While looking for an appropriate web hosting solution for your website, you will come across different web hosting packages that offer various configurations of storage space, monthly bandwidth, memory and CPU. However, apart from the standard factors, there are other important factors that you need to consider while signing up for a web hosting package, they are mentioned below:

• What is web hosting I/O usage?
• What does IOPS mean?
• What Is Entry Processes Limit?
• What Is Number Of Processes?

The factors mentioned above are extremely crucial considerations and usually they are not mentioned by the web hosting companies to the end users. You can only know about these factors when you purchase the web hosting package. You will be able to see the I/O usage, IOPS, entry processes and number of processes in your web hosting control panel only if your web host allows these specifications to be displayed.

At times, you can ask about these technical specifications during a pre-sales chat or email query; however, there will be few sales people who know about them.

Some web hosting providers include these factors in technical information that is mentioned in a small print in the ‘Terms and Conditions’, ‘Fair Usage Policy’ or in the ‘Terms of Use’ section.

Let’s have a deeper look at these factors so that you can make a better decision about choosing the right web hosting solution.

What Is Web Hosting I/O Usage?

The web hosting I/O usage refers to the disk input and output (I/O). The disk I/O speed specifies how fast the website or scripts are allowed to carry out the input and output operations per second on your hosting server. Therefore, when it comes to the I/O range, the more the better. When someone visits your website or when you send or receive an email, your hosting server is carrying out the I/O operations.

If your server is set on a low I/O speed, your website and scripts will always perform at a slow pace; irrespective of the storage space, bandwidth, CPU and RAM offered in your web hosting package. A slow hosting platform will make your website slow resulting in damaging the online reputation, it may lead to data loss and bad email communication.

Offering a higher I/O is expensive for the web hosting providers which is why they do not allow more than 1 MB/s disk I/O speed on a shared server.

Benefits of having a higher I/O limit:

• More read/write data can be executed on the disk.
• Useful for hosting videos and downloading or streaming on the website.
• Enables large scripts to run faster.
• Helps in the execution of large database queries and operations.
• Prevents website freeze or slow loading of a website with heavy scripts.

What Does IOPS Mean?

Similar to the I/O speed, IOPS refers to Inputs Outputs Per Second. IOPS determines the speed at which a hard drive reads data from and writes data to a hard drive. IOPS is used for both traditional spinning hard drives and SSD drives. For instance a 7.2k SATA drive contains about 80 IOPS. When it comes to a hosting server, even though some web hosting providers provide SSD hosting, but in reality they limit the IOPS for every account to a certain value. The most important fact for you to know is that the higher the IOPS, the faster your website will be.

 What Is Entry Processes Limit?

An ‘Entry Process’ denotes the number of PHP scripts running at a single time. An entry process usually takes approximately 1 second to complete, this is the reason why most of the people confuse the entry process with the number of visitors they can have on their website. If the entry process limit is 30, it does not mean that only 30 people can visit your website at once because the possibility of all the people accessing your website at exactly the same second will not happen unless you have a very busy website.

The processes like cron jobs, shell scripts and other commands also utilize one entry process for the time duration when they are running.

If you plan to host multiple websites on a single hosting server, a higher entry process limit will surely help a lot.

Benefits of higher entry processes limit:

• Helps in catering to large website traffic.
• Has the ability to run more scripts at one time.
• Makes the website faster, especially in case of an ecommerce website where there are many PHP scripts running for database queries.
• Prevents your website from getting suspended with high traffic spikes.
• Important for WordPress multi-site build or for running multiple web applications in one hosting account.

What Is Number Of Processes?

A standard shared server is limited to 25 simultaneous processes per cPanel. Most of the websites work perfectly with 25 concurrent processes limit. The website processes open and close so quickly that they can hardly overlap. These concurrent processes consist of IMAP, SSH connections and other processes running in the same account.

These processes are same as the entry processes; the only difference is that these processes include all the processes generated by the account or website apart from the specific page, SSH or cron jobs. If the number of processes has been crossed, error 500 or error 503 will be displayed when the website is accessed.

It is beneficial if you have many concurrent users connected to the same server at a given point of time for executing various processes like for examples for accessing emails through IMAP, FTP etc.

