That means 24 hours, not eight! I have a fairly large and involved web server share where I keep all my web sites alive and well. I have a reason to need a new version of one of the programming languages I use called PHP 5.2 . The old server I was living on only could give me a very old PHP 4.x version. Yeah geek talk but reason to make a change. It is a hypertext preprocessor programming language. Here is a LINK if you want to learn more.
My service provider, ixWebhosting told me I could switch to the newest server which would have PHP 5.2 but I would have to do all the work to make the switch. I was very upset at first as that is quite a task. Not only moving the files but completely reconfiguring the new web server. I found my senses and took them up on the move.
From the screen capture you can see I have 14 standard domains, 9 subdomains, 22 mailboxes and 7 MySQL databases. Every one of them had to be taken down, moved, and reconfigured. It is like decorating and un-decorating your house for Christmas 52 times in a row. Oh, and two of the sites have SSL security I had to reestablish.
I am now sitting here completely amazed at what I have overcome as everything is working like nothing ever happened. The web sites do seem to be running faster as I am one of the first to get into the new cluster. I checked the run time on the server when I started and it only reported a couple of hours up time.
It did not go completely smooth but I was able to beat the problems. The file transfers alone took about eight hours each way and I have a high speed cable line. The rest of the time was involved in the documentation of the old setup and reconfiguring the new. Part of the fun was that the new system was all new versions of the system operating and support software and the set-ups were not exactly the same as the old. I can call it a learning experience.
One example is I had to delete a line of code out of all Seven of the SQL backup files I made before they would reload into the new server. I won’t expand the details any more but the server move certainly was not the task for a newbie. It is no wonder the service provider didn’t want to do it.
It does feel good when a plan comes together and I think the effort was worth it.