Acquia can assist with your migration effort whether it involves migrating infrastructure from one site group to another within Cloud Platform or migrating from another hosting provider to Cloud Platform. When your website needs to be migrated to a new infrastructure in Cloud Platform, Acquia can take the burden off your team and move your code, database, and files for you.
Acquia supports the following types of paid engagement program related to migration:
Internal migrations with Acquia
Internal migration involves migrating your infrastructure in Cloud Platform from one site group to another.
Due to the migration activity, the following changes occur:
Sitegroup name(s)
IP address of your load balancer
Domain Name Server (DNS)
Elastic IPs assigned to your website
In addition, you must:
Add the domains attached to your old site group to the Domains page for your new infrastructure.
Reupload any SSL certificates attached to your old site group on your new infrastructure.
Note that your old and new applications coexist for a time during the migration process.
Upon successful migration, Acquia deprovisions your old site group and subscription.
Internal migration process
Acquia provisions your new site group on your new infrastructure. Previously used site group names cannot be reused. Your chosen site group name must be 20 characters or less, all lower case, and can contain only alphanumeric characters.
For more information on the general migration procedure, see General procedure.
Internal migration schedule
Activity | Notes | Owner |
|---|---|---|
Provisioning new site group | You will be notified when your Cloud Platform subscription is ready for use. | Acquia |
Migration call | Acquia will schedule the call and provide dial-in details. Both your project manager and technical lead should attend. | Acquia/Customer |
Code freeze | You need to notify Acquia when your code freeze is in place so that Acquia can conduct the initial migration. Any code changes committed after the initial migration will be disregarded. | Customer |
Initial Migration | Acquia will perform an initial migration of code, files, and databases. This initial migration will help with estimates regarding the time needed for the content freeze and final migration. Upon completion, Acquia will notify you to begin QA testing. | Acquia |
Install Cloud Platform API | Acquia will install Cloud Platform API as part of the initial migration. | Acquia |
Install Acquia Search (if applicable) | If applicable, Acquia will install Acquia Search as part of the initial migration. | Acquia |
Provide benchmark for final migration | Based on the time of the initial migration, Acquia will be able to forecast how much time should be anticipated for content freeze/final migration. | Acquia |
SSL upload (if applicable) | If you will be using an SSL certificate for your website, you should install it on Cloud Platform on your subscription’s SSL page. The Acquia team may provide instructions and additional assistance with this step, if required. | Customer |
QA Testing | You must test the website on the new infrastructure to verify that nothing was missed during the migration, and nothing is broken on the website after the migration. Load testing is recommended during this time. | Customer |
Intermediate Migration | Optional step | Acquia |
Content freeze | A content freeze should be put in place shortly before the final migration and continue throughout the entire final migration process and final testing period, until the DNS switch is complete. | Customer |
Final migration | Acquia will perform a final sync of your website’s database and files. Upon completion, Acquia will notify you to test your production website before cutting over DNS records. | Acquia |
Final testing | After final migration is complete, you will conduct final testing (30–60 minutes) to ensure that your website is fully migrated and that no content is missing. | Customer |
DNS switch | After final testing is completed, you can switch DNS to point to your newly-migrated website. | Customer |
External migrations with Acquia
External migration involves migrating your infrastructure from another hosting platform to Cloud Platform.
Your migration engagement with Acquia lasts at least 2–4 weeks, depending on the size and complexity of the websites you are migrating, and the availability of your resources to conduct the testing. For information about the available migration sizes, see Professional Services Product Guide.
External migration process
To move your website to Cloud Platform, you must provision your new subscription, codebase, and infrastructure. Acquia sets up your new subscription for you, and grant your team with the necessary access. Acquia performs your migration remotely (and requires administrative access to your website).
For more information on the general migration procedure, see General procedure.
