Moving sites to new data centers or a new location in MODX Cloud can put your content closer to your visitors. This often results in shorter page load times which Google says they love. This document is a short checklist version of a more detailed process.
You can create or move sites to any data center location in MODX Cloud, including Sydney, Texas, London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
Currently we do not have a way to move a custom domain Add-on for Production Clouds between data centers, so there will be a small pro-rated charge associated with the move. The bonus, though, is that site moves should happen without downtime.
Before initiating a move, make sure to lock down your site with a content freeze:
- Create a new Cloud in the same version that currently runs your site in your new desired location
- Take a Backup of the current Cloud, or if no changes have occurred, use last night’s Backup
- Restore the Backup into the new Cloud created in step 1
- Copy the Robots and Web Rules configurations from the source to the new Cloud
- Add the domain names to the new Cloud
- Move any custom SSL certs to the new location: https://support.modx.com/hc/en-us/articles/235604327
- Test the new location with the domain name and a custom hosts file entry as needed (don’t forget to revert when you're done!): https://support.modx.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010392487
- Update your DNS A Record for the domain to point to the IP address of the new Cloud
- Re-add any Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates once your DNS has propagated if needed. Check that here: https://www.whatsmydns.net/
- Remove and cancel the domain in the original location
That’s it. You can now resume normal content editing.