Last night I finally made the move to a new, more reliable and supportive web host. Media Temple (mt). After a lot of research and watching them iron out their difficulties with the Grid Server (gs)–which I’m using for this site–I am optimistic about the new world. We all know that grid technology for the web is new, and there have been pains in getting it implemented at (mt), but I’m giving them a chance despite all the negative things I’ve read.
I’m an optimist. I like to read good things about people and companies. Media Temple has been praised for their customer support, and their data center is nothing less than world-class. And they are offering us web developers the opportunity to use it for a song! Here’s my take: If you are dependent on a web site for mission critical systems, then it should be a dedicated server, or Dedicated-Virtual (dv) in Media Temple’s offerings. Those of us living on The Grid are just incubator projects… When you grow up, you get a real server. 🙂
Here’s my experience of the past 24 hours:
- 6:40 pm – Requested account
- 6:45 pm – Received Service Activation email
- Added A record entry for www in my DNS name servers to point to my Grid Server Access Domain (I left primary host address, cdchase.com, pointing at old site since that is the address I advertise) – site available immediately!
- Added alternate A record entries to my DNS to allow access to old site under new subdomain temporarily
- Pointed my MX entry to mail server at (mt)
- 4:30 am – DNS had timed out for old MX entry, so mail was being delivered to (mt)!
- Copied web site content from old site to new
- Changed A record for cdchase.com to new site, updated all other A records to CNAMEs for neatness
- Sent a few test emails & updated SPF entry in DNS
- Since all was working, I replaced several A records pointing to the common address at Media Temple with CNAME records
- Done! Nobody new the difference that the site was in transistion!
OK, OK… I had a little benefit from managing my own DNS off-site. 🙂
I will follow-up this post with more details on how that works in coordination with a name-based hosting site like The Grid. Also more details on using SPF records to help prevent SPAM from your domain.
I am thinking of moving my ecommerce site to the grid. Your comment help with the desision. This cart is our business, so I may go dedicated. Are you using mysql databases? Thanks for the info.
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John- While I plan to use a MySQL database eventually for the site content, the only use at present is the back-end data store for this WordPress blog. I’m sure you are aware of the problems that (mt) has had with their MySQL database load on the Grid, and they are working on a new solution using a seperate ‘container’ for MySQL. This is similar to how they manage Ruby users. This new system is sceduled for a public release (they are in beta now) on April 2. Check the Media Temple MySQL Container blog category for more information. Hope this helps, and thanks for being the first commenter on my new blog!