External migration schedule
Activity | Notes | Owner |
|---|---|---|
Subscription and infrastructure provisioning | You will be notified when your Cloud Platform subscription is ready for use. | Acquia |
Migration call | Acquia will schedule the call and provide dial in details. Both your project manager and technical lead should attend. | Acquia/Customer |
Grant access to Acquia | During the migration call, Acquia will discuss the level of required access and share options regarding how this access can be granted. You can then provide Acquia personnel with the necessary access. | Customer |
Code freeze | You need to notify Acquia when your code freeze is in place so that Acquia can conduct the initial migration. Any code changes committed after the initial migration will be disregarded. | Customer |
Initial Migration | Acquia will perform an initial migration of code, files, and databases. This initial migration will help with estimates regarding the time needed for the content freeze and final migration. Upon completion, Acquia will notify you to begin QA testing. | Acquia |
Install Acquia Connector | Acquia will install Acquia Connector as part of the initial migration. | Acquia |
Install Acquia Search (if applicable) | If applicable, Acquia will install Acquia Search as part of the initial migration. | Acquia |
Provide benchmark for final migration | Based on the time of the initial migration, Acquia will be able to forecast how much time should be anticipated for content freeze/final migration. | Acquia |
SSL upload (if applicable) | If you will be using an SSL certificate for your website, you should install it on Cloud Platform on your subscription’s SSL page. Acquia may provide instructions and additional assistance with this step, if required. | Customer |
QA Testing | You must test the website on Cloud Platform. Load testing is recommended during this time. | Customer |
Intermediate Migration | Optional step | Acquia |
Content freeze | A content freeze should be put in place shortly before the final migration, and continue throughout the entire final migration process and final testing period, until the DNS switch is complete. | Customer |
Final Migration | Acquia will perform a final sync of your website’s database and files. Upon completion, Acquia will notify you to test your production website before cutting over DNS records. | Acquia |
Final testing | After final migration is complete, you will conduct final testing (30–60 minutes) to ensure that your website is fully migrated and that no content is missing. | Customer |
DNS switch | After final testing is completed, you can switch DNS to point to your newly-migrated website. | Customer |
General procedure
The migration process is typically divided into two parts: the initial migration and the final migration. For internal migrations, an intermediate migration step may also be included based on your need. The duration of the migration process will depend on how much time you will need to test your website on Cloud Platform. The initial migration focuses on copying your code, database, and files to your new subscription, whereas the final migration is a sync of your website’s database and files, including any changes that occurred since the initial migration.
For information about each step of your migration, see:
Prerequisites for migration
The prerequisite for the initial migration is a code freeze. If a code freeze cannot be put in place before the initial migration, an intermediate migration will be required before the final sync. The website should remain in code freeze until after the final migration and the domain name system (DNS) switch to Cloud Platform are completed.
The prerequisite for the final migration is a content freeze. The time required for Acquia to perform your initial migration will provide a guideline for estimating the duration of your final migration.
Migration call
To coordinate the engagement, Acquia will schedule an introductory migration call to discuss the process, access requirements for the engineer handling your migration, and the timelines that you should expect.
Granting access to your website
After the migration call, Acquia will create a proactive ticket, and send you an access request with the details of the Acquia personnel who will need to be granted with an administrative sign-in to the code base that you want to migrate.
Initial migration
In preparation for the initial migration, you will need to coordinate the timeframe of a code freeze with your development team, as any code changes committed to your current production website after the initial migration will be disregarded. Acquia will perform an initial migration of your website’s code, files, and databases to Cloud Platform. After the initial migration is completed, any new development work should be performed only on Cloud Platform.
Quality assurance
After the initial migration is completed, you must perform quality assurance (QA) and regression testing on Cloud Platform using an alternate domain. You may choose to set up a DNS record for this alternate domain for testing purposes. You can also simulate a DNS change locally by modifying the hosts file on your local machine.
During QA testing, you must review all critical website functionality, including public functions, themes, and related media assets to verify that everything is working correctly:
Verify administrative functions: Creating content, creating users, administering permissions, and other administrative functions
Verify business critical functions: Form submissions and third party integrations
Validate themes: Images, CSS, and cross-browser compatibility
Validate risk areas (possible regressions due to changes made through the migration process): Upgraded contributed modules and new modules
Acquia cannot proceed with final migration until you sign off on testing.
During your QA testing, you should also add any needed custom domains or SSL certificates to your new Cloud Platform subscription.
Intermediate migration
If you cannot implement a website code freeze before the initial migration, Acquia may perform an extra intermediate migration later in the migration process, after you have put a code freeze in place.
Content freeze
Acquia will inform you regarding how long the initial migration took and, based on that information, will provide an estimate of time required for the final migration. You should put a content freeze into effect shortly before the final migration, and keep the content freeze in place throughout both the final migration process and final testing, until the DNS switch is complete.
Important
For internal migration, you must coordinate the transfer of any domain names with Acquia.
Final migration
Acquia will conduct the final data migration. This final migration contains the final sync of your files and database, to ensure all content changes made on your current production website after the initial migration are brought over to Cloud Platform (for external migration) or to your new site group on Cloud Platform (for internal migration).
Final testing and DNS switch
After the final migration, you must perform final QA testing to verify that the newly-migrated website is working correctly. If your tests are successful, you will need to repoint your domain names to your new subscription (for external migration) or your load balancers and elastic load balancers (for internal migration). Your Acquia team can provide DNS records if necessary. After the DNS switch is completed, your code freeze and content freeze are over and your website is live.