Does anybody have a guide on how to migrate away from GoDaddy without downtime? And what would you recommend instead? We currently host a bunch of domains and use their DNS servers.
If you are only using them for DNS (and assuming their DNS works again) you can simply setup the new dns somewhere but not switch the DNS at your registrar. Until the dns is working at the new dns provider (and you would query it to find that out).
Example:
1) setup amixdomain.com at, say, zoneedit.com (not recommending them just using as an example).
2) Wait a bit, say several hours then use a dns utility like the one at kloth.net to query the two zoneedit.com dns servers directly. If both of them answer for your domain you are in good shape. I don't know what the lag is until zoneedit reloads their dns. It could be in a minute or it could take longer (which is why you can just wait).
Or you can use the OSX (or equivalent on other platforms) dig tool from the command line as follows, using ycombinator.com as an example:
Edit: What I meant to say was "if you have a mac open a terminal session and use dig" sorry for seeming to implying that dig is an OSX tool.
dig @NS1.EASYDNS.COM ycombinator.com 'A'
yc's servers are, so I picked one. You want to query all the dns servers:
Name Server: NS1.EASYDNS.COM
Name Server: NS2.EASYDNS.COM
Name Server: NS3.EASYDNS.ORG
Name Server: NS6.EASYDNS.NET
Name Server: REMOTE1.EASYDNS.COM
Name Server: REMOTE2.EASYDNS.COM
3) After the dns is active at zoneedit.com change the dns to the nameservers zoneedit.com gives you (change at your current registrar). You should have no downtime (since the old and new nameservers are answering with the same results.
In re-reading my comment I can see where someone would think I was implying that it was. Having worked with UNIX since V I am well aware of what you are saying. My mistake.
(What I was trying to say was "if you have a mac open a terminal session and use dig".)
Well, you're already in the midst of downtime, so you have a head start.
Aside from that, focus on two concepts: TTL and overlap.
1) On your old host, lower the TTL of all your records to something quite low, like 30 seconds. This will increase the burden on your nameservers, since records will only be cached that long, but it will make you more nimble as you make substantial changes.
2) Migrate your records over to the new provider. This can be a bit tedious for more complex zones, but rather straight-forward for many. Change your nameserver on your local machine to point to your new DNS host, just to test in a "real-world" scenario.
Then go to your registrar and flip the switch.
Switching DNS providers is much less prone to downtime than changing web hosts, since the records themselves aren't changing much -- just where to find them.
If you're switching registrars, the principal is similar, setting the TTL quite low during the transition to help you make changes more quickly should something go wrong.
Imo, having done this since the mid 90's, you don't have to mess with TTL since you aren't changing any of the records. And having someone do that is an additional thing to mess with that adds unnecessary steps.
TTL would be necessary if you are going from one IP to another or a different MX server etc. though.
Altering TTL won't do anything for you unless you do it before you start to make changes and far enough in advance that the current TTL will expire and servers will pick up the new TTL. Then when you alter DNS records the alterations should propagate much faster.
If you're literally just changing DNS providers why would there be any down time - the record showing the IP where to find your website just gets grabbed from a different location, if a stale record is used it's still right.
These are instructions on how to move your domain, not migrate to different DNS servers. Moving away from GoDaddy in general might be a good idea, but if you're just looking to migrate to another DNS service like Route53, this isn't what your looking for.
1) Get a new DNS server. I use http://dnspark.net/ and even though their website is very ugly and there's no API, they're tremendous value at $10 - $14 per year
2) In your registrar's page (godaddy) change your DNS servers for your domain to whatever your new ones are.
$0.50 per hosted zone / month for the first 25 hosted zones
$0.10 per hosted zone / month for additional hosted zones
$0.500 per million queries – first 1 Billion queries / month
$0.250 per million queries – over 1 Billion queries / month
I host about 70 zones and pay less than 20 dollars a month. There's no minimum, so I would expect a single zone to cost less than $2. You would need to get 10 million queries to reach $6.
