Planning to change host to WebHosting UK

[carnuke]

I've already had some helpful responses from emails to your sales team, but seeing you have such an active community here, it seems appropriate to share information online.

As an experiened webmaster running two busy sites on a shared server elsewhere, I now have to plan for a clean migration to a faster VPS server in the UK.

This seems like a daunting task, as I need to keep site downtime to a minimum and prevent those unforseen differences in server environments that can cause problems.

In addition, I need to ensure the new VPS server I use here is configured in the best way for running my sites.

Here are some specific questions that I need some clear detail on.

1/ My existing shared server has several domains and test sites running on it. I only want to migrate 2 domains and all the associated file archives. These are both wordpress sites. I know you can "take care of all the migration between servers" but can you transfer on these 2 domains and leave the others on existing server?

2/ How exactly do you carry out the procedure of website migrations?

3/ do you need access to my FTP accounts to access files?

4/ how do you transfer my databases and reconnect, as this would need access to my connection strings?

4/ Can any experienced wordpress user recommend useful apache settings that increase performance?

5/ Which is the best accelerator: x-cache / eacellerator / another ??

6/ Any other important setup information required for running large wordpress sites? yes, I do need php 5

7/ Recommendations for memory settings ?

Many thanks for your advice. I am going to book a new VPS as soon as I see a clear route ahead for these items.

[James]

Hi,

Thank you for posting your requirements on the forum.

Before answering all your questions, I'd like to know about your existing shared hosting plan like the type of hosting account whether its Linux or Windows, control panel, type of access etc. Once I've these information I'd be able to answer your questions in a more proper way.

[carnuke]

Hi James, thanks for your quick reply. Here are some of my web hosting details

Hoster HostPapa shared server
Linux distro
cPanel Version 11.24.5-STABLE
Apache version 2.2.13 (Unix)
MySQL version 5.0.81-community-log
PHP version 5.2.11
memory allocation appears tro be capped at 32mb
phpsuexec installed

No SSL ftp but no SFTP.

[IanSmithISA]

Good morning

You say 4/ Can any experienced wordpress user recommend useful apache settings that increase performance? and two busy sites on a shared server elsewhere and running large wordpress sites

Have you seriously considered and rejected a dedicated server ?

Although I am new to web sites, I am a very experienced developer and the one thing that I have noticed about most of the VPS packages on offer is that the amount of guaranteed RAM is quite low. The amount is fine for running the OS and hosting the static aspects of the site but there isn't much space available for database caching.

If you are running an on line store where there will probably be few items to select from (to me less than a couple of hundred thousand rows is few) and are mainly inserting then there is relatively little benefit to be gained from extensive caching of the database.

However a blog site may benefit greatly from more RAM, the database behind it has more opportunities to be able to store and return already executed queries and prefetch data on the basis that it may be needed. Its pretty hard to run out of CPU resource on a modern top of the range PC running as a databases server unless you deliberately cripple it with insufficient RAM, it should always be RAM or disc bound.

So choosing more RAM maybe beneficial to your site, but once you get up to the Windows Hyper V with 2GB of guaranteed RAM you are very close to the price of a dedicated server, as far as I can see the Linux VPS offering stop at a much lower limit.

Given that you are going to go through some hassle transferring your site, is now the time to go a fully dedicated server?

I have the Hyper V VPS Starter pack and have done some speed tests on heavy database use, there is a process on my site that inserts up to 1,000 rows in this table one after each other.

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[tabTokens](
Ref_id int IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
DateCreated_date datetime NOT NULL DEFAULT GetDate(),
DateLastModified_date datetime NULL,
OperatorId_char varchar(40) NULL,
RefIdtabIssuers_int32 int NOT NULL,
RefIdtabTokensBatchHeader_int32 int NOT NULL,
TokenID_char varchar(32) NOT NULL,
Points_int32 integer NOT NULL,
RefIdtabRedeemers_int32 int NULL,
DateRedeemed_date datetime NULL,
InDispute_bit bit NOT NULL DEFAULT 0
) ON [PRIMARY]
GO
CREATE INDEX idxRefTdtabIssuers ON [tabTokens](RefIdtabIssuers_int32)
GO
CREATE INDEX idxRefTdtabRedeemers ON [tabTokens](RefIdtabRedeemers_int32)
GO
CREATE INDEX idxTokenID ON [tabTokens](TokenID_char)
GO
CREATE INDEX idxTokenDisputed ON [tabTokens](InDispute_bit) WHERE InDispute_bit = 1
GO

even on an empty table it is significantly slower than on my development machine which has 2GB of RAM. With the RAM that I have its not possible to cache all the indexes, so index updates perform a lot more disc access than is really necessary. It's hard to be precise on the differences because you never know how much extra RAM you are getting.

