Ok this may have been covered but not sure how to easily search for the topic -

Just wondered what the options might be as say a designer who resells hosting to clients, , if your reseller provider suddenly goes out of business . Obviously one can keep backups of sites themselves , if that is the responsiblity - Domains can be held separately and redirected to another host but are there other issues or suggestions for smooth transitions so existing clients aren't inconvenienced any more than necessary having there sites moved onto your new reseller provider and keeping them happy?

While not a direct answer to your question, going for a provider that has been around for a while and is of decent size, reduces the chances of actual disappearance. There's usually enough of an incentive for the provider to sell rather than just close up shop.

Another thing is to be well prepared. Backups are a wise thing. So is to have 1 or 2 potential providers as alternatives should things go bad. In case of disaster, all resources can then be devoted to actually moving the sites over, rather than wasting a day or more to find and research a new worthy host. Worse, in desperation, you might skip the research part and end up with who knows what lousy host.

Hi, I'm agree with ldcdc, but you should perform remote backups and have them stored online, in a ftp server, vps or whatever. Then you can quickly purchase another reseller from one of the potential competitors, wget ftp them to your new account and ask the support for a quick restoration. So you avoid uploading your files from your pc, and you avoid 1 day of uploading data.

Check the offers section, there are good remote backups providers listed.

You know, always is good to have a backup of everything, also of your plan, as you well do!.

Greetings.

Thanks for the replies , really helpful -
I think having a potential backup reseller host isn't too difficult to find but it's also wanting to hopefully make the move smoothly - iAlso could want the option to easily move if my existing host gives me problems
Also presumably I would need to factor in the possible cost as I would conceiveably be paying for two accounts - the old defunct one - and the new - in a single year - unless i pay monthy -

Havent heard of Wget ftp but a quick google tells me more - now - just starting out - intally I won't have too many sites but that could certainly change - so i remote back up and my new reseller host can usually pull the sites and their structures to them and rebuid them as before automatically - is that the process? Do most offer this?

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Hi yeah, if they use cPanel/WHM is pretty easy:

1) You contact them with your ftp backup service login details, list of files to get and their path.
2) They can wget ftp each file.
3) They go to WHM, then backups, then restore Full backup.
4) All done from their end, from yours... change the password of your ftp backup service.

wget ftp://user:password@IP/backups/user-date.tar.gzMaybe there are other ways to do this, however, I would do that, hehe.

Oh I forgot, to send the backups to your ftp backup service, you can do it directly from cpanel's backup option, if you have cPanel, ah, without cPanel nothing of this would work, this method is for cPanel (old host) to cPanel (new host).

Have a nice day!.

Lots of good advice here, but one thing hasn't been mentioned: use custom nameservers, ie. register (say) ns1 and ns2.yourdomain.com and tell your clients to delegate to those nameservers, not your hosts'. Then when the time comes to move you just change the registered IP addresses for your own nameservers - the clients' domains don't change.

Setup can be a bit difficult (you'll find many theads asking for help with them) so take care but it's worth the trouble.

Setup can be a bit difficult (you'll find many theads asking for help with them) so take care but it's worth the trouble.
Custom nameservers are pretty standard now, and any host should be able to help you get them setup, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem to use them.

If you are using a fairly standard/common control panel (for instance, cPanel), the nice thing about taking backups directly from the control panel rather than just of the files, etc.. is in the case that you do need to rely on them, they can easily (and quickly) be restored with your new host, as mentioned by the others.

You can always store backups and have your new host upload it for you.

Also, usually in most cases, if both hosts are using cpanel, there is a function in which you can transfer sites within a few minutes.

But smartest thing to do if a host disappears is to re-upload your current backup.