Currently I have a weak 8GB ram server for a VPS server. If my 8GB server is filled with clients, and I switch servers. I am in the process of building a dual processor and a 32GB ram server. This will cost me $2,000 so I will have to wait a little before deploying this. However my current host does not have a colo for my needs, so I will be switching to FDCservers colo. This will cause my IP address to change. How will my customers react to an IP address change? Is it really that bad?

as long as you give plenty of notice for a maintenance window and also make sure that you have a site elsewhere that is not on your own server so that you can keep clients updated then they really cant be too annoyed, after all if you explain that you are moving to a better DC that will allow you to give your clients the best service i think they will understand,

I just did this. I moved all my servers to a different data center. Just keep constant communication with your clients, explain the benefits of the change and you will not have any issues. I did not receive a single objection from my clients.

Thank you for your help. I will warn my clients at least 1 week before doing this :)

You might even want to give more notice.
Change of IP's does need some planning to be done completely

;5509959']You might even want to give more notice.
Change of IP's does need some planning to be done completely
When should I inform them?

At least 2 weeks beforehand, I would say.

You should really give 4 weeks notice for such a drastic change and continue communication in the last couple of weeks to make them aware.

I've done this a couple of times :-/ and the best thing to do is give at least a 2-3 weeks notice. The most important thing to do is make sure the data is on the new server so the client will not have any interruptions :D

Bottom line is, people do not like change.

Bottom line is, people do not like change.
I have to disagree with you...
We were originally using Burst/Nocster services and had some issues with the network. Our clients constantly had nothing but complaints. We decided it would be in our clients best interest to move them to SoftLayer. We have had nothing but praise since the move and only a couple of complaints for the ip changes.

Yes, We have done this as well. If you give plenty of notice and some solid benefits of the change to your client's they'll be more excited about the change then you :)

I've changed IPs about 2-3 times in a year due to node change and new server and its not fun but i never had angry customers from it. You just gotta give them enough notice and make sure its quick with no problems, so plan it out.

Most probably won't agree with this answer, but offer to migrate clients a few at a time rather than your entire box all at once. Since they will be moving to an entirely new VPS, you shouldn't have anything forcing you to do all at once. You can probably afford the time in doing this, since I'm sure you don't have too many VPS accts on that server.
Coordinate it very closely with each client and I doubt you'll have any issues at all.
I tend to handle migrations on a more personal level, only because if someone has been thinking of moving to a new host for one reason or another - a server move gives them reason to do it now. Also if clients do have an issue with their transfer, you're better prepared to handle a few requests at a time, rather than a ticket from every customer should something go wrong.

If you provide good service and support you should not have any issues with the changes, just make sure you give let your clients know if you will have downtime etc..

When the new server is deployed, I assume you're going to migrate the existing users over, so my question to you is how long are you going to allocate for the actual migration?
You don't want to rush these things, move one VPS over at a time and ensure your clients receive many advanced notices and provide as much detail as possible, what can they expect, why is there an IP address change and will there be any downtime? Also, try to work around their schedules if possible and avoid doing it during peak business hours.

I've dealt with this in the past and all I got were complaints as there is expected to be some downtime. Clients who have custom nameservers also have to go to through the hassle of going back to their domain registar and changing the IP's. I mean if the current network your on is terrible and they've been complaining about it for awhile then the change should be fine. However, if everything is working properly and all of a sudden you decided to move them to another DC they won't be very happy. I doubt any clients would leave, but you might get some angry clients that don't like changing their IP's with their registars or the downtime you'll be having.

There won't be any downtime. HyperVM has a nice import tool so I will leave the VPS as disabled when importing. I will only cancel the old server as soon as the VPS is imported. I was thinking of giving all my clients a month free when I will be doing this, do you think it is necessary?

That shouldn't be necessary. If there isn't going to be any downtime or interruption to service then everything should be fine

My opinion, give at least 3 weeks of notice. Let everyone know upfront that yes their IP addresses will be changing, but that you are doing this not to cut costs, but to better serve your clients due to issues with your current provider. I recommend setting up an offsite status page/blog that you can use as a fail over and as way to keep in constant contact with your customers. Make sure everyone knows about the switch. If you get a bounce back from email, make the effort to call them.


Do not leave anyone up in the air that this change is occurring and stay in constant contact and you should be fine.

If you do this right, I see no need in giving everyone a free month. That server that you have built is an expensive little bugger, and you should start pocketing the money right away to get that off of your credit card ;)

My opinion, give at least 3 weeks of notice. Let everyone know upfront that yes their IP addresses will be changing, but that you are doing this not to cut costs, but to better serve your clients due to issues with your current provider. I recommend setting up an offsite status page/blog that you can use as a fail over and as way to keep in constant contact with your customers. Make sure everyone knows about the switch. If you get a bounce back from email, make the effort to call them.


Do not leave anyone up in the air that this change is occurring and stay in constant contact and you should be fine.