[Edit: Facepalm - I just realized you said per year]
Moving DNS servers can usually be done with no downtime. All you need to do is copy your current dns records to a new provider and then change the name servers. Keep your old DNS configuration up at least for a few days.
Gradually clients will switch over to the new DNS servers, but as long as both servers resolve to the same IP you should be fine.
DNS services cost money, either in staffing or recurring charges, so it really depends on your budget. Neustar is a nice DNS provider ($50+/mo).
Generally you'll want to set up your new DNS, turn down the refresh on your existing DNS domains, wait $old_refresh or so, then change your primary/secondaries listed at your registrar to point at your new DNS.
I have to disagree with your 'Neustar is a nice DNS provider' statement. I used them for 2 years, most of that time I was unhappy but because I was locked into a contract I had to wait it out or else pay a hefty breakage fee.
Their website/UI wasn't any good, very dated, they even rolled out a new one before I left, but that was horrible, they used AJAX everywhere, just for the sake of using it, and it made usability horrible.
Their support sucked as well, you would need to submit a ticket, and they take forever to get back to you, and they don't say anything besides "it looks fine to me". If you try and call them, you end up talking with someone who has no idea what they are talking about (same customer support line, for multiple products), or they don't speak english well.
You end up paying per DNS query, which is a really expensive way to pay for DNS, we were paying thousands of dollars a month to them for DNS alone.
Their advanced DNS services (DNS load balanceer and DNS failover) where very basic, and getting them setup correctly was a PITA.
There DNS service was nice until it crashed, which didn't happen often, but when it did, it took down half the internet with them.
I personally wouldn't have picked them to be our provider if it wasn't for one of our investors telling us how great they are and we needed to use them. I should have listened to my gut, but I also didn't want to piss off the guy paying the bills.
YMMV, but I would say, stand clear, and go to one of the newer folks doing the same thing for much less the cost, and more features.
This recommendation suprises me. Do you have particular reason to recommend them? $50 per month for DNS strikes me as ludicrous, but I suppose it's worth it for some sites if they truly can provide a more reliable service.
But I don't find the quotes on their website to be confidence inspiring: "UltraDNS manages and maintains its own industry leading resolver platform; as a non-open source platform it isn't prone to hijacking, spoofing or viruses".
And their industry positioning scares me:
The revised bill would place a ".kids" subdomain under the
control of NeuStar Inc., the Washington-based
telecommunications company that won the contract to manage
the ".us" country-code domain last fall.
NeuStar would be expected to police the subdomain to ensure
it remains free of inappropriate content, and it would
answer to the Commerce Department's National
Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Web sites in the domain would be prohibited from linking to
sites outside it, and they could not set up chat rooms,
instant messaging or other interactive services unless they
could certify that they did not expose children to
pedophiles or pose other risks.
If privately held NeuStar were to lose money on the
venture, it could give control back to the Commerce
Department, which would seek another operator.
ps. You're probably aware, but I was checking if the site listed in your profile was served by them, and noticed that many9s.com looks to have expired over the weekend.
" I would've thought you could simply set up your various DNS records in advance with the new service you use, and then switch the nameservers in the GoDaddy control panel."
Yes, see my comment.
"does anyone have any experience of using them?"
I don't but it wouldn't be a bad idea to setup other servers (as secondaries) at another provider. The only downside to this is that you are then susceptible to anything that happens at the extra provider (not if they don't answer or are down, but if your dns gets hacked there.) Keeping my previous statement in mind, if you are picking a reliable dns vendor I would say it probably pays to setup secondaries elsewhere for extra redundancy. It's not that expensive to do.
I don't but it wouldn't be a bad idea to setup other servers (as secondaries) at another provider.
Thanks, that hadn't occurred to me in the slightest. You're right that it's not expensive, and as a direct result of your advice, this is the road I'll be going down. Thanks!
I do use a domain registrar for domain registering, and a DNS hoster for DNS hosting. From my - limited - experience it's not a good idea to have this with one service provider (registrars have not 100% uptime, DNS hosters are limited with domains or expensive)
We've been migrating people to internet.bs
Once you pay for the transfer, you can set up all the DNS records, so when everything transfers over it is already configured.
