Moving home
- Article 22 of 26
- M-iD, August 2005
Shifting content from one web site to another is not an easy task. But following a number of basic rules can make it easier.
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'Scripting' languages enable web developers to add to pages programs that can interact with servers and insert HTML according to the developers' rules.
The most common scripting languages are the open source PHP (PHP: Hypertext Processor), Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP), the Java J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) standard, Macromedia's ColdFusion and Java Server Pages (JSP), although there are other languages.
For any migration project, particular attention needs to be paid to both the current system's scripting language and that of the destination system. No two scripting languages have the same syntax or commands, although most work on similar principles, so if the dynamic pages are to be preserved, some kind of translation project needs to be undertaken.
According to David Macken, the managing director of public sector services supplier System Associates, only about one-tenth of web developers have enough experience in two or more scripting languages to perform such a translation. He recommends getting two developers, each with experience of one of the languages, to work together to perform the migration. “If you're going from ASP to JSP or whatever, use a different person to do it: web developers need to know enough languages as it is.”
Usually, because there is almost always insufficient or no documentation about how the original system works, getting one of the original developers to act as half of this team can help. But Macken cautions that although the company may charge for this service, the original developers may be uncooperative.
“You often get politics. Company X, which has been looking after the site, has been sacked, so it is usually not very helpful. You might end up having to reverse engineer the site. Often it will be a lot simpler than that, but I have to say that's quite rare,” he says. A further complication can occur if there is also a migration in the underlying database technology that will support the new web site.
Even the same scripting language is used in the final system, any application that uses the database back end will have to be re-written since scripting languages use different commands for different databases. For example, the PHP command to connect to a MySQL database is mysql_connect while the command to connect to a SQL Server database is mssql_connect.
A switch in content management system will furthermore mean that the database structure itself will likely change, requiring even more rewrites. The more changes in technology that are made during the migration, the more complex the re-write becomes.
However, even a simple migration can have its share of technical challenges. Kevin Hutchinson, chief technical officer of web traffic analysis company WebtraffIQ, provides some basic advice to help avoid the most common problems.
“Organisations should initiate the change at the 'slowest' time, make back-ups first and ensure that file permissions on the new system are identical to the old one. They should check that the new vendor provides all the services they need. They should allocate at least a week of testing, then point the domain name from the old IP address to the new one. Remember it can take a day or two for the Internet to register this changeover, so allocate sufficient time,” he says. Above all, he adds, it is imperative that businesses make sure that servers, back-up servers and subsequent bandwidth are ready to take on a large amount of traffic with a successful move.
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