complementary but distinct purposes within a project's data lifecycle.
CDE Migrate is a point-in-time operation. It moves a complete project environment from one platform to another, with full fidelity and validation. It is used when a decision has been made to transition platforms, consolidate hubs, or meet data residency obligations.
CDE Sync is an ongoing operation. It keeps multiple CDE platforms synchronised in real time across the life of a project, automating the bidirectional transfer of files, metadata, and workflow rules between platforms that are running in parallel.
Together, they give project teams complete control over their data environments, at the point of transition and throughout the ongoing delivery of a programme.
Data Sovereignty and Regional Compliance.
For global project teams, the availability of the Autodesk regional hubs are not just a convenience. For many government, defence, and critical infrastructure programmes, data residency is a compliance requirement. Project data must remain within a country’s borders, and that requirement cannot be met while projects are running on a US-based hub.
CDE Migrate enables teams to meet that obligation cleanly, moving their entire project environment to a locally hosted hub without disruption to project continuity or loss of historical records.
Utopia Digital supports a range of active data sovereign regions globally. For more information on supported regions, visit: https://www.utopiadigital.io/global-data-regions.
Getting Started.
If your team is currently running BIM 360, ACC, or Forma projects on the US hub and is considering a move to the AU hub, or if you are evaluating a migration from any CDE platform to another, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss your requirements.
CDE Migrate assessments begin with a scoping review of your existing environment, covering project volume, data complexity, metadata structures, and any specific compliance or traceability requirements. From there, we develop a migration plan and execute the process in a staged, validated manner.
Get in touch with the Utopia Digital team to start the conversation.
Email: info@utopiadigital.io
Website: utopiadigital.io
Security enquiries: security@utopiadigital.io
Support: support@utopiadigital.io
Utopia Digital is a specialist enterprise software and services provider focused on digital engineering and CDE integration for transportation, energy, buildings, civil infrastructure, mining, aviation, defence, manufacturing, and construction sectors. CDE Sync and CDE Migrate are built and maintained by Utopia Digital, hosted on Microsoft Azure, and are available globally.