This is a thing I’ve wanted to do for years, in 2016 eRice budget shared hosting service reseller simply went off line, leaving me and hundreds of others unable to gain access to our files and offline sites.
Fortunately, a user managed to get in touch with the data centre and a small window of time opened up where we could download our files, hence I ended up with GoDaddy as I knew of them!
GoDaddy have been a reliable host but the costs are rising, especially as Secure websites are the norm, meaning SSL certification is needed at a renewal price of £71.99 per year, excluding the actual cost of hosting and backup resilience, as a hobby site it was becoming unaffordable.
Any move of host is a daunting prospect as I’m not a scripter, but I bit the bullet and set up an account with Hostgator as they provide free SSL certification and their shared hosting package is quite competitive.
Costs
As with most web hosters, the longer the term entered into the lower the costs as does the use of discount coupons; the table below compares my hosts based on what I pay as of April 2022:
| Per Year Costs | GoDaddy – 2 Year Term | Hostgator – 3 Year Term |
| Plan | Economy – £86.25 | Baby – £38.47 |
| SSL Certificate | £71.99 | Included |
| Backup | 10Gb @ £28.65 | 1Gb @ £21.93 5Gb @ £17.41 |
| Domain Renewal | £23.89 | N/A |
| Domain Privacy | £9.58 | £11.41 |
| Transfer | N/A | £5.39 |
| Total | £220.36 | £94.61 |
I will update this table when I know what the Hostgator Domain renewal costs are.
Migration
My first step was to transfer my domain name to HostGator, I did this as my GoDaddy SSL certificate was coming up for renewal and I didn’t want to pay for a renewal, so this was the trigger for the move.
My domain remained pointing to GoDaddys servers until I had transferred all my files, folders and databases.
Main details to note when setting up a database with a new host are:
- Database Name (including any wording automatically inserted in front of it)
- Database User
- Database Password
I had the most trouble with WordPress, I did try a number of migration tools, but my site seemed too big for them to work and I missed the 30 day window for Hostgator to do a free migration, so I did it all using Filezilla, (links below).
I would be telling a fib if I said it went smoothly, it turned into a bit of a nightmare.
The two key issues were:
- I copied the WordPress wpconfig.php file and changed the database details for the new host, but I missed the table prefix type setting, this should have been ‘wp’ but it contained a legacy prefix from GoDaddy
- I host the WordPress files on my shared server, rather than use a managed host service provided by HostGator. It looked like both instances were working against each other, I called tech support and they disabled the WordPress managed service, and the blog then fired into life.
The two main programs I used were:
I also had a 1Tb USB drive to keep downloaded files on and as a transit drive which worked well.
The process was made easier as I had access to both hosts cPanels for creating database backups, filezilla did the main file transfer work as I’m more familiar with that than some of the cPanel features.
The migration was a good opportunity to weed out files and folders that have amassed after 6 years of change, now its over I feel a whole lot better, I have a better understanding of the process than I did before and the site loads a lot quicker than it did before, so I wouldn’t be so hesitant next time 🙂
How do I publish Weather data:
Mapped Links
- Hikvision Weather Camera
- POE Injector
- Uninterruptable Power Supply
- Network Switch
- Davis Weather Station
- Meteobridge Pro
- TalkTalk eero6 Router
- Chatteris Weather Website
- Internet Wiki
- Optical Network Termination
- Meteobridge Servers
- Weather Underground – Chatteris
- Hostgator – Web Hosting
How it interfaces together
Chatteris Weather uses a high specification Davis Vantage Pro 2 wired weather station, various sensors are connected to the Integrated Sensor Suite, this in turn is connected to the Davis display console. Data is exported continuously from the display console by a data logger which uses a USB to connect to the Meteobridge Pro which was installed in mid December 2016.
The Meteobridge Pro replaced a PC which was running 24/7 in order to keep Weather Display software live and updating to the internet, the Weather Stations hourly power consumption dropped from 250 Watts to just 2 Watts and has paid for itself in energy costs.
The IP Hikvision webcam is powered over ethernet (POE) cable via a POE injection unit, Meteobridge Pro is configured to view the images generated by the webcam, every 5 minutes, the Meteobridge Pro updates my stations image on Weather Underground.
The Meteobridge Pro is also configured to send scheduled data to a wide range of weather site as well as Tweet weather conditions every half hour.
Chatteris Weather uses the Saratoga Template, the displayed Hikvision webcam images is linked back from Weather Underground.
The weather station and all downstream devices are powered via an uninterrupted power supply (UPS), this will run the station independently in the event of a power outage, for approximately 2 Hours before turning off.
Meteobridge Pro is cabled to a TP network switch which is connected to a eero6 router. From January 2022, Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) was installed, (hence the Optical Network Termination), giving a download speed of 75Mbps and upload speed of 20Mbps.
Chatteris Weathers internet service provider is TalkTalk (managed by City Fibre).
The above wall mounted rack is the central hub for my IT network and weather station hardware.