If you do this right, I see no need in giving everyone a free month. That server that you have built is an expensive little bugger, and you should start pocketing the money right away to get that off of your credit card ;)

I have switched the servers recently and everything was fine. Thank you for the help, I did not give a free month because there was no downtime.

P.S. I paid with my debit card actually. There is no way in the world I can get a $2000 credit line with my poor history :(

I am in the process of building a dual processor and a 32GB ram server.

I'm not sure why nobody else has bothered to say, but going dual core (that's what you mean with dual processor, right?) with 32GB RAM is daft. Poor build choice to be honest.

If you actually meant you'll have eight cores, then disregard. ;)

I'm not sure why nobody else has bothered to say, but going dual core (that's what you mean with dual processor, right?) with 32GB RAM is daft. Poor build choice to be honest.

If you actually meant you'll have eight cores, then disregard. ;)

I doubt he meant a single dual core processor. Probably 2 q9300 CPUs together or something similar (which would be dual PROCESSOR, but equivalent to 8 cores).

Let us tell you about our procedure. I hope this will give you a clear picture.

First make sure that you do send in notifications when you do server migrations. It is a must. Not all customers are daily visiting their websites with you. Some check it only per week or some even per month and they will start complaining then.

Then isolate those domains who don't have name servers pointed to yours and also those domains, whose A record is pointed else where. Call them or email them personally and make sure that they are really aware of the server migration

Do the server migration, preferably rsync based and since it is VPS server, and if you have a host in any of the VPS, care about their customers also through their client. If you are not that good with the internals of VPS and load is fine with your current VPS, use the VPS migrate option only available in your control panel, if you have one.

Edit the hosts in your machine and make sure that sites work. Then change the DNS @ old hosts to point to the new server IP and reload DNS. Stop the mail server in the old host (dont worry on this, mails have a retry time), and if you really care, add a secondary MX to the new server so that mails dont get lost in server migration.

We also "fool" the mysql updates to be done in the new server in our own way. But this being a VPS server migration, I am not discussing it here.

And also please please do the final switching only when the traffic is less, preferably in nights.

Oh, don't forget to pray to server gods, before you start and thank them when it gets finished successfully. Good Luck !! :)

NB: When I am talking about the DNS, I mean the DNS of the accounts inside VPSes as a VPS migration dont change the zones inside it.

Praying to the server God's is a must when you are migrating accounts. Any number of things can go wrong.

When we moved out of The Planet and into Host Dime's DC, we had a couple of issues with the move. Nothing major, but, it cost us about 2 hours of downtime on top of DNS prop. We didn't quite make it to our SLA time, but, we gave every client a 15% discount for their next invoice. That was apain, because in order to keep it so the client's with PayPal subs didn't have to do anything, we had to go through and manually enter the credit.

But, only one person complained of the downtime because they didn't know about the server move (was on a month long vacation refusing to do anything work related, including his web site and email lol). He came back and tried to get on right at the downtime. We referred him to the email and the annoucnement we made, he asked why the move. We explained everything that we didn't consider a company secret, such as better connectivity for the international customers, better service, etc. He said ok, asked what he needed to do, and I told him to just update his name servers. After that, he was completely done with complaining (well, after the blue screen of death for apache/cPanel went away).

Overall though, moving isn't bad if done correctly.

well, keep your clients informed. Do not do this if your clients are not informed about it. And if you are moving to better server you must explain the benefits! I think that there wont be a problem :)

I meant an 8 core server. I never said dual core, I said dual processor :D.

Currently I have a weak 8GB ram server for a VPS server. If my 8GB server is filled with clients, and I switch servers. I am in the process of building a dual processor and a 32GB ram server. This will cost me $2,000 so I will have to wait a little before deploying this. However my current host does not have a colo for my needs, so I will be switching to FDCservers colo. This will cause my IP address to change. How will my customers react to an IP address change? Is it really that bad?

I have done this many times. My experience is if you do it correctly people will not even realize it...if they realize it they don't care.

Thank you for your help. I will warn my clients at least 1 week before doing this :)

In addition to doing this you probably will want to keep the other server online for a few days until all dns servers are updated to your new server. That way clients wont get downtime for anyone.

Hi,

I just did a data center migration last month for a client.

1) Created a move plan
2) Created a migration letter to explain the situation to the client's clients. Sent it out Two weeks in advance.
3) Seven days before the move date I asked the client to order the server.
4) Client ignored me and didn't order the server until two days before the migration which was by pre-migartion setup date.
5) First move day I migrated all the client's services (WHM, DNS, MAIL, etc)
6) Second day I started with the larger customers and moved the manually. I let cPanel do the rest of the customers.
7) 48 hours after the move I stopped all services except ssh on the old server and rsync'ed /home/*/mail
8) A week later I verified that no more traffic was hitting the old server and canceled it.

No complaints yet but well I've got complaints six months after a transfer.