Hi!
Pretty much what the title asks... I want move my site to a different hosting service. Is there a recommended process for that? Off the top of my head, I think it would probably go something like this...
- Install a new instance of eFiction at the new provider.
- Test and confirm that it works properly.
- Copy all of the content and settings from the old site to new.
- Test again - confirm that all stats align.
- If good, schedule the final cutover, where you...
- Put the old site in Maintenance Mode
- Copy the content and settings one last time.
- Perform a final test on the new site to confirm everything is there.
- If its good, implement your DNS changes to point to the new site.
- Reopen for business.
While that seems relatively straight forward, there are a few things that bother me...
- In terms of "Content and Settings", is it just the Contents and Skins (if you've added more) directories and the SQL database?
- We have a "Backup" capability... do I just run a backup and then "restore" the files in the Zip to the new site? If so, what about the SQL database?
- Regardless of how I do this, how do I make sure all the indexes are updated?
- Part of my concern is timing, since I want to make sure that I do all this in the right sequence.
Please let me know how I should proceed. I DID try to read thru the older posts on this topic, but all the links people referenced were broken... possibly by changing over to the new forum.
Thanks!
Katarr.
Hey Katarr,
We actually offer our own hosting services, as part of DoRoyal. You can find it on the Hosts page.
As for moving from one host to another, the process is usually fairly simple. If your old host has cPanel, you can simply generate a full account backup using the cPanel Backup Wizard, and then have the new host restore that backup on their network. This is the easiest, quickest, and most effective way to move from host to host.
Beyond that, you could also move all data over to the new provider manually. You'd just need the data itself (basically everything within your public_html folder, or whichever sub-directory you installed eFiction to) and the database + database users.
Move those things over to a new host, update your URL structure (if needed), and in theory, you should be good to go.
I'll see if I can create a "Moving eFiction Installation" help document soon, to make everything a bit easier to understand.
Sidular,
Thanks for the quick reply. Currently I am using DreamHost which does not have cPanel. To complicate that, I am actually moving twice. Once to an interim website with Dreamhost (for a couple of months) and a second move to it's final home on a self-hosting infrastructure currently being built.
Your help document would be greatly appreciated, and I would be happy to help tweak it from the experiences I will gain moving the site twice.
Katarr.
