Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : Upgrading a vps plan vs shared hosting plan

[waya]

I was wondering what happens when you upgrade a vps plan vs when you upgrade shared hosting plan. My experience with upgrading a shared hosting plan wasn't that smooth. You'll have to update your name servers each time and let the domain propagate where weird things happen and you may lose data.

When you upgrade a vps does any of this happen? When you're on a vps do you use your own domain for name servers? So ns1.mydomain.com instead of ns1.hostdomain.com? If you use your own domain does that mean it doesn't need to propagate each time you upgrade your vps?

[PhotonVPS-Jim]

Usually when you upgrade a VPS they'll just increase the resources to the VPS. However if there's isn't further resources available they'll need to move you to a new node where you'll be assigned new IPs.

Usually you use your own IPs for nameservers, so you'll have to update this on the registrar end.

[XTremo]

Originally Posted by waya

I was wondering what happens when you upgrade a vps plan vs when you upgrade shared hosting plan. My experience with upgrading a shared hosting plan wasn't that smooth. You'll have to update your name servers each time and let the domain propagate where weird things happen and you may lose data.

When you upgrade a vps does any of this happen? When you're on a vps do you use your own domain for name servers? So ns1.mydomain.com instead of ns1.hostdomain.com? If you use your own domain does that mean it doesn't need to propagate each time you upgrade your vps?

I've upgraded VPS's with a few providers. No disruption whatsoever.

[waya]

Originally Posted by PhotonVPS-Jim

Usually when you upgrade a VPS they'll just increase the resources to the VPS. However if there's isn't further resources available they'll need to move you to a new node where you'll be assigned new IPs.

Usually you use your own IPs for nameservers, so you'll have to update this on the registrar end.

That would mean it would require time for the domain to propagate right? Just that I don't like losing data each time I would need to upgrade.

Edit:

I've upgraded VPS's with a few providers. No disruption whatsoever.

Don't you ever have weird things happen when your domain propagates? Or maybe this doesn't happen for vps? Not too sure.

[fedorfan]

Does anybody have experience upgrading/migrating from Shared to VPS on a different hosting company? Can you tell me how the migration went? Thanks.

I am using Shared with Lunarpages but their VPS prices are insane. I would like to move to another company listed here in the forums. Thanks.

[XTremo]

Originally Posted by fedorfan

Does anybody have experience upgrading/migrating from Shared to VPS on a different hosting company? Can you tell me how the migration went? Thanks.

I am using Shared with Lunarpages but their VPS prices are insane. I would like to move to another company listed here in the forums. Thanks.

I went from asmallorange shared to EuroVPS a couple of years ago.

In my case I did them manually as I had a lot of client's nameservers to change onto my own branded ones. So I basically did 2 or 3 a day over the space of a month.

That was hard work....but once you've got them on a VPS under your nameservers then any other migrations are fairly straightforward, and usually handled by the new provider.

Since that one two years ago I've migrated the VPS three times.....dead easy.

[tsj5j]

Originally Posted by waya

That would mean it would require time for the domain to propagate right? Just that I don't like losing data each time I would need to upgrade.

Edit:

Don't you ever have weird things happen when your domain propagates? Or maybe this doesn't happen for vps? Not too sure.

If you read PhotonVPS's post carefully, he said your VPS is only moved if that hardware node's capacity has been maxed and cannot accommodate your upgrade.
This is rarely the case with non-budget providers.

[Atarim]

Originally Posted by fedorfan

Does anybody have experience upgrading/migrating from Shared to VPS on a different hosting company? Can you tell me how the migration went? Thanks.

I am using Shared with Lunarpages but their VPS prices are insane. I would like to move to another company listed here in the forums. Thanks.

If your sites are static, life is easy: 1. Get your VPS set up and running. 2. Point the domains to the VPS IPs at your registrar. 3. Wait for propagation. 4. Only when you are satisfied that the VPS is running well and that propagation is complete, cancel your plan at your shared host.

If your sites are dynamic (e.g. a forum), you can't do this, because the content will change during propagation. In this case, you will need to close your forum for new posts on your shared site from the moment you start propagation. Over the course of a day or two, some visitors will see the old site and get the "we're maintaining our forum" message that you put up while others will see the new site. In the greater scheme of things, even this isn't too terrible.

[waya]

Originally Posted by Atarim

If your sites are dynamic (e.g. a forum), you can't do this, because the content will change during propagation. In this case, you will need to close your forum for new posts on your shared site from the moment you start propagation. Over the course of a day or two, some visitors will see the old site and get the "we're maintaining our forum" message that you put up while others will see the new site. In the greater scheme of things, even this isn't too terrible.

Ah yes, this is weird propagation issue I was referring to where you can lose some data during the process. I remember upgrading my shared hosting to semi-dedicated hosting before. The data would go back and forth, back and forth and then when it's finally propagated fully, some users would wonder what happened to some of the content. So just to confirm, in most cases when you upgrade your VPS plan, say 512mb RAM to 768mb RAM, or anything else, this generally won't happen?

[Atarim]

Correct. You would usually stay on exactly the same server, so no IP change would be needed.

Re losing data in propagation, that's why you have to put your forum on the old site into maintenance mode, not allowing any updates. People will forgive not being able to add new posts for a day or so more than they will forgive having made a post and watching it disappear.

[sleddog]

Originally Posted by PhotonVPS-Jim

Usually when you upgrade a VPS they'll just increase the resources to the VPS. However if there's isn't further resources available they'll need to move you to a new node where you'll be assigned new IPs.

The Virtuozzo and Xen providers with which I have experience can easily migrate a VPS to a different host node while keeping the same IP assignment. I thought that was common practice. You guys must do things differently.

[waya]

Originally Posted by Atarim

Correct. You would usually stay on exactly the same server, so no IP change would be needed.

Re losing data in propagation, that's why you have to put your forum on the old site into maintenance mode, not allowing any updates. People will forgive not being able to add new posts for a day or so more than they will forgive having made a post and watching it disappear.

Thanks for that info. How would one usually disable the "old" forum. Sometimes I'm not even sure if it's the old or new one when it fluctuates a lot. Or do you simply disable the forum at the start then change your domain settings right after.

[Atarim]

Originally Posted by waya

Or do you simply disable the forum at the start then change your domain settings right after.

Yes, that's it.

[waya]

Originally Posted by Atarim

Yes, that's it.

Thanks.

[GoTek-JP]

Originally Posted by sleddog

The Virtuozzo and Xen providers with which I have experience can easily migrate a VPS to a different host node while keeping the same IP assignment. I thought that was common practice. You guys must do things differently.

I guess some hosts are with providers that won't allow switching IPs between servers.