On friday evening Dev4Press will be switched to maintenance mode, and I will transfer files and database to new server. I will than make changes to DNS records to point to new IP, and bring the website online for testing only. It will take some time to check for all things: redirections, file access and other things. Maintenance mode will be disabled sometime on Saturday, and than we only need to wait for DNS servers to pick up new IP and start directing to new server.

New server will improve website speed and will have very little downtime. Currently on BlueHost we have some downtime every couple of days. My VPS server currently has 2 months without a single second of downtime.

And, the solution is found in VPS.NET cloud hosting. They offer scalable VPS servers with adjustable number of nodes to increase CPU speed, bandwith and available memory. To test the new hosting system, our website TVScape.NET has been transferred to new server yesterday. And the tests showed that TVScape is now 3 times faster (on average), then on old server. Response time is cut in half, and typical page with over 80 images fully loads in less then 15 seconds, while on old server same page needed 40 to 100 seconds. Also, new server is VPS and that allows fine tunning of cache settings, expiry of resources allowing much better optimization.

Dev4Press is moving to new server most likely next friday, so that the support and other normal functions of the website are not interrupted. In any case, there will be a notice announcing the exact period when the transfer is in progress. Major problem during the transfer will be DNS change that with some DNS servers can take up to 24 hours for new server IP to propagate. So, for a day website will work on both servers and depending on your location, you might get old or new website.