Mini Guide and FeedBack For Rackspace Cloud Server Migration

After being on Rackspace Cloud Sites for a long 4 years, we decided for full migration to Rackspace Cloud Servers, Performance Flavor. This was among two lost posts we retrieved from Google’s Cache – another one was on Handwritten Fonts. This is quite funny as were trying to share some real experience! Actually, we knew that we will get back the article from Google’s Cache – we used this method to retrieve lost posts when we were hacked. Anyway, if you are looking for something a bit more logically arranged and is around planning for Migration to Rackspace Cloud Server from Rackspace Cloud Sites, this article for Rackspace Cloud Server Migration will possibly better be suitable for you.

Mini Guide to Rackspace Cloud Server Migration

Mini Guide to Rackspace Cloud Server Migration will be a Misnomer, because everything is already written elsewhere within this website and there are lot of things actually never work properly after a migration, finding them out and fixing is a really huge work. Mini Guide to Rackspace Cloud Server Migration is not actually an article with lot of UNIX commands, rather we will tell you the most commonly done errors with WordPress migration.

After using WordPress for 4-5 years and serious online publishing; normally all develop some idea around coding part of WordPress. But still we do the wrongs. We think, this is the best way to perform a migration, specially WordPress website with 5K+ posts :

1. Spin up one Server. œOne domain one server is the best policy to follow.
2. Do not hesitate to delete the instance if you do a single mistake, we want to say; as we are practically not equipped with huge peoples like Google or Facebook; we must do the work ourselves first, even for managed (like in our case).
3. You have the IP address. Install all things; including WordPress using the IP address.
4. For WordPress, it is quite important to make the database clutter free. It is quite difficult to find the proper Table specific SQL commands, like for wp_commentmeta, wp_posts, wp_postmeta etc. A 480 MB database can become 47 MB database after cleaning up. Actually the WordPress Plugins honestly do not work to clean the database, doing work from PHPMyAdmin with SQL commands is the only way.
5. Managed Rackspace has no support for WordPress, I can not really rely on anyone to give entry inside my WordPress installation.
6. Limit of WordPress is on Speed “ on WebPageTest.org; it is unlikely to get a Page Loading Speed of 1 second with 5-6 Ads, 5-6 social sharing buttons with even 10 GB server.
7. Redis works great “ true. But still W3TC (yet it has no Redis integration) has many practical advantages. Dry run makes Redis a winner but in real life, W3TC with disk enhanced is enough.
8. WordPress is not scalable. The decoration is going on front end, the Database is still MySQL with definite issues. As Matt worked a lot, the Parker version of WordPress is far better though.
9. Net gain in terms of Speed is not really great when compared with Rackspace Cloud Sites and Rackspace Cloud Server, Performance Flavor with 1 GB RAM. Pingdom always show 2-3 seconds loading time, it is difficult to get under 3 on WebPageTest.org with all the stuffs. But, score will be better as you can precise control the backend.
10. Again, first create a kind of clone of your WordPress website with IP address “ it should look exactly the same. Rackspace to Rackspace IP address change is matter of seconds. Only thing actually you™ll need to do to change from IP Address to Domain is changing the Site URL and WordPress URL from WordPress Dashboard Settings page.
11. Practically, Domain name is kind of redirection. This way will not work if you are using virtual host to host multiple domains on single server. We will recommend to use subdomains on different servers.
12. Check the Podcast and other PHP script generated sub directory stuffs which are not under control of WordPress, these really has no practical support we got great support from the developer of Podcastgen and but they are likely to break.
13. Perform a quick test with changing the IP sets with very low TTL.
14. Perform a Dig like in our case :

As the name-server is not really changing; the œpropagation is quite fast. If required switch back (edited – actually we really needed it). But, do not update / publish a new post from old IP (this republication is a sarcastic example!). Again database will get changed and you will have to work (we mean – Google Cache).

FeedBack and Additional Caution for the Users For Rackspace Cloud Server Migration

Feedback is always good for Rackspace. What Rackspace will do if WordPress database is not really scalable. The migration towards Rackspace Cloud Server Performance Server actually worth the time investment, from our experience. Obviously, we are not providing the feedback for those who are seeking a $3 / month hosting solution. Any free PaaS is a better alternative for them. Amazon is quite pathetic and do not waste time behind their infrastructure unless you have some offer code or something like that. On Amazon, the things are not œnormal, the resemblance is more with Microsoft™s Command Line Tool. That Command Line Tool is a joke when compared with iTerm2.

Or may be we have been used with UNIX and Rackspace more. Anyway, actually it is OpenStack and you can custom boot in future “ we think it is better to opt for minimum 1 GB for this future-proof feature. It is likely that Software Defined Data Centers will be the future and almost all of us will use sort of virtual Software Defined Data Center instances.

Well, that pain of Shifting WordPress database can be fully nulled if you are using one server instance “ simply pack it and move. We do not think, WordPress worth a Database as a Service. If it was MySQLi or better, Postgresql then it was considerable point. Ultimately you™ll need to cache the database using W3TC. Return of Investment will be lower, in our opinion.

Using Cloud Tools from Marketplace Before and After Rackspace Cloud Server Migration

From New Relic to Many Email Applications are actually kind of free for Rackspace Cloud users, it worths to invest some time there. Search in cool head.