Moving your website

Moving your website to another web server is straight forward and only takes restoring the Microsoft SQL Server database and configuring your Microsoft Internet Information Services or IIS (web server).

What you will need

• IIS 8.5 (earlier versions will work)
  • We recommend 8.5 as http/2 is available which provides additional file compression and a faster overall website.
• SQL Server 2017 Standard or higher

Steps to get up and running

• SQL Server
  • The first step is to restore the Microsoft SQL Server database
  • Once the database is setup you need to setup a SQL Server user
    • It is recommended to use a complex password. Our standard is 36+ characters for the password.
  • Add the user to the SQL Server database
    • Assign the created user owner rights (or more restrictive rights)
• IIS Web Server
  • Take the website backup and restore it into your new web server directory (this is often done with SFTP/FTP)
  • In the folder called App_Data you will see a file called dataSettings.json. This file you will want to edit and modify with the following settings as this is the core file for communication with the database.
    • Change the previous “Data Source=” to be your new SQL Server
    • Change the “Initial Catalog=” to the database name you restored the SQL Server database as
    • Change the “User ID=” to the newly created SQL Server user
    • Change the “Password=” to your newly created password”
    • Save your file back into the App_Data directory with the same filename (do not rename this file)
  • The website will now load if everything is put in correctly
• Final changes (after all the above is done)
  • Update your DNS records to point to the new web server (your new host will provide you the information to change)
  • If the website loads, you will want to create an SSL/TLS Certificate (green padlock). When we export your site, we turn off “forcing” of SSL/TLS as you most likely don’t have this setup yet, especially if you are testing on a test server before updating your DNS records.
  • Log into the portal and enable forcing of SSL to all pages and updating your mail server entries. Once logged in all of these settings are in “App Settings”.
  • Make certain you have a good backup strategy set for your database and your webserver. Both are needed for the site to be operational.

Once the above is done the site should be fully operational and you are good to go.