namaste everyone,
I was just curious that's all. I wanted to see if I should be securing more domain names that we could forward to HDF. I was just looking to see what other names people might be interested in, if any.
Regarding upgrades and Virtual Private Server (VPS), I have been looking at acquiring both.
First, you should know that HDF is hosted on a shared hosting server. This means that there are hundreds of other sites and databases on the same server and we share the resources offered by the server. For us, this has been working so far but going forward this will not work as with Shared hosting they do no provide much control (server level) to the admin. This means that I do not have admin level access to the application and database servers.
In case of problems on the shared server I must rely on the hosting companies support staff to look into issues. Most of the time the support staff is useless as they are lowest paid workers and they have pressures to close the ticket quickly. Since I am a tech, this frustrates to me to no end and I rather manage the servers myself.
For people like me, there is an option offered by the hosting company called Virtual Private Server. This is where the hosting company will create a virtual space on a physical server and give me control over that virtual space. I would then have server level control over the site and database. This option raises the cost to five times the current cost. Although cost is not an issue, there is a technical problem with the hosting company. I am not clear on if as admin I will be able to install the latest backend database and web technologies on the VPS provided by them. I am looking into it. I need the rights to install server software that I want because the forum software's latest version requires specific versions of the backend, app and server os.
To cloud the issue a bit more, I want to move away from the current hosting provider. The current hosting provider was number one when we started the forum, however, their service has degraded and owners have changed. However, the current hosting provider also is the registrar of the domain name. And to move the domain to another registrar though not impossible, is tricky and will result in longer outages that I would like.
What I want to do is this:
- move hosting account to another provider
- purchase VPS account
- install latest versions of backend and application (all freeware)
- purchase Vbulletin latest software
- upgrade (this is tricky as we have not upgraded since inception)
- move domain to new registrar (very tricky as I have privacy enabled and privacy is handled by a third party)
- point domain servers of new registrar to the upgraded version of hdf in the new VPS environment
This all has to be done while the forum is still active. Therefore, it will require planning and a lot of work is involved to do this. I want to minimize interruptions because more time offline effects google ratings and bots run away from the site.
None of this is your worry and I am capable enough to do all of this myself, however, I wanted to share this with you so that you can see that there is work to be done, I am aware of it, it will get done but it will take some time.
Bookmarks