Migrate from DigitalOcean droplets to Quake AI compute

This guide covers migrating compute workloads from DigitalOcean Droplets to Quake AI (OpenStack Nova). DigitalOcean does not support image export, so the recommended approach is rebuild and rsync: provision a fresh Nova instance, install your application stack, and transfer data.

Service mapping#

Prerequisites#

• A Quake AI account with application credentials
• The OpenStack CLI installed and configured
• SSH access to your Droplets
• An SSH key pair imported to Quake AI (openstack keypair create --public-key)

Image portability#

DigitalOcean does not provide an API or UI for downloading Droplet snapshots. A dd-based workaround exists but is impractical for most migrations: it captures the entire disk (including empty space), requires a temporary Droplet, and produces images with no guarantee of bootability on OpenStack.

Recommendation: Do not attempt image export. Rebuild and rsync is faster and more reliable.

Flavor mapping#

DigitalOcean plan families map to Quake AI flavor families by their RAM-to-vCPU ratio. Basic (shared) maps to s1a, General Purpose (4:1) maps to m2a, CPU-Optimized (2:1) maps to c2a, and Memory-Optimized (8:1) maps to r2a.

Larger Basic Droplets (s-8vcpu-16gb) do not have a clean s1a match because s1a maxes out at 8 vCPU / 8 GiB. Step up to m2a.2xlarge (8 vCPU / 32 GiB) for production workloads at that scale.

General Purpose slugs come in two variants: g- (standard SSD) and gd- (Premium NVMe SSD). Both variants share the same vCPU and RAM ratios; the gd- variant adds NVMe storage and up to 10 Gbps network. The flavor mapping applies to both.

Migration approach#

Option 1: Containerized workloads (recommended)#

If your Droplets run Docker containers, migrate images and redeploy.

1. Push images from DigitalOcean Container Registry (or Docker Hub) to a portable registry:

docker pull registry.digitalocean.com/MY_REGISTRY/MY_APP:latest
docker tag registry.digitalocean.com/MY_REGISTRY/MY_APP:latest \
  registry.example.com/MY_APP:latest
docker push registry.example.com/MY_APP:latest

1. Provision a Nova instance on Quake AI:

openstack server create \
  --image "Ubuntu-22.04" \
  --flavor m2a.xlarge \
  --network MY_NETWORK \
  --key-name MY_KEY \
  --security-group MY_SECURITY_GROUP \
  MY_INSTANCE_NAME

1. Install Docker and deploy:

ssh ubuntu@FLOATING_IP
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y docker.io
sudo docker pull registry.example.com/MY_APP:latest
sudo docker run -d -p 80:8080 registry.example.com/MY_APP:latest

Option 2: Rebuild and rsync (non-containerized)#

For traditional LAMP/LEMP or custom application stacks.

1. Provision a Nova instance with the same base OS:

openstack server create \
  --image "Ubuntu-22.04" \
  --flavor m2a.xlarge \
  --network MY_NETWORK \
  --key-name MY_KEY \
  --security-group MY_SECURITY_GROUP \
  MY_INSTANCE_NAME

1. Assign a floating IP:

openstack floating ip create PublicStatic
openstack server add floating ip MY_INSTANCE_NAME FLOATING_IP

1. Install your application stack on the Quake AI instance. Reuse cloud-init configs or provisioning scripts from your Droplet setup.

2. Transfer application data:

rsync -avz --progress -e "ssh -i ~/.ssh/MY_KEY" \
  root@DROPLET_IP:/path/to/app/data \
  ubuntu@FLOATING_IP:/path/to/app/data

1. Migrate databases:

# PostgreSQL
pg_dump -h DROPLET_IP -U MY_USER MY_DATABASE | \
  psql -h FLOATING_IP -U MY_USER MY_DATABASE

# MySQL
mysqldump -h DROPLET_IP -u MY_USER -p MY_DATABASE | \
  mysql -h FLOATING_IP -u MY_USER -p MY_DATABASE

Key pair and security setup#

Import your SSH key#

Import your existing SSH public key to Quake AI:

openstack keypair create --public-key ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub my-key

Translate Cloud Firewalls to security groups#

DigitalOcean Cloud Firewalls apply at the network level or via tags. Neutron security groups apply per instance (per port). Re-create your firewall rules as security group rules:

openstack security group create web-tier
openstack security group rule create web-tier \
  --protocol tcp --dst-port 22 --remote-ip 0.0.0.0/0
openstack security group rule create web-tier \
  --protocol tcp --dst-port 80 --remote-ip 0.0.0.0/0
openstack security group rule create web-tier \
  --protocol tcp --dst-port 443 --remote-ip 0.0.0.0/0

If you used DigitalOcean tag-based firewall targeting, apply the equivalent security group to each Quake AI instance individually.

Validation checklist#

After migrating each workload, verify:

• Application responds correctly on the Quake AI instance
• All expected ports are accessible through the security group
• Data integrity: compare file checksums or row counts between source and destination
• Database connectivity from the application to any migrated databases
• DNS records updated to point to the new Quake AI floating IP
• Monitoring in place (self-managed Prometheus + Grafana to replace DO Monitoring)
• Managed Database data migrated to self-managed instances on Quake AI (if applicable)
• SSL/TLS certificates installed and renewed

Provider-specific gotchas#

See also#

• Migrating from DigitalOcean to Quake AI: full cross-service migration hub
• Coming from DigitalOcean: concept translation reference
• Create an instance: full instance provisioning workflow
• Compute migration guides: all provider guides
• Object storage migration: if you also need to move DigitalOcean Spaces data to Quake AI Object Storage