Hi,
After reading so many good reviews / comments about ResellerZoom, I decided to move to RZ for my hosting needs.

Without wasting much time, I signed up for the Advance Plan (A1) for my hosting needs.

Since I am currently on dedicated server, I wanted to move some of my accounts to this reseller account. (I am going to discontinue my dedicated server from 1st of July) There were around 90 accounts which needed to be moved. The total size of the account was less than 5 GB (Around 4 GB - 3814 MB)

Breakup of 90 accounts:

- 1 account using 1 GB (1036 MB)
- 1 using 851 MB
- 4 accounts between 100 MB to 240 MB
- 6 accounts between 50 MB to 80 MB
- 47 accounts between - 0 MB to 10 MB
and rest between 11 MB to 49 MB

Before moving, I confirmed things with tech person on live chat and I was asked to open the ticket and they will get the things started immediately (or in short time, I do not remember the exact phrase used)

Okay, fair enough, I opened the ticket (#548841) around 22 hours back from now with the details of my username, password of dedicated server (root user) and the user password of my reseller account with ResellerZoom. I had explained things in detail and also attached list of accounts in the excel sheet.

Approximately after 1 hour, I got reply saying first 30 accounts will be free and for rest of the accounts I will be charged $0.50 per account., I replied to them the same minute approving the transfer and asked them to charge my card once the work is done.

Now, since it was late night here in India (around 1 AM), I discussed this with someone on their live chat with the details and I asked them to start the stuff and I was promised that they will start it ASAP. Now I changed the name server IPs for my old name servers pointing to IPs provided by ResellerZoom. I was quite sure that it should not take much of time since I had only 3-4 big accounts and rest small ones.

So I was expecting all my accounts to be on the new server by morning.

I woke up by 7AM to check the status, and found email in my account, asking me to send my primary account username with first and last letter of my password. (It was sent at 5 AM - approx 4 hours after the confirmation of account move)

Now this gave me bit odd feeling since I have already provided my username and password in my first ticket. But anyways, it happens, after all we all are humans.

I replied to them the details by 7.14 AM, by 9.29 AM I got their reply (note the time between the replies) confirming the start of the transfer.

Approx 10 minutes after that, I got an email asking me for the IP address of the server on which I have my reseller account. I think the details I provided should give them my account details by searching their database. Okay, we assume that they do not have this kind of facility to search.

I replied them within 5 minutes with the details, within 10 minutes I got reply saying, they are starting the transfer....

5 minutes after that, I got email saying, they are not able to connect to my server's SSH...and I was asked to come on live chat we things can be moved faster...

I discussed the stuff with their tech support person on chat and I changed the port of my SSH to 22 for them.

Around 3.15 PM I got email from them saying 40 accounts have been moved and they needed my company website account details to move my company site. (There was conflict with domain name with my reseller account's main domain so they had to move it manually using cpanel backup)

Okay, that is fair enough, I passed on my account details thinking that at least my company website can be restored first so clients can access my customer support area.

At 5.07 PM, I asked them for the update on my account move. By 6.50 PM I got reply saying, 58 accounts have been transferred (but I could see only 47 accounts)

By 7.10 PM I asked them to start restoring some other accounts too so customers do not face more downtime.

By 7.33 PM, I got reply saying the restoration has been started with some details. (Please note that, in between this I had few failed attempts of chat with tech support but for some reason it just did not work, it sent me to contact page in chat window, but I got success after trying for few times)

I emailed them back at 9.43 PM asking them for the update, I got reply by 10.03 PM with details of accounts being restored (the biggest account was being restored at that time)

By 10.14 PM, I emailed them back asking for the reason why I was not able to see the restored accounts. (I could see only 47 accounts for approx. last 8 hours)

By 10.34 PM, I got reply saying, the owner of those account was not changed to mine so it was not showing there. Okay, that is also fair enough...does not matter...

Now I emailed them just now asking to restore my company account at least so that people can at least access my company site.

My half of the sites are down for last 21 hours. My experience is exactly opposite of the comments / reviews posted here. But still I am not loosing any hope and I wish to have a good experience like everyone with ResellerZoom.

I posted the review here to let other people know about my experience.

