Navigating the HiveMQ Migration: Your FAQ Guide

For customers already using HiveMQ, the need to migrate is a common scenario. As in any business, change is inevitable, bringing with it evolving requirements. Whether these are business or technical requirements, the reality is that nothing remains constant. Not to mention — at HiveMQ we are constantly innovating and adding new features, so migrating gives customers access to the latest improvements in the HiveMQ MQTT Platform.

The Need to Migrate

Migrating a HiveMQ instance can occur for various reasons and under different circumstances, including:

• Moving from a bare-metal infrastructure to a hyperscaler

• Moving between hyperscalers

• Shifting from a private cloud to a public cloud

• Relocating to a different region

• Transitioning from a self-managed to a fully managed service

This article addresses migration FAQs (frequently asked questions) that we’ve gathered, focusing on roles, costs, planning, support, and guidance.

What is a Migration?

For starters, let’s define what HiveMQ considers a migration process. A migration occurs when a customer with an active, live deployment needs to create a new deployment in another environment with the same license specifications, replacing the existing deployment.

Temporary Licenses and Costs

Once you have planned your migration, HiveMQ can issue a temporary license with the same specifications for use in your new deployment (see more here). When the migration process is complete, you must transfer the license from the old deployment to the new one.

Regarding costs, if the migration process takes about 1 month, there are no additional charges for the temporary license. However, if the migration process takes longer, you will need to reach out to HiveMQ.

Do Different Platforms (Kubernetes, Bare-metal, Hyperscaler) Have Different Licensing Costs?

Once a license is issued, it can be used on any supported platform — Kubernetes, bare-metal, or hyperscaler — without any extra charge. The license fees are the same regardless of the platform, as long as it is supported by HiveMQ.

What Role Will HiveMQ Play in the Migration?

The extent of HiveMQ’s involvement depends on your contract type.

If you have an ongoing contract with HiveMQ, you are entitled to support and guidance. Although this article provides general guidance, you can reach out to your Technical Account Manager, or your Customer Success Manager, and ask for more specific information.

Apart from that, you can also reach out to our technical support.

Please note that regardless of the type of contract, HiveMQ can at most assist, support, and guide you. The customer is always responsible for the implementation.

The only exception to this is in case of a Fully Managed Service, whereby HiveMQ is responsible for implementing the new environment.

Go-Live with the New Deployment

One of the last steps of the migration process is redirecting all the traffic into the new environment. This is usually the most critical step.

Depending on your requirements, you typically have at least three options:

• TCP proxy

• DNS 

• Clients themselves

Understanding which option is best requires some analysis and evaluating the pros and cons of each.

To understand different options for MQTT client load balancing, please also read our blog post Load Balancing MQTT Clients: A Beginner’s Guide.  

If you are moving from a Self-Managed solution to a Fully Managed one with HiveMQ, you can also read this case study, where Paxton confirms experiencing a smooth transition.