Webhosting Plesk to Deluxe(Hostopia) Migration

Copaco is retiring the Plesk web-hosting service by the end of 2022. Before this date, our new Webhosting partner Hostopia will provide migration services to their Deluxe Webhosting platform. Below is the current plan of action for the migration project. The migration will be scheduled for October, November, and December.

Action plan

Below is a list of steps in the migration that you can expect during the upcoming migrations.

Prepare your website

Apply updates

The new Deluxe platform runs up-to-date Webhosting software and will not support legacy technology. If your website depends on old versions of PHP, or runs outdated installations of WordPress, Joomla, or plugins your website is likely to break. We request to review your website before migration and make sure it is up to date. This significantly reduces the risk of anything breaking during migration.

Lower DNS Zone TTL

We advise you to lower the TTL on your DNS zone at this time to a 1-minute interval. This allows for quick switching and potential rollback of DNS while the migration is ongoing.

Always have Backups ready

It is always a good idea to have offline backups of your website data and mailboxes, but we especially want to mention this prior to the migration and retirement of the old Plesk subscriptions.

To make sure no data will be lost during these migrations we recommend that you keep an offline backup of all your customer's website data and mailboxes. The Deluxe Migration Team and Copaco offer the migration service on a best-effort basis, free of charge, and take no responsibility for data loss during the migration process and retirement of the old Plesk hosting platform.

New subscription activation

The Copaco Cloud Team will activate a new subscription for Deluxe Webhosting based on one of the migration offers that best suit your existing Plesk Webhosting package. These web hosting packages can be used until the end of the year. In January 2023, these packages will be retired and customers will be switched to the new web hosting offers and pricing.

The new web hosting subscriptions will provision a new account on Deluxe’s platform and we will link the same domain name as you used on your previous Plesk package. You will receive access information once the migration is completed within the customer control panel.

Migration Data Files

The following data migration is in scope for Website Files and related Databases.

Website QA test

We will run a QA test to see if the copied website runs similarly to the old website.

You can access the website in the temporary URL <domain>.c51.previewmysite.eu while data sync is running and QA tests are executed.
Be aware that sites with static links will probably redirect back to the live site when you navigate. SSL-secured (enforced) websites will most likely throw an error that the certificate is not available.

If the QA test passes, we consider website migration completed and we continue with DNS changes and retiring the old website subscription.

If the QA test fails, the Deluxe Migration Team will attempt to fix the website. If the Migration team is not able to fix it in a reasonable amount of time, the reseller will be informed and asked for the Web Developer's assistance. Deluxe and Copaco will not take any responsibility for fixing websites. We consider migration completed after we inform the reseller about failed QA tests that we cannot resolve. We will offer a grace period for up to one week before canceling the old Plesk subscriptions.

Mailbox recreation

If your customer was using the Mail hosting functionality (POP/IMAP/SMTP) in the Plesk Subscription, all mailboxes that are created on the old Plesk system will be recreated on the new Deluxe Webhosting packages. If you do not want to migrate the mailboxes, we request you remove them from the Plesk subscription before the migration starts.

Mailbox Migration

A request will be sent to the reseller to ask customers to log in to their new mailbox so we can capture the mailbox password and apply it to the new mailbox and initiate the import of old mailbox messages. You can access the new webmail login page via https://webmail.cloudnet.services

Once you log in to this new webmail address with your old mailbox credentials, the password on the new mailbox account will be set to the same value as your old account. The new mailbox will validate your credentials by authenticating them to the old Plesk mailbox. Your old mailbox data is then automatically downloaded from your old mailbox to the new one.

It is your responsibility as a reseller to inform your customers to log in to the new mailbox to initiate the import of old mail messages. If we do not see any progress or completion of imports within a week's time, the Deluxe Migration Team will reset old Plesk mailbox passwords and run the import on behalf of the customer. This will result in a loss of access to the mailboxes for the customer. Once the import is completed, you will need to reset the mailbox passwords to the old value or reconfigure client devices with the new password.

