We are currently in the process of switching ISP's and I'm curious as to what
all we need to do to make sure that our website, email etc will work. We have
all the new public IP addresses available to us. We currently host our web
server and exchange server on site. We also have an account with network
solutions. We do not host our own DNS however.

Hi Jeff,

The procedure below should only cause you a few minutes of down time if
executed properly. Use the time that your servers will be down while cutting
over service from the old to the new connection.

Note: If you have the ability to have both connections up at the same time
and the servers can respond to both IP addresses, you can do this with
almost no downtime. In that case, use the same procedure as below, but keep
the old IP addresses going until you are sure everyone is using the new
addresses.

Procedure:

1. Have your new ISP set up the domain using the old IP addresses, but with
a TTL (time to live) that is short, on the order of 1-5 minutes. Also
provide them with the new IP addresses, but tell them to hold off on using
these for now.

2. Move your domain from the old ISP's DNS servers to the new ISP's DNS
servers with network solutions. Note that you are still using the old IP
addresses within your domain at this point. All your new ISP is providing is
DNS hosting. The change of authoritative servers should take no more than
1-2 days. Check to make sure this move has occurred by querying the root
nameservers before moving on to step 3.

3. When you are ready to change IP addressing on the web server and email
servers from the old addresses to the new addresses (and cut service over),
contact your new ISP and tell them to switch IP addresses in your domain to
the new addresses that you previously provided, using a standard TTL. While
they are doing this, cut your service over and change the IP addresses on
your servers to the new address.

Note: Ask the new ISP about reverse DNS while you have them on the phone.
Make sure they have this set up for you.

4. Contact your old ISP and tell them to remove the domain from their DNS
servers.

I hope this s.

--
Greg Lindsay [MSFT]

Disclaimer: This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers
no rights.

"Jeff" <Jeff@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3927760E-9836-4FDB-93FA-00B3318A4254@microsoft.com...
> We are currently in the process of switching ISP's and I'm curious as to
> what
> all we need to do to make sure that our website, email etc will work. We
> have
> all the new public IP addresses available to us. We currently host our web
> server and exchange server on site. We also have an account with network
> solutions. We do not host our own DNS however.