Migrating a live IoT platform off self-hosted Kubernetes without forced app updates

WeWALK, a smart cane platform for visually impaired users, migrated its backend from self-hosted Kubernetes to Google Cloud without requiring any client updates. The team rebuilt the system from backups after losing access to the old cluster, serving 27,000 users who depend on the app for mobility. A Lambda-to-Cloud-Run proxy kept old endpoints alive, and configuration diffs caught four missing environment variables that could have caused incidents.