How to migrate to a new hosting provider.

Note: if you’re looking at switching to a different publishing platform or CMS to the one you’re currently approving content for, please read this, instead. For moving your existing platform to a new host, please read on.

Background

Camayak interacts with publishing destinations in a variety of ways, such as creating the platform’s equivalent to a “post” or “article”, and on a successful transaction, stores records of the remote post’s existence and any related metadata.

For example, during an assignment approval to WordPress, the following records could be created:

• One post, always created.
• Zero or more attachments, depending on whether the assignment has a featured image and/or embedded media.
• Zero or more accounts, depending on whether or not the assignment’s bylines have accounts setup in Camayak or not.
• Zero or more taxonomy terms, depending on whether or not the Co-Authors Plus plugin is installed on the platform or not.

Should the assignment be re-published, Camayak will request records from its database for how to edit the post, and expect the remote platform’s IDs (post, attachment, account and term IDs) to have remained the same. If the IDs do not match, publishing to your delivery platform will not be possible, so it’s imperative that database changes are made with great care.

Migrating to a new host

As a Camayak customer should you need to migrate from one hosting provider to another, we highly recommend the following series of steps to avoid frustration.

1. Purchase a new server from your preferred hosting provider.
2. Download and install the latest version of WordPress on the new server.
3. Setup the MySQL database on the new server.
4. Pick a date and time for when you wish to update your DNS to point your website from the old server to the new server.
5. Inform your newsroom staff, via your preferred communication method (IM, email, carrier pigeon) of this date and time. You should ideally pick a date and time when your traffic and staff are least affected (e.g. late at night, or early in the morning).
6. 30 minutes prior to the date and time you picked, inform your staff to stop publishing. Failure to do so could result in assignments disappearing on the new server when the DNS has changed.
7. When it’s time to migrate, export an SQL dump of your WordPress installation’s database and transfer the file to your local computer for safe keeping.
8. Update your DNS records to point your website from the old server to the new server.
9. On your new server, import your SQL dump.
10. When your DNS has updated (you can check with tools such as whatsmydns.net), and only when your DNS has updated, re-activate your publishing destination in Camayak.

Following these steps ensures that content doesn’t accidentally get published to the old website when your new website is being setup.