Bye

Ian

[James]

Originally Posted by carnuke

Hi James, thanks for your quick reply. Here are some of my hosting details

Hoster HostPapa shared server
Linux distro
cPanel Version 11.24.5-STABLE
Apache version 2.2.13 (Unix)
MySQL version 5.0.81-community-log
PHP version 5.2.11
memory allocation appears tro be capped at 32mb
phpsuexec installed

No SSL ftp but no SFTP.

If you sign up for the Linux VPS or Dedicated Server with cPanel control panel then we would be able to transfer all your data as it is from the old hosting account to our server. You'll just have to provide us the login details of your cPanel control panel.

We can install the accelerator of your choice on the VPS, you can go for Xcache or Eaccelerator or APC.

For better performance, I'd suggest you to optimize the database of your website at regular intervals and also make sure you have a good amount of Guaranteed RAM for your website.

As per your requirement you can opt for either VPS or Dedicated Server.

[carnuke]

Originally Posted by IanSmithISA

Good morning

You say 4/ Can any experienced wordpress user recommend useful apache settings that increase performance? and two busy sites on a shared server elsewhere and running large wordpress sites

Have you seriously considered and rejected a dedicated server?

------//---------


Given that you are going to go through some hassle transferring your site, is now the time to go a fully dedicated server?

Hi Ian , thanks for your detailed reply here. If finance were avilable I would certainly use a dedicated box and I could pick one up in the states for a cheap price. However, I believe that having a UK based server is important as this is where most of my traffic is and other considerations are important, such as the data center and backbone connections.

I do not run commercial sites, they are more blog/cms platforms. Currently I have some 32 mb ram which is pitiful on a wordpress site. Belive me, it really lags, despite constant optimisaton. You are right about memory requirements, but right now my budget allows VPS only.

@ James. I'm assuming you create a mirror of my current webspace files and databases then? Maybe create a cpanel root backup then transfer it over?

This is fine, but it does not fully answer my first question ...

"1/ My existing shared server has several domains and test sites running on it. I only want to migrate 2 domains and all the associated file archives. These are both wordpress sites. I know you can "take care of all the migration between servers" but can you transfer only these 2 domains and leave the others on existing server?"

As stated, I only want 2 websites active on your servers.

I should clarify this: My current host allows different domains to exist in my webspace, so you will see a number of sub directories in my public_html folder as follows:

domain1.com
domain2.com
domain3.com
domain4.co.uk
domain4.com
etc...

I would only want for example, domain1.com and domain2.com to have their nameservers pointing to your servers.

I really need greater detail as to how you do the transfer ... sorry I'm not a control freak, but these sites are valuable and I want to know how things work.

Thanks.

[Administrator]

Originally Posted by carnuke

"1/ My existing shared server has several domains and test sites running on it. I only want to migrate 2 domains and all the associated file archives. These are both wordpress sites. I know you can "take care of all the migration between servers" but can you transfer only these 2 domains and leave the others on existing server?"

As stated, I only want 2 websites active on your servers.

I should clarify this: My current host allows different domains to exist in my webspace, so you will see a number of sub directories in my public_html folder as follows:

domain1.com
domain2.com
domain3.com
domain4.co.uk
domain4.com
etc...

I would only want for example, domain1.com and domain2.com to have their nameservers pointing to your servers.

I really need greater detail as to how you do the transfer ... sorry I'm not a control freak, but these sites are valuable and I want to know how things work.

Thanks.

Hi,

We will first restore full backup of your account and then remove the accounts of other domains. You can take care of removing other domains from your cpanel control panel itself and leave the 2 domains which you want to resolve from our servers. This option would be the simplest one to go ahead with.

If you don't want to move data of other domains then we will need to manually download data of the 2 domains through FTP and download the Databases from your old cpanel control panel and then restore the Data and Databases on our server.

Please let me know which option suits you.

[carnuke]

Thanks Admin, that sounds reasonable and I would go for the first option, where the whole archive is copied over. I can then tidy up unwanted domains and archives after.

One other point, my namservers are are not with my current host, but with a 3rd party registra.

At what point do you recommend changing the DNS, before or after the transfer of files? Looking for minimum downtime please ...

[Rachel]

You will change the name servers only after your account is fully set on the new server that is, after the data transfer is complete. Until your domain resolves to the new server, you will use the Server IP address to get you into the control panel and access your website.

Since you have the website running on both servers, you will have almost no or very minimum downtime, as the website keeps resolving from either of the server.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Thanks!