Differential Migration: Sync Only the Changes to a New Server

You moved a 20GB site to a new server on Monday to test it. It works perfectly.

Now it’s Friday, and you are ready to go live.

But in those four days, your client added five blog posts, and their customers placed fifty orders on the old site.

If you migrate the whole site again, you overwrite that new data. If you don’t, you lose it.

The solution is to use WP Remote’s migration. Our migration engine uses Differential Sync technology that compares the old site to the new one and moves only the difference.

How to Run a Fast Sync

This is the perfect workflow for staging-to-live deployments or final server switches.

1. Initial Move: Let’s say you do the big migration to the new server early in the week.

1. Test: You verify everything on the new server while customers and admins interact with the live site.
2. Final Sync: When you are ready to switch DNS, you run the migration again. WP Remote detects the existing data and automatically switches to “Differential” mode.
3. Go Live: The sync finishes in seconds and now it’s time to switch the DNS.

Migration is now successful. Achieving zero downtime, with no broken links, no lost orders, and no new blogs having fallen through the cracks.

Kill the Code-Freeze

Typically, you would have to put a code freeze or maintenance mode in place. This prevents anybody from making any changes to the site. But, this also means that your clients are losing out on sales.

WP Remote makes sure that your client can keep selling products and writing posts right up until the minute you switch the DNS. YOu can migrate their site on the backend and it is business as usual for everybody else.

When you’re ready to do final checks, WP Remote will make sure any changes made while you were prepping the migration has been carried over. Within a few minutes, your destination site is ready and up-to-date.