Moving from One Control Panel to Another by www.thehostingnews.com

Moving from One Control Panel to Another

September 16th, 2011 By: Tavis J. Hampton

If you have a shared hosting account, you probably do not have a choice in the web-based control panel that you use unless you switch from one web host to another. With a VPS or dedicated server, however, the choice is ultimately yours. If the time ever comes that you want to switch to a new hosting automation system, there are a few things you should know.

Not all hosting control panels use similar technology to accomplish their goals. This is not just a reference to scripting languages. After all, the underlying code could be completely different and still be compatible with other software. The issue here is how the control panel interacts with other software.

For example, some control panels are tightly integrated with services like Apache HTTP Server. Others may even install their own custom versions of the software during the control panel’s initial setup. Therefore, it is important to know exactly how your control panel is setup before you consider attempting to transfer your websites from one to the other.

In the event that it is not possible to directly transfer from one control panel to another, you can still attempt a manually conversion, since the actually content of your website should not be directly connected to the control panel. But if you are hosting several websites, even hundreds, it may be quite a formidable task. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that you will be able to do it without causing some damage to websites, especially if it requires you to use a different file system structure.

Transferring from one control panel system to another can be a major operation, as big as a total server migration. If you must do it, you may want to consider getting outside help to make sure it all goes smoothly or just buy a fully managed dedicated server.