[PLUG] BIND TTL's & Migrating a site from shared hosting to dedicate server

[Marc Zucchelli <marcz908@yahoo.com>]

I have a situation with one of my clients where I
think I will have to move their database driven site
which is on a shared hosting account, to a dedicated
server with another company.

I have done this in the past and there was one
problem.  Basically, I copied and installed the site
and the database to the dedicated server, and I
modified the code for the site on the shared server so
that it connects directly to the database that is on
the dedicated server, so that there is one centralized
database during the DNS propogation rather than two. 
For about 48 hours, the site ran extremely slow for
those that were still getting the old site because it
had to wait for db queries that are going to another
network, as opposed to being on the same machine. 
That is the problem I am trying to resolve.

The best solution I can think of is to change the
DNS's TTL's to say 15 minutes a few days before the
move.  That way if the site runs slowly for anyone, it
will only be for 15 minutes.

Does that sound like the best solution?

In the bind zone files, the top line is usually:

$TTL 14400

How is this different than the TTL's in the SOA
record?  Or the individual TTL's in the individual A,
NS, etc records?

Thanks!


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