Thanks
Deep

Hi Deep,

Thank you for sharing your experience, keep us posted on how well it goes with them. Best of luck :)

I don't see that bad how things are going.
You got a reply to your tickets usually in minutes. OK, they may do some mistakes, but so far seems to be good.

Well I don't really blame RZ for some of the delays (for example it seems you changed the default SSH port, etc...). You can't expect a company to keep people idle waiting back for a response. They get busy with other things then have to come back to your problem.

Having said that it seems to me that there was a lack of communication (between them and you and themselves) and follow through. They should have specified some time frames and gathered all the required info at once (moving cpanel accounts should be pretty straight foward I'm thinking).

WN-Ali - Yes, I will keep everyone updated here.

Jedito - I am not blaming them to be bad or anything, everyone makes mistakes and there is nothing wrong in it, afterall, we are humans.

Nnyan - I too do not blame RZ but the port number was provided in very first ticket. Yes, the companies get busy with other things, I totally agree on it but I think their local firewall did not allow them to connect to my server. (Which was not my fault I guess)

About communication gap between them and me, Actually i tried every possible and simplest way to make things simple, if someone checks my ticket replies, they will get idea about the things.

Now till now, I could not find rest of the accounts being restored. Not even my company account. I will catch them on chat in sometime.

Regards,
Deep

moving cpanel accounts should be pretty straight foward I'm thinking.

Sometimes it's not. Moving cPanel accounts can be tricky if both source and destination servers have different versions of PHP, mySQL, etc. Migrations can get tough and it's best for hosts to thoroughly plan it out to avoid any possible downtime and conflicts.

I don't see why you are blaming RZ for some of the delays.

1. you changed the nameservers to the new IP withoug first checking eveything is up and running on the new server. you assumed.
2. you provide them info about your other server but apparently SSH wasn't on standard port 22 so they didn't know that so you changed it, no problem there. just a misunderstanding between parties involved.
3. transfers are always risky and don't go smooth all the time
4. it seems RZ has been very responsive and replying to your every request


I'd say give it some more time though number 1 was the biggest reason why your clients are now facing downtime

Before you ever change the nameservers make sure everything on the new server/account is setup 100%. This way you will have very minimal downtime when you do switch the DNS over.

psykik - I am not blaming them, I have not mentioned in any part of the post that they are bad. I just posted my experience with them.

1. As mentioned in the post, it was late night here in India and from my experience account move for the 90-120 account takes approximately 4-5 hours, I expected it to be finished in 8-9 hours thinking that the servers are on 2 different datacenters. (Mine was in ThePlanet and they have it on some other DC)

I changed the name servers after talking about this to them. So in the morning people will be forwared to the new server.

2. This is part of the ticket that I had provided them:


Hi,
I need to move few acocunts (approx 90) from my old server to the new server.

I have root access to the old server.

following are the details of server:

IP: xx.xx.xxx.xxx
Port: 43178
User: root
Pass: xxxxx


This is what the part of their reply:


Hello Deep,


We still cannot connect to your server as root:

root@dawson [~]# ssh -l root xx.xx.xxx.xxx -p 43178


This is not letting us in.

Could you please come to Live chat, if possible and we can check this out ?


I think, this should explain point 2 right?

3. Yes, and that is why I considered double time i.e. 8-9 hours

4. Yes they are very helpful and I never said that they are not. But for some reason it is getting delayed.

Getting delayed is not related to "not being helpful" or "bad support"

I really liked the way they helped me out but the delay is the only thing which I didn't like but I am sure it is just a temporary thing.

Regards,
Deep

then it's all settled ;)
I wish you luck with RZ

i've been with them for about a year now and I've very much liked it. although I'm now moving my accounts to an european server because my clients mainly come from europe.
I hope to find an as reliable partner here in europe as RZ was for me the last year.

Not to be to critical but

WOW!!! I really can not believe you changed your DNS assuming 90 accounts would have moved magically while you where sleeping. Without a single test run you moved to another host. I can only asume you never tried putting backups back or move anything. When I move to another host I take 3 to 12 months to be sure.

Usually take about a week to move a site: 1 day for uploading, getting things in the right place, another day for putting a test domain on it, more days mail checking then go live with the old server on standby just in case.

