After many years (many many years) running the various versions of Windows to host web sites, we are back to using Linux.
It was time for a server upgrade and while there were several reasons to switch to Linux we struggled to find reasons to stay with Windows. In reality the only two reasons to keep Windows were my familiarity with it, and there were several existing sites using Windows-only software.
However, I was having challenges with the recent updates to DNN and have been experimenting a bit with WordPress (click here to read about my DNN vs WordPress experience), and the other Windows-based sites were in dire need of an update and overhaul anyways, so the decision to switch to Linux wasn’t actually that hard in the end.
Overall, the migration wasn’t too bad. The first WordPress site took me about 3 hours to move over, mostly fixing little things the I had “forgotten” about Linux and getting used to the new control panel. After that initial learning curve, I was able to migrate the remaining sites in less than 15 minutes each. Most of that was the actual file transfer process rather than configuration and set up time.
I did manage to mess up the DNS – Email config on my own domain for a few hours but it turned out to be a simple 1-click fix from an “automatic” default setting to the correct setting.
Overall, the entire migration process was relatively painless and the sites didn’t experience any unplanned downtime or unexpected serious issues. The dedicated server from Hostgator has proven to be very reliable over the years and we we are looking forward to more of the same with the new server.
