CDE Migrate™ is a managed service that moves projects from one CDE platform to another with the full record intact. Files, folders, version history, metadata, issues and audit trails all come across, whether the move is between vendors, such as Asite to Procore, or within one vendor, such as BIM 360 to Autodesk Forma or one regional hub to another.
Why organisations change platforms
Organisations change CDEs for ordinary commercial reasons. A vendor raises its prices at renewal. A new contract requires the client's platform. A merger leaves two businesses on different systems. A government client requires data to sit in a sovereign region. Whatever the trigger, the project record has to survive the move, because it is the evidence for claims, audits, handover and the asset's operating life.
What goes wrong with a manual migration
Vendor export tools rarely carry metadata and version history with the files. Most platforms have no native way to keep metadata when moving between their own regional hubs, and moving between vendors is harder again. A manual migration means downloading, renaming, re-uploading and re-tagging every file, which takes months on a large estate. During that time the organisation pays for both platforms, project teams work across both, and any gap in the transfer becomes a permanent gap in the record.
How CDE Migrate™ works
Every migration starts with scoping. Utopia Digital works with your team to confirm the source and destination platforms, the modules in use, the volume of data and the target region. Folder structures and metadata fields are mapped from source to destination, and the mapping is agreed before anything moves.
The migration then runs on the same zero-persistence platform as CDE Sync™. Files stream directly from source to destination, encrypted in transit, without being stored on Utopia Digital's systems. Version history is rebuilt in order in the destination, metadata is translated into the destination's fields, and every move is logged so the result can be checked file by file.
Issues and their history migrate as part of CDE Migrate™, alongside documents. Where a destination platform has no equivalent for a legacy item, such as certain markups or transmittals, the item is preserved as a snapshot or archived in your own Azure so nothing is lost.
Timing
A first project typically runs in about two working days once scoping is complete, with further projects running alongside it. Full engagements are planned back from your target cut-over date. Allow at least 60 days before that date so scoping, access approvals and validation fit comfortably.
Validating the result
A migration is complete when you can show the record came across. CDE Migrate™ produces a log of every file, version and metadata value moved, which your information manager can check against the source before the old platform is switched off. Our article on how to validate a CDE migration covers the checks in more detail.
CDE Migrate™ and the Utopiaverse™
CDE Migrate™ is the layer of the Utopiaverse™ that handles platform change. It can also land a copy of the migrated record in your own Azure, where it sits alongside data from CDE Sync™, CDE Backup™ and CDE Archive™. That shared record makes the next platform change simpler, and AI Insights can search a project's history regardless of which CDE it lived in at the time.