Conclusion:

The information mentioned above will provide you better knowledge about the important aspects that you should look for in a web hosting package apart from the standard attributes. Don’t fall for unlimited storage and bandwidth unless you are aware of these important technical factors. If you are promised unlimited space but in reality if your website is getting limited, then there is no point in opting for such a web hosting plan.

The fact is that if you move your website from one web host to the other, it is not going to affect your search engine rankings; however, there are some important steps that you should take. The first important consideration to made is that when you change the DNS of your domain by pointing it from one server to the other, there is a propagation period before the changes are implemented. Take care not to get your old website down unless you are sure that the search engine is crawling and indexing your website on the new server.

Undertake the following steps:

• Migrate your website to the new web host along with complete content
• Change the DNS of the primary domain name so that it points to the new server
• Monitor the logs of the new server to know about the visits of search engine bots
• When you know that the search engine bots are crawling your website from the new server, you can get the old website down

What’s a CNAME record?

CNAME stands for Canonical Name. CNAME records are used to map one domain name to another.

For example, suppose you have both example.com and www.example.com that point to the same application and are hosted by the same server. Then to avoid the hassle maintaining two different records, it’s common to create:

• An A record for example.com pointing to the server IP address.
• A CNAME record for www.example.com pointing to example.com.

This helps the example.com to point to the server IP address and www.example.com to point to the address via example.com. If the IP address changes, you just need to update it at the A recordfor example.com while for www.example.com, it will get changed automatically.

So, let’s now check how to add and delete the CNAME records.

Steps to Add a CNAME Record in cPanel:

Step 1: Login to your cPanel account.

Step 2: Click on the Zone Editor button under the Domains section.

Step 3: Go to the domain for which you want to add a new CNAME record and click on the + CNAME Record option just besides the domain.

Step 4: A new window for Add a CNAME Record for “domain name” will appear. Here enter the name of the domain and CNAME of it. Then click on Add a CNAME Record button.

This way you can add a new CNAME record for a particular domain.

Steps to Add a CNAME Record in WHM:

Step 1: Login to your WHM account.

Step 2: Click on the Edit DNS Zone under the DNS Functions section.

Step 3: Click the domain for which you want to create the CNAME and then click the Edit button.

Step 4: Go to the bottom and find the section Add New Entries Below this Line. Click the Selectdrop-down menu and select CNAME.

Step 5: Enter your CNAME in the first field. In the image below, we are using test.

Step 6: Next, enter your Hostname in the field besides the dropdown menu and then click the Savebutton. Here, we are using the host name as example.com. The TTL section will be automatically filled.

This way you can add a CNAME record in WHM.

Steps to Delete a CNAME Record in cPanel:

Step 1: Login to your cPanel account.

Step 2: Click on the Zone Editor button under the Domains section.

Step 3: Go to the domain for which you want to delete the CNAME record and click on the Manageoption.

Step 4: This will take you to the Manage Zone where a list of all records will be displayed for each domain. Here click on CNAME to view the list of CNAME records.

Step 5: Click on the Delete option. You will be asked for confirmation prior to deleting the record. Click on Continue and that’s it.

This way you can delete a CNAME record in cPanel.

Steps to Delete a CNAME Record in WHM:

Step 1: Login to your WHM account.

Step 2: Click on the Edit DNS Zone under the DNS Functions section.

Step 3: Click the domain for which you want to create the CNAME and then click the Edit button.

Step 4: Find the CNAME record you want to delete. You will need to delete the text records for that particular domain.

Step 5: Go to the record selector dropdown menu change the record type from CNAME to Select for the domain you have deleted the text records.

Step 6: This will remove the record type from the screen as below:

Step 7: Click on Save button and that’s it.

This way you can delete the CNAME records in WHM.

Hope, this article on adding or deleting CNAME records has been helpful.

Migrating your website to another web host is similar to moving your house from one location to other. There would be a bit of preparation and work to be done. No don’t get scared because you will need to move several parts and that too in a particular order.

Do you know you can yourself migrate your website to MilesWeb? Below are the steps to set up your site on your new hosting service. So, let’s start.

