Make sure that you have plenty of time and you have informed your clients about it as this will take some time. You can tell them that you are upgrading the server.

Most of the Virtual Private Servers are provided with the root access to the server and this is a great benefit as you will have more control over your websites and this makes Virtual Private Servers more reliable. You can also shut down the mail servers if you want to, during the transfer. The only problem is, if you are hosting the domains for others as a reseller than it will create a problem for you as passwords are required for this purpose. You will have to create the domains and the user accounts if you wish to move to the new server and you will also have to issue new passwords to your clients as you will not be able to access the passwords which are set by your clients.

If you have Plesk as control panel for your Virtual Private Server than the migration becomes easier due to a feature which is included in this software.”Migration Manager” is a great feature which supports the migration from remote servers using Plesk 2.5.x, 5.x, 6.x, and 7.x, as well as Confixx 2, Ensim 3.5.x, and cPanel 9. You will have to enter some information to use Migration Manager. This information includes the remote host address , the login name (normally root) and the password. You will also have to set set the remote system type (Plesk, cPanel, etc.). Once you have done this just click ‘Next’.

An agent will be sent by the Marketing Manager to the remote server and then a list of domains and clients on the remote server will be offered to you. The client data like the username and the password will be displayed if you will migrate a client. Also, the domains belonging to the client will be displayed. You will have to make a client account ready on the new server if you import a domain to take the ownership of the domain you have imported.

If you do everything correctly you will not face any problem while migrating the data through Migration Manager.

Important things to remember:-

1) Keep downtime to the minimum when you are migrating a server.

2) Make sure that you plan everything before you try to do this so that the users do not know that you have switched the server.

3) Try to perform a trial run before you try to migrate your server.

4) Also, do update your DNS as no one will see your new website if you do not do this. Edit the /etc/hosts file on your client and add your domain name (including the www) with the new IP address and restart your browser so that your new website will be visible. Once you have finished experimenting do not forget to remove this entry.