[3thr3e]

I am in the process of tweaking a friends website ready for it to be transferred to a new registrar and host.

Currently he has his domain and hosting with a company called Chillizone. Including his e-mails

He has acquired a company whose domain name registrar is fasthosts, but hosting is with aspnethosting. Email is with fasthosts though.

Having decided that the new company's website provides better functionality, he wishes to transfer his old domain name and e-mail from Chillizone over to fasthosts, where he can set up a simple redirect to the new site.

I have obtained all the required information to give Fasthosts, but before proceeding I need to clarify a few things.

E-mails are a huge part of his business, and so he cannot afford any downtime. There is only one e-mail address he uses.

My question: Is it possible to set something up at fasthosts end before initiating the transfer which means that the change in e-mail hosting is seamless and with no downtime?

Thanks!

[maf1970]

1. Does your friend intend to conduct his business using the new company's website only or does he intend for the old to still be operational ?
2. Have you informed / discussed winding up business with Chillizone ?
3. I don't think changing who the registrar is a problem however changing your host is. This is because changes to your DNS record can take up to 72 hours to propagate through the system.
4. Has your friend informed all his clients of the acquisition and what will be happening as a result of it? For this you don't need to supply details just tell them the website and email will be offline while undergoing maintenance.

[EndlessWaves]

Surely as long as you maintain both mailservers through the transition it's not going to make a difference? The e-mail will go to one or the other and not just disappear.

[3thr3e]

Originally Posted by maf1970

1. Does your friend intend to conduct his business using the new company's website only or does he intend for the old to still be operational ?
2. Have you informed / discussed winding up business with Chillizone ?
3. I don't think changing who the registrar is a problem however changing your host is. This is because changes to your DNS record can take up to 72 hours to propagate through the system.
4. Has your friend informed all his clients of the acquisition and what will be happening as a result of it? For this you don't need to supply details just tell them the website and email will be offline while undergoing maintenance.

1. New website only, we've transferred all content etc already
2. Yes I have the transfer code etc from them ready to give the new registrar
3. For the DNS I'm just going to make index.html a html redirect to the new site. And then have the domain (with the new registrar) point to the new site. That way if a clients DNS hasn't updated it will still go to the new site.
4. Yes the acquisition was 18 months ago, all that's left is the website.

I'm happy that the website will undergo no downtime, but the e-mail is my concern. Can you shed any light on this?

[3thr3e]

Originally Posted by EndlessWaves

Surely as long as you maintain both mailservers through the transition it's not going to make a difference? The e-mail will go to one or the other and not just disappear.

How does the mechanics work with this?

Obviously the mail servers with Chillizone will be live. But how do I set them up with Fasthosts, before the transfer is initiated?