Migrate 10+ e-commerce websites without any downtime for emails, website and databases
About the Project
Michael is one of our oldest clients who is developing renowned e-commerce websites, branding and logo design, search engine optimization service, website maintenance, and much more. He has got experienced developers and web designers in his team with 15 years in the current business. They also provide personalized service and cost-effective solutions to further enhance your competitive edge.
THE PROBLEM
The client has hosted his websites on our Windows VPS plan at Denver (USA) location. He was looking to migrate his Denver VPS to his home location, e.g., Sydney (Australia) location. So, he purchased a new VPS at Sydney (Australia) location from AccuWeb Hosting with the same configuration as Denver VPS (SolidCP, MSSQL, MySQL, etc..). He requested to install all the same applications on new VPS, except for the mail server. For the mail server, he decided to go with MailEnable email service instead of a smartermail mail server.
His primary goal was to move 10 e-commerce websites from the Denver location to Sydney VPS without any downtime (except a small maintenance window) for them. He also didnt want to lose any data in the migration process. He wanted us to migrate website content, databases, windows environment & email services to his new VPS. Most of his clients were from Australia, so he requested us to schedule this migration between 1 am - 6 am (Australian Eastern Standard time).
He provided details of the 10 e-commerce websites, including the databases and email accounts to our migration team. He requested to update the new VPS with the required zone records so he can use the nameservers.
OUR SOLUTION
Accuweb Hosting allocated a dedicated migration expert to work between 1 am to 6 am Australian Eastern Standard Time. All the pre-migration data was prepared by our migration expert, and the client was informed about the estimated time and the steps we will take to migrate his websites.
Step 1: Creating Websites in Control Panel and IIS
Our first step was to create all 10 websites in the control panel and in the IIS server.
Step 2: Copying content from Denver VPS to Sydney VPS
After websites and Domains were added successfully in IIS and DNS, we started copying web-content from Denver VPS to Sydney VPS using RDP sessions. The content size was relatively small, so, migration of web-content was very smooth.
Step 3: Migrating Database
There were around 14 MySQL databases that needed to be migrated to the Sydney location. The first step was to create the same databases with the same username and password on the new VPS. Using a control panel web interface, the backup of 14 databases was created, and that was also imported to the Sydney VPS.
Step 4: Creating Email Accounts and Importing data from the Old email accounts
The mail server on the old VPS and new VPS was different. So, direct export & import of the email services was not possible. To migrate email account content, we simply created new email accounts on Sydney location and imported email content from Denver VPS using the email address and password.
Step 5: Pointing websites to new VPS
Once everything was migrated to new VPS, client tested functionality using temporary URLs. As soon as he confirmed that everything was working, we changed the name server’s IP address to point them to the new VPS location.
THE RESULTS
All 10+ e-commerce websites are working smoothly on the Sydney location. Most of the visitors were from Australia, and due to the very low latency between visitors location and servers location, their user experience was greatly improved. The client was very happy with improved user experience and great improvement in SEO due to that.