Scope of mail migration:

DNS Changes

DNS for Website and Mail needs to be changed to the new Deluxe package. This change will be processed by the Copaco Cloud Team if your DNS is hosted within the Copaco Cloud Management platform. No manual actions are needed from the reseller or customer.

If you have your DNS hosted externally, you will need to change the records yourself based on this KB once the migration has been completed.

List of new suggested DNS records after migration:

Things to consider at this time:

• Only after DNS is updated and propagated, the Free SSL certificate will be installed and validated on your migrated web hosting package. This cannot be executed prior to migration.

• The TTL of your domain name can be reset to a normal value.

• If you used customized DNS records for your customer's website or mail, you might need to recreate those records or mail clients will not be able to find the mail server anymore.

• In case a mailbox password was forcefully reset by the Migration Team, you will need to reconfigure the new password in mail client software and apps on customer devices.

Subscription updates

The new Deluxe Webhosting subscription will be adjusted to reflect that migration is completed. You will now be able to log in to the control panel on https://webhosting.cloudnet.services/ and manage your website. Your username can be found in the customer control panel in the Cloud Management platform. We request you set the password using the password reset link provided before your first login.

The old subscription on Plesk Webhosting will be canceled and removed by the Copaco Cloud Team once the migration is completed.

Financial compensation

For the overlapping period during the migration where both the Plesk and Deluxe hosting subscriptions are active, you will incur duplicate costs. Copaco will cover the overlapping costs as a result of the migration and will issue each reseller a Credit for the overlapping period once the migration has been completed. No actions from our resellers are needed to request this compensation.

Planning

Website migrations will be executed in batches. The technical contact person of the reseller will receive a notification once your customers are scheduled to be included in one of the upcoming migration batches. Migrations will take place in October, November, and December and will be completed before the end of this year.

We will attempt to migrate all of your Webhosting customers within the same week. If something goes wrong, we will provide another week to complete mailbox logins and if needed to apply fixes to your website.

Frequently asked questions

Will the Free SSL Certificate be installed on the new Webhosting package automatically?
The Free SSL feature will be enabled by the Deluxe Migration Team once DNS has been switched to the new webhosting server. They will enable the Free SSL certificate on the base domain name https://yourdomain.ext, unless you explicitly request enabling it on the www. subdomain. It might take a couple of hours before the Free SSL certificate is issued and installed.

Will the Free SSL Certificate cover subdomains?
The Free SSL Certificate will only cover the main domain name and does not apply to subdomains. Also, the “www.“ subdomain is not covered. If you want secure access via the HTTPS protocol to your subdomains we recommend purchasing an SSL certificate that covers your needs.

What do I need to do if I want to keep my own SSL Certificate?
Own certificates are not part of the migration scope. You will need to reinstall it yourself on the new webhosting package. Once migration is completed, you will find your credentials to access the https://webhosting.cloudnet.services portal in the Cloud Management Platform (customer portal).

My website does not work after migration and the DNS switch. What do I need to do now?
Please contact our technical support team. As a quick solution, we can revert DNS back to the old Plesk webhosting package while we troubleshoot the problem. Please note that assistance is offered by the Hostopia Migration team on a best-effort basis, and no guarantees can be given that we can fix all functionality of your website.

How do I update DNS records myself if they are still assigned to Plesk hosting?
The UX1 Customer panel does not allow you to remove or modify “system assigned“ DNS records as long as the Plesk webhosting package is still active. You will notice an error like: “You are unable to modify the record as it is in use by another service“.
You can still disable these system-assigned records through the reseller “Classic“ panel.
In Classic Panel browse to the menu: Services -> Domains -> domainname -> DNS -> DNS Records

Can I use my own remote SMTP server on my website?
Unfortunately, the Hostopia shared platform does not allow the use of remote SMTP servers of any kind except for their own localhost(port 25) provided relay that you can use in contact forms. Please also see