Announcement - MY Windows Server 2003 upgrade migration
Dear Clients,
Date of migration: Oct - Dec 2016
Migration Details:
Following the recent Microsoft official announcement on the EOL (End Of Life) of Windows 2003, including the support provided, Exabytes will be migrating all the existing Windows Shared and Reseller accounts from Windows 2003 to the latest Windows 2012 based Operating System. For further reference, kindly refer to the official announcement by Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/windows-server-2003/. The new Windows Server 2012 offers a lengthy list of improvements compared with Windows Server 2003, including better security, extensive scalability, new operational roles and far more.
What Do You Need To Know About This Migration?
(A) Major features that will not be affected:
1) Email
All existing email entries will remain unchanged including email data, configurations, login details, contacts and IP.
2) Database
All MySQL will be migrated over to the new server. There will be no changes on the database connection string towards your existing application database.
3) Name server
Existing name server will remain unchanged, for example, ns7/ns8.mschosting.com, ns27/ns28.mschosting.com and so on.
Resellers and normal shared hosting clients’ private name server will function as usual.
4) SSL
If you have an existing SSL certificate installed on your hosting, we will migrate the SSL certificate with the dedicated IP over to the new hosting servers.
5) PHP Version
Both PHP 5.3 and 5.4 are supported in the new server environment.
(B) Major changes after migration
1) IP
All current servers’ shared IP will be changed, and dedicated IP will be migrated over to the new server environment.
2) Change on control panel from HELM to MSPControl (Formally is WSP)
Our team will install MSPControl as the front end control panel for you to manage your hosting account.
Please be informed that all versions of Helm had reached "End of Life" and "End of Support" status on December 31, 2014.
Related news: http://kb.odin.com/en/123028
3) FTP Accounts
All FTP users must be recreated as FTP configuration cannot be transferred over to the new server. As a result, please be reminded to log into control panel and reset the FTP password once your account has been successfully migrated to the new server.
4) Scheduler (Cronjob)
All your existing Scheduler cannot be transferred over to the new server. Please reconfigure or get assist from our support team via ticketing helpdesk.
5) Custom error page
If your sites are using your own custom error pages, we regret to inform that these error pages cannot be transferred.
Please refer the following link for custom error page creation:
https://support.exabytes.com.my/support/solutions/articles/14000031314-custom-errors-in-website-panel
6) Secure folder
If you have any password protected folder setup in the existing Helm control panel, please note that the settings will not be replicated to the new environment due to compatibility issues.
Kindly recreate the Secure folder in the new MSPControl by referring to the following link:
https://support.exabytes.com.my/support/solutions/articles/14000031313-creating-the-secured-folder-in-website-panel
7) Helm Billing option
All functions and data inside Helm's Billing Menu will not be available in the new MSPControl.
If you have used this feature to bill your clients, this option will not be available in the new control panel.
Please consider 3rd party billing options such as www.whmcs.com as one of your billing integration options.
8) Others
Some of the old components and functions are not available in the new Windows 2012 environment:
* Microsoft Access, which is a DBMS (Database Management System) is no longer available in the new hosting environment. You are recommended to switch your application database to MySQL or consider MSSQL (billable).
* Physical path will be changed to C:\domains\username\domain.com\wwwroot instead of previous path: C:\domains\domain.com\wwwroot.
* If your application script relies on any of the physical path code, please request your webmaster to update the coding once your site has been migrated to the new server.
* ASP 1.1 is no longer supported. The minimum available option is ASP 2.0 Classic - code changes are required for your existing code environment.
* MySQL 5.6 is the latest version that will run in the new server environment. Please check with your application developer and make sure your current application version is able to run with MySQL 5.6
(C) Recommended preparation
We recommend all users to run a full data backup for their web files and databases to their local desktop/laptop/external drive as an extra precaution for this migration exercise.Last but not least, please note that all affected clients will be notified privately on the actual migration date/time.
