SmileyRose Web Solutions

As most of you know, we migrated to a new server earlier this year.  One of the reasons we did that was to bring our operating software (system, web, and email) up to current technology standards.  Our plan at that time was to migrate to a new server every two years.

So why so soon?

From the start, we have had problems with the server.  Despite literally spending hundreds of hours researching, pouring over logs, and discussing the subject with our upstream provider, we have never been able to resolve the issues.

Additionally, late last week our server was hacked into and used to distribute thousands of illegal spam emails.  This, of course, caused many ISPs to block emails coming from our server.  Again, despite many hours of effort and discussions with our upstream provider, we have been unable to remedy the problem.

The long and short of it

It is our responsibility to provide our clients with a fast and reliable web and email server.  We felt we were not performing this task to our high standards, so we elected to make further technology investments in order to return our service to one of the best.

We thought it might be helpful to briefly discuss what happens when we migrate to a new server.  There are many different things that need to happen behind the scenes in order to make the migration a success.  So here, in chronological order, are the steps that happen.

1. Purchase a new web server.  In essence, a web server isn’t much different from a desktop PC.  They pretty much have the same components.  One of the primary differences is that there is no keyboard, mouse, or monitor hooked up to the server.  It’s simply a box, located in a huge facility alongside hundreds or thousands of similar boxes.  In our case, we’ve selected a server that is pretty much comparable to the newer desktop computers on the market – the primary difference being that the web server runs a version of Linux, while most desktop computers run Windows.
2. Verify that all hardware and software on the new server are configured correctly.  This is more of a challenge than you might think, as a web server runs many different programs, including the web page serving software, the email software, anti-virus software, anti-spam software, database software, and a myriad of other components.  Sometimes we miss one, but we do our best to make sure everything is functioning correctly before the migration.
3. Turn off email services.  The email server runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Although you may only check your email once every 5 or 10 or 30 minutes, the server is always available to receive email.  Because of this, we have to make it stop receiving email prior to the migration, because once the migration process begins, the old server will continue to receive email, but since the email accounts have already been migrated, incoming emails would never be received.
4. Begin the migration process.  Essentially, the migration process takes all of the web sites, the databases, the user accounts, the FTP accounts, passwords, emails, and everything else on the old server and moves it to the new server.  This process can take anywhere from 4-12 hours, depending on variables such as network speed, amount of data to be transferred, etc.
5. Tell the internet where to find the new server.  This is the most arduous task in the process.  We must go in to each domain record, and adjust them to show the address of the new server.  At the current time, that’s approximately 200 domains, with 3 records that need changing for each domain.  This is about an 8 hour task (for two people).  After these changes are made, it takes anywhere from 24-48 hours for the changes to show up on the Internet.
6. Verify that data has been transferred completely.  This again requires us to validate each website to make sure everything converted correctly.
7. Back up user accounts and databases on old server.  This is our safety net in case anything goes wrong.

There are a few other tasks that need to be performed, but these are the highlights of the process.  If you have any questions, please feel free to make a post in the comments section, and we will try to answer them.