Moving a site from one hosting server to another is generally not something that should be taken lightly and should be planned out well in advance to minimize site downtime and other aggravating mishaps.

So ... Yesterday, I decided to finally move our own company website from our testing server (where I had taken it live about a month or so ago, because I didn't have the time I thought it would take to move it) to our production server at www.datagroup.com.

Ideally, in a nutshell, I would expect having to take these steps: create a backup of the database and the site on the "from" side and bring it local, create a new database on the "to" side, FTP the database backup and site to the "to" side after making a few configuration changes, and finally restore the database on the "to" side.

That sounds simple enough and for the most part works that way for most CMS's, expecting that there is always something that doesn't work afterwards; maybe something goes wrong with permissions, maybe images no longer appear because of the way links are being stored internally, maybe content or users get lost because pointers get messed up in the process. 

Therefore, while I was confident that I would eventually get the move done, I was expecting it to take quite a while and to have some issues to resolve afterwards. Before getting started, I googled variations of "moving Joomla from one server to another" and found a couple of entries, none of them making a big deal out of it. I was expecting the usual list of forum entries pointing out how to make mass edits on the database to update links and how to tweak permissions. Nothing. Mmmmhhhh. 

So ... I took a deep breath, got a glass of wine - it was Saturday evening, after all - and got started.

This is what I did:

On the "from" server side:

• I backed up the database used for the content and settings and downloaded it to my local machine. I renamed it because it had a funky name assigned by my hosting service, just so I would know where to find it again.
• I downloaded a copy of the actual site files (html, images, configuration, etc...) to my local machine

On the "to" server side:

• I created a database for my new Joomla site. (I noticed that the database version on the "from side was MYSQL 4.0.something and 4.1 on the "to" side. I made a mental note to really check things out afterwards.)

On the local machine:

• I edited the configuration file to reflect the new database settings and site settings (folder names, actual path names, ...)
• I FTP'd the entire site with the updated configuration.php file from the local machine to the new server location. I used Dreamweaver for this just because I am used to that environment and I have good experiences with its FTP process.
• I FTP'd the database that I downloaded from the "from" server to the corresponding location on the new server (both my sites are hosted by GoDaddy, so that was an easy move to folders with the same name.)

Back on the "to" server side:

• I restored the database and took another deep breath.

By now, less than 30 minutes had passed and most of that time was probably spent waiting for the database backups and creates to complete, the files getting FTP'd ... and getting another glass of wine.

Now, it was time to test out the site going directly to its new subdirectory (the live site was still forwarding to my testing server). I checked out all menus, various content categories, made some test contributions, checked user accounts, etc ... All seemed fine after I corrected a misspelling (all my fault) in the configuration file. I am thinking: That was way too easy! What am I missing? ...

OK, now it's time to get serious and take it live, really live! I removed the forwarding to the testing server and pointed directly to my new site. I closed my browser windows and opened a new window, typing in my domain name. And voila! It's there - in all its glory, working beautifully.

After having moved many sites from one place to another, I have to say that this one was probably the most painless site move I've ever done. Thank you Joomla team!