Fast forward 5-7 years, we have had varying luck with our site going mainstream and lately big issues with the spamming issue of the spam machines from Russia and elsewhere have threatened to ultimately shut us down.  We have implemented a work around, but I am in desperate need for an overall upgrade and ultimately the rollout of the features/functionality of a full CMS/community package, WITHOUT LOSING MEMBER HISTORY.  My options as I see them are:

 

1.) Simply upgrade to the current WebWiz version (can I buy the full license, install it and simply point it to my database?  Or do I need to upgrade the 7.9?  My concern is obviously the changes we have made to the code.)

 

2.) If #1 is a real challenge, can we work with WebWiz, migrate our existing dedicated server 7.9 environment to you all for hosting in a new environment with the new version, then just point our current domain to the new site and presto current members now go there with no problem??  If so, which hosting platform would you recommend to be comparable to a dedicated environment where we can have the ability to scale with our growth again & forthcoming marketing efforts (which we have never done!)

 

3.) Should we still upgrade to the current WebWiz and investigate another CMS/Portal package that would integrate with WebWiz without losing history.  I have looked and have not seen a very eloquent solution to upscaling WebWiz to a full blown CMS/Community package akin to Drupal, Joomla or WordPress. 

 

Sorry for the word fest, and I appreciate any help/suggestions that WebWiz and/or the community at large can provide.  Thanks!

 

Regards,

Will

mailto:willbangtech@yahoo.com - willbangtech@yahoo.com (couldn't get my password for this registered id emailed to me for some reason...)

Version 10 comes with an upgrade wizard which can upgrade your database to a version 10 database. As you have made modifications to your version 7 database you should create a mirror copy of your database and attempt the upgrade on that first to make sure that any of the modifications you made to the database will not conflict with the upgrade of your database from version 7 to version 10.

Thanks for your response and suggestions.  This is pretty much what we were wanting to hear.  I guess our big challenge is getting a copy of our database and forum someplace to try the upgrade out.  As I indicated, I am definitely (very) interested in looking towards Web Wiz to host our forum and server.  

If we go that route, would (could) you all assist with us moving the app & db to your servers, as well as the upgrade?  Honestly, this is something that I would like to move on ASAP, assuming we can come to a reasonable arrangement on hosting arrangements and software upgrade licensing.  I am fairly confident that we will be able to work together with you all to get the application environment upgraded to 10.xx, albeit with a little time and TLC!  

Thanks in advance for your help.  I did not want to get in contact with sales until I was confident this was an endeavor that Web Wiz technically was interested in pursuing. 

Will

So 19.95 would translate to about $1,000US with the current state of the US economy, right! LOL  Seriously, that sounds fantastic.  I think I am ready for that.

However, I have been reviewing your different hosting options over the last week, and I do not think that ultimately the Forums Hosting will be sufficient.  Currently as I indicated in my first never-ending thread, we are using a dedicated server for hosting our main forum with MS SQL 2000 db, along with a few other very small, low volume sites with domains.  

The domain, site and WebWiz forum we host has been and should be again soon VERY high volume (hence the need to optimize the original 7.9 forum code.)  We've regularly had several hundred concurrent users who would stay on 4-6 hours/day easily.  It is focused on the Stay-At-Home mom demographic, and they are a chatty bunch!  With our recent issues, we have lost traffic/activity, but we are a well known name in this space and expect the membership back with a more updated community.

So, I'm not sure if the Reseller Windows hosting or the Virtual Server plan is better?  Would the migration charges still work for those services?  When can we start?  What do you need from me to get an idea of the level of effort to get moving?  Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Will

If you http://www.webwiz.net/contact/contact-sales.htm" rel="nofollow - contact sales with some details on the traffic levels, database sizes, and number of websites can have a look and see which package or custom package would suite your needs and workout the best way to migrate your forum.

Will