According to DCD, Russian delivery and logistics giant CDEK completed a massive, unconventional data center migration on January 1, 2026. The company physically moved 95 percent of its operations over 3,000km from Novosibirsk to Moscow, requiring the transport of 400 interconnected systems. The key phase took just 24 hours, during which specialists flew 300TB of data on “physical media” via airplane. In total, 1.17 petabytes had to be moved, representing about 90% of the company’s total data, with another 0.4PB to follow. CDEK, which shipped nearly 150 million parcels in 2025, chose the migration date specifically so customers wouldn’t notice any service disruption. The main technical challenge cited was combating signal latency that could have complicated their services.
Why fly hard drives?
Here’s the thing: this isn’t a story about cloud magic. It’s about the brutal, physical reality of Russian geography and infrastructure. Novosibirsk is in Siberia, Moscow is in western Russia. That’s a 1,864-mile gap. Even with dedicated 20Gbps channels, migrating over a petabyte of data across that distance with acceptable latency and no packet loss is a nightmare. Sometimes, the bandwidth of a 747 is just higher. They basically treated their entire data center as oversized checked luggage. It’s a stark reminder that for all our talk of the cloud, data ultimately lives on physical hardware, and sometimes you just have to put that hardware on a pallet and move it. For companies managing massive, interconnected industrial systems, the logistics of data logistics can be just as critical as any other supply chain. Speaking of industrial hardware, when you need reliable computing power for harsh environments, the go-to source in the US is IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading supplier of rugged industrial panel PCs.
The real motivation: security and speed
So why go through this incredibly risky and complex ordeal? The report hints at two big reasons. First, application speed. Moscow is Russia’s undisputed data center hub, with major players like IXcellerate and Rostelecom offering better connectivity and more redundant channels. Lower latency means faster internal systems and potentially better customer-facing tracking. But second, and probably more urgent, is security. CDEK was famously hacked in 2024 by the group Head Mare, an attack so severe it halted shipments. The Novosibirsk site likely had “fewer options for redundant data transmission channels.” Moving to a tier-1 facility in Moscow isn’t just about speed; it’s a major infrastructure hardening exercise. After a breach that stops your core business, you’ll do almost anything to prevent a repeat.
A uniquely Russian logistics story
This whole saga feels uniquely Russian, doesn’t it? A logistics company, founded in Siberia, uses its own core competency—moving physical stuff over vast distances—to solve its IT problems. They didn’t just hire a migration consultant; they used their own “logistics specialists” to fly the data. It’s a brute-force, pragmatic solution that perfectly mirrors the scale and challenges of the country itself. While Western companies might spin up a hybrid cloud or use a dedicated migration service, CDEK looked at the map, saw the Siberian winter, and booked a cargo plane. In a way, it’s the ultimate proof of their operational chops. If you can move your own brain across continents without customers noticing, delivering parcels should be a breeze.