• Before you begin
• A few rules of thumb
• Migrating your site – cPanel to cPanel
• Migrating your site – Manual Migration
• Migrating MySQL Databases
• Migrating Emails
• Testing your Website (optional)
• Going Live – DNS and Nameservers

Before you begin

• The information published here is a general guide only. It might include variables which won’t match your specific needs which can’t be accounted here.
• We can’t help you with performing or troubleshooting a self migration
• If you are not sure, it would be better to take an advice from your web developer or allow us to do the migration for you.
• We can guide you in putting your website data on our hosting, but we can’t give you instructions for getting that data from your existing host. You need to contact your existing host provider for this.
• If there are differences between your previous host and MilesWeb may mean that your website won’t work accurately just after you migrate. There may be some changes to website or configuration in your cPanel account prior to getting your website work properly.
• If you have already installed an SSL Certificate, it is obligatory that you provide us your Certificate, Private Key and Intermediate Certificate for installing it on the server.

A few rules of thumb

• Installation is exactly the reverse process of removal. So, if you can’t get something from your existing host, follow the inverse action of the migration steps.
• It is very easy to keep your old as well as new hosting active concurrently. This way you can migrate your website with minimal downtime.
• Several modern websites are based on a CMS such as WordPress. These CMS are just raw files and utilize databases too with MySQL being the universal choice. You will need to consider this while evaluating your needs and performing any migration.
• We would suggest you to migrate your site after business hours i.e. overnight or weekends would be a sensible time for avoiding downtime and email availability.
• Changes on DNS take time to activate – in simple words the “cutover” from the old server to the new.  These changes don’t happen instantly and yes the web host provider isn’t responsible for this – it’s just dependent on the Internet working.
• You can drop your TTL values in advance which might help in speeding up the propagation process.
• You need to move your email data in both cases – either you are using IMAP or POP. When you migrate email data, you don’t need to create email accounts again.
• If you change any specific details, for example, Nameservers, DNS records, Database names, etc. it is better to note down the existing values prior to changing them. This will prevent you from getting stuck, if you require reverting such changes or referring to these details later or something goes wrong.

Migrating your site – cPanel to cPanel

Basically, our servers run cPanel and there is a possibility that your existing host does too. If this is the case, both we as well as your existing host will provide you with login details to login to a particular URL as below:

http://www.your.domain/cpanel

https://www.your.domain:2083

https://server123.your-web.host:2083

• Start with logging to your previous server’s cPanel using the URL provided by your host.

• After logging in, go to the Backups section.

• Click on the Download button below the Home Folder under the title Partial Backups.
• A file with the extension .tar.gz will be downloaded to your computer. Note the name and location of this file.

• After this, login to your new cPanel account on your MilesWeb service with the temporary cPanel URL and login details provided in your welcome email. If you are a reseller, you will be able to login with the cPanel details that you create in WHM.

• Next, access the Backups page as before.

• Finally, click on the Restore options on the right hand side and locate the .tar.gz file downloaded to your machine. Then click on Upload. This will upload the Home Directory backup and restore all the files.

• You will notice that cPanel permits you to save separate backups for MySQL Databases, email filters and email forwarders. If want to migrate this data too, repeat the same steps for each relevant backup.

Migrating your site – Manual Migration

If you are migrating your website from a non-cPanel server, or if there are large amount of data of your website, you might need to migrate your website manually.

The steps below assume that the website files are already on your computer.

There are several folders within your cPanel account where all types of data is stored. The web root or document root should contain your website files. This folder is named as /public_html/.

There are two methods to upload files to this folder:

• cPanel’s File Manager
• Using FTP

Copying Files – cPanel’s File Manager

Login to cPanel and access File Manager under the title Files:

A pop-up will appear where you need to select Web Root and click Go.

File Manage enables you to browse various folders and also offers you tools for uploading your files. All the buttons itself give you the idea about each tool.

Copying Files – FTP

If you are using FTP, you will need an FTP Client. FileZilla is the most popular FTP client used but you can choose your favorite. After downloading and installing your choice of FTP client, configure it for connecting to the hosting server or the IP given in the welcome email along with your cPanel login details.

