Migrating Away from a Discontinued Platform: How to Move VR/Workroom Users to Own Domain-Powered Collaboration

You're losing Workrooms — here's a practical migration plan to keep your teams collaborating on your domain

Hook: With Meta discontinuing Horizon Workrooms on February 16, 2026, organizations that relied on VR-first collaboration now face hard choices: accept cloud lock-in, scramble for a replacement, or build a domain‑controlled collaboration stack that fits DevOps and security workflows. This guide gives a step‑by‑step migration plan to move users from Workrooms to web apps hosted under your domain, with email ownership and SSO controls.

Quick summary — what you’ll get from this guide

• A phased migration roadmap (discovery → export → launch → iterate)
• Concrete technical components: DNS, TLS, TURN, WebRTC, WebXR hosting, reverse proxy
• Identity and provisioning: OIDC/SAML, SCIM, email domain ownership, DMARC
• Data export and assets handling (avatars, rooms, 3D models → glTF)
• Cost & pricing considerations, testing checklist, rollback plan

Why move to custom‑domain collaboration in 2026?

Late 2025–early 2026 saw two clear trends: first, large platform owners retrench on VR SaaS; second, browser‑based WebXR and open standards matured fast enough for production collaboration. After Meta announced Workrooms’ shutdown on Feb 16, 2026, many enterprise buyers prioritized:

• Data ownership: keep logs, records, and assets under your policies.
• Identity control: enforce your SSO, password policy, and conditional access.
• Automation: integrate domain and collaboration lifecycle into CI/CD and IaC.

“Meta has made the decision to discontinue Workrooms as a standalone app, effective February 16, 2026.” — Meta help notice

High‑level migration roadmap (recommended)

1. Discovery & inventory (1–2 weeks) — list users, rooms, data types, headsets, integrations.
2. Export & archive (2–4 weeks) — request data from Meta, export assets, back up logs.
3. Platform selection (1–2 weeks) — choose web app(s): open‑source Hubs/Janus/Mediasoup stacks or managed vendors.
4. Domain & identity setup (1–2 weeks) — register/transfer domains, configure SSO and SCIM, prepare email sending.
5. Infrastructure build (2–4 weeks) — TURN/STUN, reverse proxy, certificates, CDN for assets.
6. Pilot & migrate (2–6 weeks) — pilot group, validate scripts, iterate.
7. Rollout & decommission (2–4 weeks) — full migration, suspend Workrooms usage, archive final exports.

Step 1 — Discovery & inventory: map the surface area

Start with a precise inventory. Your migration will fail if you don’t know what you own.

• Users: list accounts, roles, last activity, linked email addresses.
• Rooms: persistent rooms vs ephemeral ones; linked assets and permissions.
• Assets: avatars, 3D models, textures, video recordings, transcripts.
• Integrations: calendar, Slack, LMS, SSO connectors.
• Devices: which VR headsets and client versions are still in use.

Deliverable: an inventory CSV with these columns: type, id, owner, size, retention policy, export status.

Step 2 — Data export and mapping

Meta may provide account and content export. Start export requests immediately (vendors often throttle exports). While waiting, prepare mapping rules.

What to export and how to normalize it

• Users and memberships: CSV or JSON mapping of user → room memberships.
• Avatars and models: convert proprietary formats to glTF (binary .glb) and compress textures.
• Recordings and transcripts: download as MP4 / VTT; index them for search.
• Permissions / roles: map Workrooms roles to your SSO groups or roles in the target app.

Example: convert models to glTF

# using FBX2glTF (example)
fbx2gltf --binary avatar.fbx -o avatar.glb
# then upload to your CDN bucket
aws s3 cp avatar.glb s3://collab-assets/avatars/avatar.glb --acl public-read

Step 3 — Choose the right target platform

There are two broad approaches:

• Self-hosted open stack — Mozilla Hubs (open-source), Janus/mediasoup + custom front end, or OpenVidu for tightly controlled WebRTC. Good for privacy and integration with internal auth.
• Managed hosting with custom domain — vendors that allow CNAME/custom domains and SSO connections. Faster to launch but check exportability.

Selection criteria:

• SSO support (OIDC + SAML + SCIM)
• WebXR & WebRTC compatibility
• Asset hosting and CDN integration
• TURN server orchestration and cost predictability
• APIs for automation and user provisioning

Step 4 — Domains, DNS, and pricing considerations

Move domain registration and email ownership to your organization if not already. You’ll host the collaboration app under a subdomain like vr.company.com or rooms.company.com.

