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Thursday 25 February 2016

Migration To New Hosts

After much disappointment concerning the reliability of my current hosting company, Dataflame, I am just about to start on the process of migration to the new hosting company.

Decision who to move to has not been an easy decision as no one single company ticks all the proverbial boxes. I was tempted to look for something 'cheap and cheerful' as I have often heard it said that all the hosting companies are just about as bad as each other. So why pay a lot? But, after analysing several different hosting packages, it seems that they all work out at roughly the same prices anyway.

But it's always about the luck of the draw. Some people use a company for years and don't have a single problem, while somebody else uses the same company and experiences many problems.

Since the main concern is that the company I use should be 'reliable', I decided in the end to go for a major player who, in theory, should be 'big enough to deliver'. So I now start the task of leaving Dataflame, getting everything unlocked and hopefully back online with my new hosting company, 1&1 Internet, within 24 hours. Am I being optimistic? Probably. Let's see.

So all my emails and both websites will be offline for a short period. It's possible that a few emails might get lost in the process, however, any stray emails should be re-presented to me over the next two to three days after the the new hosting takes effect.

Thanks to those on the Skywaves Group who gave me hosting suggestions. I didn't take up any of the suggested companies and, in fact, chose to go with the one company which I was advised NOT to move to ... 1&1 Internet. About ten years ago, I used to manage a website for a company who had their website on 1&1 Internet's servers and I was always impressed by their reliability and connection speeds. Hopefully I will enjoy the same reliable service today.


2016-02-27 01:10 Edit: 
Yesterday afternoon, a 1&1 Internet operator in the Philippines told me that the migration from Dataflame's servers to 1&1's had begun and advised that I should now wait for a few hours for migration to take effect. 

I understand a little about how migration works and how it takes time for domains to spread around the WWW. I've been here twice before, so I can remember that much. 

However, some seven hours after being told that the migration from Dataflame's servers had already begun (and all my emails suddenly stopped working), I am receiving email from Dataflame's servers once again. Something has clearly gone wrong. I am wondering if 1&1 have passed me back to Dataflame, lol. "Not that John Faulkner, send him back, QUICK!" :O)
Did I really expect this migration to go that smoothly? Of course not!

So more phone calls tomorrow. And this comes the day after eBay delete 161 of my shop listings! So it's 'business as usual' in the Faulkner household. 

You really couldn't make this up!


2016-02-28 13:25
... and several hours later, more telephone calls to 1&1 confirmed my suspicions, that no transfers had taken place at all! 

Today's problem was that I had to make further payments in order for the transfers to take place. 1&1 were trying to charge me for an extra domain - the one which is included free of charge for the first year. I can only assume this was the reason for the hold-ups. The Philippino operator insisted I had to pay for both domains. I told her she was wrong but she wouldn't listen. 

Then I telephoned Sales in the USA where the operator conformed that the first domain was free. So it was back to the Philippines and, as luck would have it, I got through to the same Philippino operator who had changed her mind and agreed that the first domain was free, therefore she would now initiate the transfers and take care of the nameservers, etc.

Christ on a fucking bike! How complicated is this?

An hour later and, still, everything points to Dataflame. Another entry for my Daily Shit page!


2016-02-28 13:55
At last, something is happening. Both domains are now showing in my 1&1 account and I have been able to test email on one account. That one is working at least. My G1VVP account is still stuck with Dataflame - and this one was transferred first - supposedly. I don't think so!

Just over 24 hours from initiating the transfers and only the second one has fully transferred. So it's yet another phone call to the operator in the Philippines. 


2016-02-28 20:55
Finally, it's all working. Not sure why it took quite this long but it could have been much worse. Minor cock-ups on the part of 1%1 and Dataflame behaved. 

Admittedly, these have only been minor problems, but I can't say it has been a great start with 1&1. I can only hope that my new hosting lives up to 1&1's 'uptime' figures, which were 99.98% last week. 

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