Next use FTP to locate files on your computer and upload them to the server. Again, you will need to move the website files to the /public_html/ folder.

Migrating MySQL Databases

You might use Backup / Restore functionality for moving from one cPanel server to another. If you are migrating a database, you should export or “dump” the database from your existing server (it should be exported as a .sql file) then create a database on the new server and import the data.

Your cPanel on the new server contains two areas – MySQL Databases and phpMyAdmin.

Create a database and database users with the help of the MySQL Databases page and then give those users access and permissions to those databases.

When this is completed, use phpMyAdmin to import the data from the Import tab.

It is important that the database names should be prefixed with cPanel username. This might indicate that you won’t be able to setup databases with the same names used that are used on your old server. If this is the case, you will require using a new database name and then edit your website configuration with the new database details.

Migrating Emails

If you are migrating from cPanel to cPanel, your email accounts and data will automatically get copied while backing up and restoring your home folder. But, this won’t always be assured as it depend on the potential differences between the old and the new server.

Manual email data migration is a too lengthy process. Also, we don’t perform email migration for you if we are doing a paid manual migration for you. This type of migration is needed only when emails are accessed via IMAP.

If you have your email hosted on a different server to your website, such as a cloud service like Office 365, Google Apps, or a on-premises mail server such as Kerio or Exchange, this won’t be changing while moving your website to MilesWeb. It would be better to involve your Mail administrator with the migration process for ensuring your email service is setup accurately and functioning properly.

Testing your Website (optional)

After migrating your website, you may want to test the website optionally.

If you want to test your website optionally, you will need to modify your hosts file. This informs your computer about accessing your site from the new server instead of the existing one. This will help you to understand that everything works fine prior to making your site live.

The Product Welcome email that is received after purchasing your hosting service will contain the IP address to use.

When it’s done, it is recommended to delete the modifications done to your hosts file, as they should be temporary only.

Going Live – DNS and Nameservers

When your website migration is complete, the final step involves configuration of your domain to point to your new server which is controlled by DNS.

The nameservers can be chosen from us or use the ‘external’ nameservers from third party. In case you are using existing host’s nameservers or if you aren’t sure, you might use the former one only.

After updating the required details, visitors must be able to access your website on the new server. Note that the DNS propagation might take long time – from hours to a day or two. Therefore, it is best to change DNS at a time when traffic is low such as overnight.

Using MilesWeb’s Nameservers
If you are using MilesWeb’s nameservers, you will need to access your account with your Domain Registrar – this would be MilesWeb or another registrar.

When you login into your account with your registrar, access the details for the domain and then update the nameservers to those described in this article: https://www.milesweb.com/hosting-faqs/how-to-update-my-name-servers/

Please note MilesWeb has multiple sets of nameservers for different products. Linux reseller and shared as well as Windows have same nameservers while VPS and Hybrid should have their own private Name servers. So, please check the type of product you purchase for ensuring you have used the correct ones. Moreover, you will also have the correct nameservers to use in the Product Welcome email you receive upon purchase of your hosting service.

Once our nameservers are configured, you can administer your DNS records through the Simple or Advanced Zone Editors within cPanel.

Using External Nameservers
In case you are using external nameservers, and/or you use a CDN service such as Cloudflare, you probably won’t be using our nameservers. Rather, you set the nameservers to those provided by your DNS host. It might be that you have already set up these and so, there won’t be any changes to be done to your domain itself.

Then, you manage your records/zone through the DNS host’s website.

We supply the IP address of the server on which your website is hosted in your Product Welcome email. You will need to update the relevant records (@, www., etc.) by accessing your DNS records with your DNS host with the new IP. If you require any help, contact your DNS host.

When you are using external nameservers, changes made in the Simple/Advanced Zone Editorsinside cPanel won’t be applicable for anyone on the Internet and so, it’s not actually needed to access these areas of cPanel.

But there are certain exceptions to the rule:

You will need to change the MX Entry (there is a page in cPanel for this under the title Mail) to check, if it matches the MX records that you have configured on your DNS host. With this it is assured that any forms on your website will be capable of delivering emails to you.

In case you have created subdomains, those need to be configured in cPanel as well as on your DNS host with your server IP.