A computer-implemented method for on-demand data replication in a network architecture includes activating an on-demand program to pair a network-based replication agent with a data source. Compute resources for the replication agent are allocated based on one or more hints received from the data source. The one or more hints are indicative of at least a size of an upcoming data traffic transmission from the data source. Upon receiving data from the data traffic transmission, the replication agent is activated via the on-demand program to replicate the received data using the allocated replication resources. The allocated compute resources are released upon completion of data replication of the received data. The on-demand program is a serverless function configured to activate the replication agent on-demand, upon receiving the data from the data traffic transmission.