How Do I Switch to VPS?
There is no denying that all startups or businesses start with hosting their website on a shared hosting plan. The reasons are pretty obvious. Firstly it is the most affordable hosting solution available for businesses. Secondly, it easily accommodates your business needs and helps you start your business within budget. But as your business starts growing, the first and foremost thing that you need to do is to switch to VPS (Virtual Private Server). Switching to VPS comes with lots of benefits.
Why is VPS hosting better than Shared Hosting?
Unlike a Managed Dedicated Server or shared hosting, VPS hosting offers affordable costs while offering similar functions, features, and privileges. Each VPS, as a virtual partition of physical server resources, functions as an isolated server with root access granted to each user for only their ‘portion’ of the server resources. In contrast to shared hosting, a website hosted on a VPS does not experience performance problems since each partition of the server is allocated a certain amount of resources.
How do I switch to VPS from Shared Hosting?
You will have to manually move your site data from your old to your new VPS account if you have selected a self-managed VPS hosting solution. Here is how to proceed:
- Start with the backup
The first and foremost step in the process is to start with creating the backup of your website. Once you create the backup of all your files and databases, you can proceed with moving to the VPS server. For that, you must log in to the control panel of your current host.
Connecting to your hosting account through Filezilla is a good way to access files stored on your server. Click on the Export option and place your site files in the root folder. An archive will be created with all site files.
In your control panel, you will find the phpMyAdmin tool for managing databases. Locate the database you wish to export and click Export. If everything looks correct, click Go to complete the process.
Make sure you download your emails through your mail client before you proceed if you would like to keep your email communication as well.
- Move on to setting up the VPS
Self-managed VPS owners might need to deal with this step regardless of their hosting provider. The LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) is used most often, but you can also choose another technology. You can discuss your options with your provider.
- Upload your backed data on the new VPS server
Using a secure SSH connection, you can easily do that. Your backup file location and the destination on the server are all you need. Type the following in the command line:
scp ~/Downloads/backup_db.sql.gz username@server_ip_address:
scp ~/Downloads/wp-content.zip username@server_ip_address
FTP clients can also be used for this purpose.
Go to the phpMyAdmin section of the control panel for easy database restoration. Select Import from the list of New Database options. Using this method, you can upload database archives directly from your local machine.
Check and verify if everything is working properly. You can test the plugins and see if the transitions are successful.
- Set the Domain DNS
Also, your domain must be informed of where it can find you. To accomplish this, sign in to your domain registrar account and choose the option for nameserver change.
Changing the nameservers is as easy as entering the ones provided by your VPS provider and saving them. There will be an initial propagation period afterward, so you might need to wait 24 to 48 hours for the change to take full effect.
You can also take the help of your service provider in making a successful switch to VPS from shared hosting. At Go4hosting, we have a number of highly professional and experienced experts who can assist you with any hosting-related services. Wait no more and contact our experts today!
