Building A Cloud Migration Plan
Every cloud migration starts with a plan, and every plan starts with information gathering. A website is composed of many parts that work together. Migrating to the Hostdedi Cloud is easier than many cloud migrations because we handle the setup of the server, software stack, and application for you. That gets you a long way towards a successful migration, but it will go more smoothly if you have the necessary information at your fingertips.
Assess Your Site’s Resource Requirements
Cloud hosting is sold in resource tiers. It’s easy to move between tiers, but you should be aware of the resources your site consumes and choose a suitable cloud plan for the initial migration.
The Hostdedi Cloud indicates how many concurrent users each plan supports, so it’s easy to figure out which is appropriate for your site or store.
Gather the Relevant Information
Compile a list of services your site depends on and the associated authentication credentials.
You are likely to need the following information:
- Login details of your current hosting provider’s control panel.
- SSH or FTP passwords for the hosting account you intend to migrate from.
- Login details for services you use on your site, such as Google Analytics.
- The name of your domain registrar and login details for the registrar’s control panel. This is important if you are also migrating DNS hosting. You may need to change the authoritative domain name servers for the site’s domain.
- If you use a third-party DNS hosting provider, you need the details of that account to change the DNS records to point to the destination cloud hosting.
- If your site uses a third-party CDN to distribute static assets, you may need login credentials to make changes to the CDN configuration.
It is important to have these details ready before attempting a cloud migration. It would be unfortunate if the migration goes well, but DNS or CDN problems cause availability issues.
Install Backup Software on Your Application
The core of your site is composed of two main components: its files and its database. Once the application – WordPress, for example – has been installed on the cloud hosting account, the migration involves copying the files to the new cloud instance and the data to a database running on that instance.
Backup software is useful in two ways: it allows you to create a copy of the site in case something goes wrong, and the same files and data can be copied to the new cloud instance.
Most web applications provide plugins or extensions that can copy the data from the old installation to the new installation for you. If you would prefer to let us handle this part of the migration process, contact Hostdedi support for more information about our free migration service.
Pick A Day
Once you have gathered the necessary information, it’s time to choose a migration date. With proper planning, there will be little downtime, but it is better to choose a day that you don’t expect the site to be especially busy.
Download our free guide to Cloud Migration here.
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