I like ResellerZoom the only problem I had with them so far is they don't put one person on a single support issue so you have to put ALL the info in every ticket or you will get repeat questions.

good luck with RZ.

I like ResellerZoom the only problem I had with them so far is they don't put one person on a single support issue so you have to put ALL the info in every ticket or you will get repeat questions.We can't expect a tech to work 24/7. The problem is simply that the tech doesn't read the ticket properly. :)

Now, since it was late night here in India (around 1 AM), I discussed this with someone on their live chat with the details and I asked them to start the stuff and I was promised that they will start it ASAP. Now I changed the name server IPs for my old name servers pointing to IPs provided by ResellerZoom. I was quite sure that it should not take much of time since I had only 3-4 big accounts and rest small ones.I had to read this again. I couldn't believe my eyes, and I hoped I didn't read it right.

Not to be to critical but

WOW!!! I really can not believe you changed your DNS assuming 90 accounts would have moved magically while you where sleeping. Without a single test run you moved to another host. I can only asume you never tried putting backups back or move anything. When I move to another host I take 3 to 12 months to be sure.

Usually take about a week to move a site: 1 day for uploading, getting things in the right place, another day for putting a test domain on it, more days mail checking then go live with the old server on standby just in case.

I like ResellerZoom the only problem I had with them so far is they don't put one person on a single support issue so you have to put ALL the info in every ticket or you will get repeat questions.

good luck with RZ.

The assumption was not made by doing some rough calculation, the assumption was made based on the time I had required to move 120 or odd accounts... (of approx same or higher size)

The situation was same at that time too, I had to move list of accounts from other server. But the only difference was, the DC for the both servers was same i.e. ThePlanet.

So, at that time, it had taken me approximately 4-5 hours. So assuming double of that time is a bad idea? I don't think so.....

About taking a week for the move, if you take a week just for the move, what will happen to the changes which are made to the sites in that time? I cannot ask my customers not to make any changes on their sites for one week? What about the mails which are sent in that week? Give one week time for transfer, I do not see it as a practical solution.

About testing it for 3-4 months, if it was a new company then I would have definitely tested it but I do not see anything to test in reputed companies like RZ or HostGator, things are supposed to work well with them...and currently are working too....

The only issue was, delay in move, servers are good, support is good but delay is not justified. That's it.

Anyways, they have just finished with the transfer of all the accounts now. (They had to hold the transfer for 3-4 hours because they needed confirmation for one account from my side)

The support provided on their live chat was excellent and I hope the same kind of support remains all the time :)

cheers
Deep

Sometimes it's not. Moving cPanel accounts can be tricky if both source and destination servers have different versions of PHP, mySQL, etc. Migrations can get tough and it's best for hosts to thoroughly plan it out to avoid any possible downtime and conflicts.

I agree. Sometimes it is very tricky.
For example, your website is running and a mysql table is locked. Then the database transfer will fail.
But finally RZ did a good job, didn't they?
Also remember to change the dns TTL value, otherwise people will visit websites on the old server.

Yup, I had changed the TTL too.

A lesson for all...NEVER change nameservers until you have manually verified each website and checked that the data is in sync with what used to be on the old server. Assumptions DO NOT WORK when account migration is involved.

premium20 - Yup, I realized the mistake on the later stage :)

I've been moving accounts between servers quite a couple of times and this is how you get zero downtime:

1) you copy over the accounts to the new server
2) you let the customer test the stuff whether it's all fine
3) you set up a time point with the customer for the DNS switch, at that point you copy over any modified files (if applies) to let the new server have the latest version of the account, then switch the DNS over. After this point, the customer knows not to change anything on his website until the new location comes up on his computer.

If it's a dynamic website with databases, at the switch point you also need to change the MySQL config on the old server so that it connects remotely to the DB on the new server (you also have to open port 3306 on both servers for this to work).

Just my two cents.

From my experience, RZ has been very reliable in services and support. But they follow protocols. At least this what I perceive. Moving accounts often involve approval from the admin/billing dept, which only operates in the day time .

I have been with them for a year plus , after changing 4-5 reseller provider. I am still with them.

I normally try out a provider first, most of them failed, so I left them. But RZ still rocks!

Joshua