Domain registration & transfer checklist

• Verify WHOIS contact and enable domain lock only during transfer windows.
• Transfer domains to a provider that supports API automation and predictable pricing. Look for transparent transfer fees and renewal caps.
• Enable WHOIS privacy if allowed by your governance policy.

DNS records you will need

Typical DNS records for a collaboration subdomain:

• A / AAAA — points to load balancer or host IP
• CNAME — for CDN or managed platform
• TXT — for domain verification (SSO providers), SPF, and DKIM for email
• SRV — optional for signaling services if required by your stack
• CAA — restrict which CAs can issue certificates

Sample DNS entries

rooms.company.com.  300  IN A   203.0.113.45
rooms.company.com.  300  IN TXT "google-site-verification=..."
rooms.company.com.  3600 IN CAA 0 issue "letsencrypt.org"

Pricing considerations (what to budget for)

• Domain transfer/renewal: $10–$50/year per domain (varies with TLD)
• Hosting: VPS $20–200/mo; Kubernetes cluster $200–1000+/mo depending on scale
• Bandwidth & CDN: video traffic and 3D assets can be $0.08–$0.20/GB (plan for heavy usage)
• TURN servers: cloud TURN usage can be the largest variable — estimate $0.05–$0.50/hour per active session depending on provider
• Support & maintenance: developer effort for automation and security

Step 5 — Identity, SSO, and provisioning (must‑do)

Identity is the most critical piece when you migrate. If you don’t control identity, you can’t enforce access, audit, or automation.

Standards to implement

• OIDC (OpenID Connect) for modern SSO flows (browser + mobile)
• SAML for older enterprise SSO integrations
• SCIM for automated user provisioning and deprovisioning
• OAuth2 for service-to-service tokens

SCIM provisioning example

# Provision a user via SCIM (example curl)
curl -X POST https://idp.company.com/scim/v2/Users \
 -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCIM_TOKEN" \
 -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
 -d '{"userName":"alice@example.com","name":{"givenName":"Alice","familyName":"Lee"}}'

Configure your collaboration app to accept OIDC tokens from your IdP and map groups to roles. Verify that SCIM deprovisions immediately for offboarding.

Step 6 — Networking: TURN, STUN, and scaling WebRTC

WebRTC needs STUN/TURN for reliable connectivity, especially for remote teams behind symmetric NAT. Deploy a TURN cluster (coturn) and secure it with long, rotating credentials.

Minimal coturn config (example)

# /etc/turnserver.conf
listening-port=3478
fingerprint
lt-cred-mech
use-auth-secret
static-auth-secret=YOUR_STATIC_SECRET
realm=rooms.company.com
cert=/etc/letsencrypt/live/rooms.company.com/fullchain.pem
pkey=/etc/letsencrypt/live/rooms.company.com/privkey.pem

# enable logging and limits
log-file=/var/log/turnserver.log
no-multicast-peers

# allocate UDP relay ports
min-port=49152
max-port=65535

For production, deploy TURN behind autoscaling with metrics on packet rates and bandwidth. Use a managed TURN provider if you want predictable SLAs.

Step 7 — TLS, reverse proxy, and CDN

Use automated TLS via ACME (Let's Encrypt) and a reverse proxy to route paths to different microservices. Caddy or Traefik are good choices for automatic cert management and dynamic configuration.

Example Caddyfile snippet

rooms.company.com {
  encode gzip
  reverse_proxy /api/* http://backend:8080
  reverse_proxy /media/* http://assets:9090
  reverse_proxy /* http://frontend:3000
}

Host static assets on a CDN (S3 + CloudFront or equivalent) and use cache headers for glTF and textures.

Step 8 — Automation, IaC, and CI/CD integration

Everything you set up should be reproducible. Store DNS as code (Terraform), infrastructure in YAML (Helm / K8s), and deployment pipelines for front end and back end in CI.

Example: Terraform DNS record (Cloudflare)

resource "cloudflare_record" "rooms" {
  zone_id = data.cloudflare_zones.company_zone.id
  name    = "rooms"
  value   = aws_lb.rooms.dns_name
  type    = "CNAME"
  ttl     = 300
}

Automate certificate renewal, TURN credential rotation, and SCIM client rotations in your pipeline.

Step 9 — Pilot, QA, and accessibility testing

Run a pilot with a cross‑functional group: IT, security, product, and a few end users. Validate:

• SSO login and group role mapping
• Media quality under representative bandwidth conditions
• Access from headsets (if still used) and browser clients
• Asset rendering quality and load times
• Logging, audit trails, and retention

Step 10 — Migration, cutover, and decommissioning

Plan a soft cutover: run both systems in parallel for a short period. Steps:

1. Notify users and schedule cutover windows.
2. Provision users in your IdP and push via SCIM.
3. Upload converted assets and verify links in pilot rooms.
4. Update DNS TTLs lower 24 hours before cutover to speed rollback if needed.
5. Monitor errors, media metrics, and sign‑in rates closely after cutover.
6. Finalize by archiving last exports from Workrooms and documenting retention.

