Moving Customers from One Server to Another

(WebHost Blog) Although to say botched means it didn’t go according to plan. It did go somewhat according to plan, but it didn’t go according to my own personal plans and therefore is botched within my point a view as opposed to the actual plans the original planners planned. I didn’t necessarily planned all of that, but the once I grabbed hold of the plan word I just sort of ran with it.

So on Friday, late night early Saturday morning the blog was suppose to be setup on the new server. This of course did not happen. Instead the festivities started on Tuesday around 3am. In a perfect world, the data would be transferred via cPanel’s utilities, the DNS entries swapped, and then after some waiting everything would be done without interruptions.

Instead, all the sites on the server were taken down for transfer in alphabetical order. As you can imagine it took quite some time for the Ws to be transferred.

What I continue to not understand is how many Web hosts fail to take the one extra step in order to make customers happy. The transfer of servers could have been a very easy, if not seamless affair. I’ve transferred sites from one host to another without any problems and I almost wish that they had giving me the option to transfer the site myself, probably would have gone smooth.

To make matters worse I had received several emails saying the transfer had completed when it had not. After talking with the customer support I found that they only had a modest amount of knowledge when it came to what was actually going on so answers to my questions took a lot longer than what they should have.

When planning a move of clients from one server to another or one data center to another it is imperative that there be uninterrupted service and that all staff have a working knowledge of the plan. Without those two you will lose the trust of your customers and in turn lose their business.

Suffice to say, the blog will most likely be moved to a new host.

About David Dunlap
Over the past ten years David has been a prolific author of hundreds of blogs, commentaries and reviews found here on WebHostBlog.com, as well as WebHostMagazine.com and other sites around the Internet. David manages the daily operations at both WebHostBlog and Web Host Magazine & Buyer's Guide, and as the head editor, David uses his unique analytical skills to ensure that both sites maintain their integrity and tough, but fair minded, reputations. Prior to his active career analyzing the Web Host industry, David specialized in networking and communications for the U.S. government. David's expertise in traditional and search engine marketing has helped boost companies both inside and outside of the Web Host industry.