Migrating to Gen2 Platforms & New Data Center Rollout

MODX Cloud is performing a systems refresh to improve performance and scalability for customers and to bring new features to Cloud. Every public and private server will be replaced by newer, faster, more scalable, and more capable Gen2 platforms. See our release announcement for more information on the new features of Gen2 platforms.

All Sites Will Move to Gen2 Platforms

Each legacy platform will be decommissioned at the completion of its Phase III (described below). All MODX Cloud sites will need to be migrated from legacy platforms to a new Gen2 platform—or deleted if no longer in use such as old development Clouds or test sites.

For customers wishing to move sites at your own convenience, there's a new Migration feature in the MODX Cloud Dashboard.

Initiating Migrations

You initiate a site migration inside the MODX Cloud Dashboard by clicking the "Migrate…" button from the Cloud Edit view of the Cloud to be migrated. This action is located at the top of the actions list to the right of the Cloud details shown on the page.

Migration Phases

The Phase I date is when platform migrations begin in earnest with a goal of full migrations within 30 days. During this time, customers will be able to request migrations when convenient to them and will receive emails frequently with progress updates. All sites on legacy platforms will be switched to PHP 7.3 during this Phase.

The Phase II date is when all sites with custom domains will be proactively migrated/proxied to a Gen2 platform, and sites without custom domains will have a final backup preserved and be deleted. MODX and Extras upgrades will be performed as needed.

The Phase III (EOL) date is when servers will be powered off and recycled. Any site that has not updated its IP address by this date will not resolve. As soon as an IP update occurs, the sites will resume serving traffic from their new locations.

Planned Rollout Schedule

The planned schedule for migrations and decommissioning is in the table below.

These dates are estimated/target dates and may change; please visit this page often for the latest schedules. Private Server customers can inquire about platform refreshes by opening a support ticket.

NOTE: If you want to upgrade to new platforms earlier than scheduled—which makes sense given the improvements outlined in the release announcement—you could, for example, move from London (LON1) to Frankfurt (FRA2). The increased performance more than makes up for a few ms of latency. When a Gen2 platform is deployed in London (LON2), you can migrate back to your original region.

Migration Limitations

Cron tasks are not automatically migrated and must be manually duplicated over. Please open a ticket with MODX Cloud support if you need assistance with this.

You can migrate from any location to any Gen2 platform, but you may not move back to legacy platforms. 

Preparing for Migrations

Site Portability & Testing

If you have a base-href tag in your header—common in many MODX website builds—a good practice is to make sure it includes an uncached site_url placeholder so you can test it on any URL: [[!++site_url]]. This is loaded in memory and available to every page request in MODX, so there should be no negative impact on performance.

If your site relies on resolving to your custom domain, you can do so by updating your local hosts file to point to the new IP address before DNS is updated. For more information, see the Modifying your HOSTS file to preview sites in Cloud article in our Knowledge Base.

Move to PHP 7.3 and Test Your Site

The minimum version of PHP supported on Gen2 platforms is 7.4, which will continue receiving security updates through November 28, 2022. Legacy platforms only support up to PHP 7.3 which is EOL.

Now is a great time to prepare and test your sites under PHP 7.3 ahead of time. All sites on legacy platforms will be switched to PHP 7.3 during Phase I of migrations in each region.

Upgrade Revo and All Extras

If you haven't upgraded MODX or its Extras in a while (below version 2.7.x), do that, too. We suggest sticking with the current major version for upgrades (i.e., upgrade to 2.8.x). After your site is live on a Gen2 platform, you can clone it and test an upgrade to 3.0.x at that time.

Delete Unwanted Development and Test Instances

If you have any sites without custom domains that you haven’t accessed in a while, go ahead and delete them. MODX Cloud defaults to keeping the latest nightly backup around for posterity, so if you need to reference them again in the future, you can restore them if needed. You can migrate frequently accessed Dev Clouds or in-progress sites.

The Migration Process in Detail

TL;DR … press the “Migrate…” button, and we’ll walk you through things without downtime in three steps over an hour or so. 

Migrations for all but very large sites are fast and can happen in under an hour. Most migrations will happen over a few hours during standard support hours.

It is best if you do a content freeze during migrations, but if this is not possible, please note it as such after the ticket is created (see below). We can work with you to re-sync any updates if needed.

1. From any Cloud edit view, there is a new “Migrate…” option at the top of the right-side actions list. Press this button to request a migration. This will create a ticket in our Zendesk, and an Agent will be assigned to help with the migration. 
2. A clone of your site will be created in the new location for you. You’ll get a reply to the ticket when it’s ready for your review, where you should check both the front-end and back-end Manager.
3. When you sign off on the clone, we’ll proxy all traffic from the original location to the new one so you can continue updating your site, even before you update the IP address to point to the new location. 
4. Update your IP Address to point to the Gen2 platform IP address. For sites that use a WAF or CDN, this will be done for you.
5. The source site will be decommissioned to prevent double billing for domains and Add-ons and to save space in your storage vault.