User migration specifics

Practical steps to migrate users:

• Export user list from Workrooms. Normalize emails and user IDs.
• Provision accounts via SCIM into your IdP or collaboration app.
• Map roles and rooms using the inventory CSV; automate membership assignments with scripts or API calls.
• Communicate a step‑by‑step onboarding guide to users: how to sign in with SSO, set up avatar, access rooms under rooms.company.com.

Example: bulk membership via API

#!/bin/bash
# CSV: user_email,room_id
while IFS=, read -r email room; do
  curl -X POST https://rooms.company.com/api/rooms/$room/members \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d "{\"email\":\"$email\"}"
done < memberships.csv

Security, monitoring, and compliance

Security checks you must do:

• Enforce MFA and conditional access for SSO
• Audit logs — store in SIEM (Splunk, Elastic) and retain per policy
• Network segmentation for TURN servers and media relays
• Automated vulnerability scanning for images and dependencies
• Data retention policies for recordings and transcripts

Operational cost & vendor checklist

Before selecting a managed vendor or committing to self‑hosting, validate:

• Does the vendor allow custom domains and TLS with your certs?
• Do they support OIDC/SAML and SCIM out of the box?
• Is there an API for user & asset import/export?
• What are bandwidth costs and TURN pricing models?
• What SLAs and breach notification timelines do they offer?

Rollback and archive strategy

If the new stack fails, you need a rollback plan:

• Lower DNS TTLs for quick reversion.
• Keep Workrooms read‑only for a short period (if Meta allows) and maintain exports.
• Retain final export snapshots in cold storage (S3 Glacier) and document retrieval process.

Case study (fictional, realistic example)

Acme Robotics had 800 active Workrooms users and used Workrooms for weekly scrums and training. They followed this plan:

1. Inventoryed assets and split rooms into training vs collaboration.
2. Exported data and converted models to glTF while requesting the final Workrooms export.
3. Deployed a Kubernetes cluster with Traefik, coturn autoscaling, and an S3 CDN.
4. Integrated IdP via OIDC and SCIM for auto‑provisioning and immediate offboarding when an employee left.
5. Piloted with 50 users, optimized TURN sizing, and rolled out company‑wide in 6 weeks.

Outcome: predictable monthly costs, faster onboarding, and full auditability of sessions.

Advanced strategies and future predictions (2026+)

Expect these trends through 2026:

• WebXR first: browser‑based VR will dominate enterprise collaboration because it reduces client management and simplifies identity flows.
• Hybrid identity: more IdPs will support fine‑grained authorization claims for role and capability mapping inside the session via OIDC claims.
• Edge TURN & CDN: TURN will be pushed to edge regions to reduce latency, and CDNs will add optimized delivery for 3D assets.
• Standards for avatar portability: industry efforts toward standardizing avatar formats (glTF + metadata specs) will ease migrations.

Checklist: final pre‑cutover readout

• All users provisioned via SCIM? Yes / No
• Domain DNS & TLS validated? Yes / No
• TURN server health & scaling tested? Yes / No
• Pilot media quality acceptable? Yes / No
• Auditing & SIEM hooked up? Yes / No
• Rollback plan documented and tested? Yes / No

Actionable next steps (start now)

1. Request final Workrooms export for all accounts and start downloading assets.
2. Choose your domain and verify WHOIS and DNS API access; reduce DNS TTL to 300 for migration windows.
3. Spin up a pilot: provision an IdP test app (OIDC), deploy coturn and a simple Hubs/mediasoup instance, and test sign-in and media quality.
4. Create a migration playbook with roles & timings and communicate to stakeholders.

Closing thoughts

The Workrooms shutdown is painful, but it also forces organizations to reassert control over identity, data, and cost. Building collaboration under your domain gives you the flexibility to integrate with your developer toolchain, automate lifecycle operations, and ensure compliance — but it requires deliberate planning and automation. Use this migration plan as your operational backbone and adapt tools that match your security and scale needs.

Call to action

Need help moving users off Workrooms? registrer.cloud offers domain transfer APIs, DNS automation, and migration playbooks tailored for enterprise collaboration. Start with a free domain inventory and migration readiness audit — schedule one today to get a custom migration timeline and cost estimate.

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