Reducing the Pain of Switching Broadband or Hosting Provider

Before Making A Switch Ensure
You Know What You're Getting

Moving to an alternative website hosting company or broadband provider is a serious proposition. We explored some of the pitfalls in doing so in our last posting Thinking of Switching Hosting or Broadband Provider? and in the article Changing Premises and Suppliers. Here, we want to explore some of the techniques you can use to potentially mitigate the effects.

Start early. We can’t emphasise this enough. Setting up alternative arrangements and ensuring a smooth transition will take longer than you expect and could cost, so start considering the implications before you make the decision to change, rather than afterwards.

Do a complete back-up before the process starts. Then, if anything goes wrong or there are problems restoring the systems, you have a ready-made status quo to return to.

Consider implementing disaster planning and business continuity initiatives in advance. Techniques such as Virtualisation and Mirrored Servers ensure you can carry on in the event of a disaster and they can also get you up and running quicker afterwards. They can also be very useful in helping with a move such as this. These were explored further in What is Disaster Planning & Business Continuity? and How to help your business survive disasters.

Creating a Checklist Can Help
The Transition Run Smoothly

Create an alternative internet access system. You might need to use a Wi-Fi system or be temporarily located elsewhere whilst the changeover takes place.

Use cloud computing facilities. If visualisation and mirroring techniques are outside your budget, the cloud may provide a viable alternative through tools such as Google Documents, Google Calendar and Gmail or other web-based systems. You will need to ensure you have an alternative means of accessing the internet to use these systems and you may want to tell those with whom you communicate regularly to use a different email address during the period. You can read more about cloud computing in Introduction to Cloud Computing.

Consider email continuity. This system creates, in effect, an ongoing copy of your emails which can be activated automatically in the event of your email system crashing. If set up in advance, and used alongside an alternative internet access method, it can help to ensure that you retain access to emails whilst the changeover is taking place.

Using some or all of these techniques together can help to reduce the inevitable impact of switching providers. As ever, our advice is to take the advice of a competent and experienced IT support company before making the decision to switch, so you can be both knowledgeable and fully prepared beforehand.

Thinking of Switching Hosting or Broadband Provider?

Plan Ahead When Considering
Changing Hosting Provider

A natural reaction when organisations want to reduce costs is to look at changing their service providers. We wrote about this in more detail in Changing Premises and Suppliers.
We wanted to highlight some specific issues with changing broadband provider and website hosting companies. As these are both competitive markets, we’re seeing more and more organisations wanting to do it. It’s not always cost that drives organisations to switch, sometimes it's additional facilities or services. But regardless of the reason, the pitfalls to be aware of are the same and include the points given below.

Loss of internet access. If you change broadband provider, you’ll not be able to use the internet for several days, so no emails, websites or web-enabled applications unless you set up a separate means of access such as Wi-Fi.

If you use any cloud-based applications, you’ll also lose them. So if you have Google Documents, Googlemail, remote off-site back-ups or specific cloud-based software, you’ll lose access during the handover period.

Loss of website and emails. If you’re changing the organisation who hosts your website or provide your email adresses, you’ll also lose your emails and company website during the handover period. We don’t mean you won’t be able to access websites in general – you can do that if you have an alternative arrangement such as Wi-Fi. We mean that your customers can’t access your website, which could be disastrous for sales and service.

It also means that you won’t get your emails. It doesn’t mean they will be held in a server somewhere and you can access them when the system comes back on, it means they are lost forever with no way to get them back. You’ll never get them.

Changing hosting company or broadband provider is a serious proposition. We’re not saying don’t do it, there might be very good reasons why you want or need to. But you do need to plan it carefully in advance. In our blog posting next month - Reducing the Pain of Switching Broadband or Hosting Provider, we’ll highlight some of the techniques you can consider to mitigate the effects experienced the handover period.