Hi Char,
Dear readers,
wayangparty.com is presently unavailable to some readers due to migration of file to a VPS. It will take 4 to 8 hours for the DNS to be updated and propagated.
Please visit it again later in the afternoon.
You can still access our main site via a proxy server at:
http://www.proxify.com
Just key in
www.wayangparty.com into the box provided.
DNS change propagation time can be up to days depending on your TTL settings.
In my experience, better to shorten the TTL 1st at a time when you are already preparing to alter DNS record, such that when actual switch happen it is changed swiftly.
E.g. if your DNS normal TTL was 3 days, then 4 days before your scheduled DNS record change, you shorten TTL to 10 minutes. Then you wait for 3 more days, then let the DNS record change. It should be changed fast. After stability is reached you change back the TTL to 3 days. The draw back here is within the 3 days waiting, primary & secondary DNS servers will be busier to answer more extra queries. 10 minutes example may be extreme in some case, try a bit longer e.g. 25 mins, which is still very reasonable and won't overload your DNS servers during that 3 days.
To avoid users seeing error messages, overlap the coverage during the period of transition. I.e. before the change over freeze the blog content update for e.g. 30 min
(depending on data capacity & network speed, for Wayangparty type of blog should be reasonable), duplicate everything within this 30 min to the new server. Test and see if you see the same on both sides. Should be same and transparent to users. Then quickly effect the DNS record change as said above, which will be within a shortened transition time. Then unfreeze and do update only at the new server, and close down the old server.
Ususally the x'fer speed bettween US servers can be 1-5Mbps - very fast. To move an installation like a blog / forum, you set up all the PHP scripts with skins / templates etc 1st (take your time) & then port over your SQL contents, usually tar.gz or bz2 format, should be less than 10MB. 20 mins time budget to directly copy compressed between servers. 10 mins to import SQL & test via browser. If test is failed, troubleshoot and repeat may take hours depending on faults. If no error, you can then effect the pending DNS record change. That part about shortening the TTL you may have to do it days before this part.
Things will be easier if your Hosts give you SSH access. Otherwise you are at the mercy of FTP. When you have no SSH on both sides, then you have to download to your local PC and then upload again - very very slow. SSH can directly copy files between Hosts' servers. If you only have SSH to one host, then use that one to run the FTP, this way at last avoid you to have to bring the data up and down via broadband which are very slow compared with backbones used by hosting providers.
