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Caught in the Edgio Crossfire? What The Fallout Brought - and 5 Essential Preparation Steps to Survive the Next CDN Migration

Caught in the Edgio Crossfire? What The Fallout Brought - and 5 Essential Preparation Steps to Survive the Next CDN Migration

Caught in the Edgio Crossfire? What The Fallout Brought - and 5 Essential Preparation Steps to Survive the Next CDN Migration

Caught in the Edgio Crossfire? What The Fallout Brought - and 5 Essential Preparation Steps to Survive the Next CDN Migration

Chris Wood - CTO, Spicy Mango

5 min read

|

15 Jan 2025

Not the best Christmas Gift

The fallout from Edgio’s Chapter 11 process brought an unexpected Christmas gift to technologists across OTT, streaming, and digital publishing organisations worldwide, as the the 15th January 2025 was announced as the date Edgio start pulling the plugs on servers. As a result, the last 30 days and most of the holiday season has for many, been completely consumed by rapid (and a bit chaotic) migrations from Edgio’s CDN and delivery services to alternative solutions.

One of the most significant aspects of the Chapter 11 news was that contracts had been purchased rather than the underlying technologies. In other words, a migration was inevitable, whether you wanted it or not.

Now that we’ve navigated a few of these transitions, I’d like to share five key preparation steps that will help you effectively manage a CDN and delivery migration when time isn't on your side.


5 Practical Preparation Steps

 

1. Maintain Clear Naming Conventions

One of the biggest challenges when migrating domains, subdomains, and properties in large organisations is the sheer volume of them. When engineers use naming conventions like `qa-1-test-pipeline-release4.domain.com`, it becomes difficult for any migration team under pressure to identify who owns each domain - and what it does.

Moral of the story: A consistent and clear naming convention will pay dividends in the long run. This principle applies not only to domains but also to APIs, rules, certificates, and redirects. Get ahead of the migration curve by establishing a uniform naming system for everything. Make it intelligible and human readable.

  

2. Implement Domain and Subdomain Registries

Following on from the importance of naming conventions, having a registry that tracks each domain, subdomain, or redirect and who requested it, is crucial. In several of these migrations, teams wasted valuable time trying to determine who originally requested a subdomain, when it was created, for why, or whether it’s even still in use.

Why does this matter? During bulk migrations from Provider A to Provider B, configurations can become corrupt or malformed. Considerable time was spent unravelling incorrect redirect rules and figuring out where assets should point, rather than where they ended up after the migration. A centralised registry with a point of contact for each domain, subdomain, or rewrite rule can drastically reduce confusion and speed up troubleshooting.

 

3. Regular Housekeeping Pays Dividends

Any migration process highlights the sheer number of rules that exist - often with layers of rules built upon rules. This complexity can make it challenging to trace where issues occur mid- or post-migration. Many organisations lose sight of how large this problem can become; allowing anyone to request any rule for any purpose can easily spiral out of control.

Good housekeeping involves regular clean-ups of unused rules, redirects, domains, and subdomains. This not only follows best practices but also reduces the testing burden after migration. Consider conducting a clean-up every six months. During these intervals, report on each domain and path, showing how many visitors or hits a given address or URL receives. Create governance around retiring unused elements and schedule consistent follow-up audits.


4. Not all WAF's are Created Equally

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) can be a production environment’s best friend but a testing environment’s worst enemy. Engineers often find that sites, APIs and endpoints they believe have been successfully migrated fail during tests - only to discover that strict WAF rules are blocking traffic at the edge. If Origin's are using IP whitelists or host headers to protect themselves, the challenges are made all the more complicated.

A useful approach is to move every WAF rule into COUNT or REPORT mode during testing (or in pre-production/staging environments). You can re-enable blocking once the migration is complete. This way, if something stops working after blocking is turned back on, you’ll know immediately whether the WAF is the culprit, or the migration of the configurations. Keep in mind that not all WAFs are created equal - business logic and intellectual property rules that worked in one provider may not behave the same way in another.


5. Communications Framework

It’s easy to under-communicate or over-communicate when a migration is under pressure. Much of the early concern around business interruptions could have been alleviated by providing a simple, transparent view of which domains and properties belong to whom, their purposes, and their current status.


  1. Create a registry and use this as an overall tracking sheet

Try to create plans and registries in advance. They needn’t be overly detailed, but even a basic list of domains and properties - along with ownership details, whether they point to internal or external services, and a human-readable description - will greatly reduce confusion. If this situation arises again, you’ll be better prepared to tackle it head-on. Oh, and forget GANTT charts and traditional project plans. These will help with resource management, but it's easier to track issues against domains and properties than a traditional resource based model.


  1. Figure out the day to day real time communication plan

Additionally, I recommend an open channel for comms across the business. Use a Slack or Teams channel. Whilst I acknowledge that a small and focussed team is often good to lead the charge, many of the domains, properties, sites and redirects will have been created by a wide product and marketing team. Their assistance is going to be key as you need help with last minute testing, fielding information out to partners or third parties, or simple just in getting answers to questions quickly.


  1. Create a squad and a distribution list

The most successful migrations are those that use a small and focussed group to work through the migration challenges and communicate to the business effectively. Expose a method for anyone in the company to ask for help or flag that something isn't quite right. Define a contact and setup a distribution list to help this process - critically - put out a company email so everyone knows who to contact.


  1. Communicate to your audience

It's likely that there's going to be something along the way that gets missed. Pre-empt any potential outage to consumers or audiences and put a small maintenance message on your website or service in advance. Whilst any outage is never ideal - it looks better from a reputation perspective when users stumble upon the odd 404 or origin error.


Summary

When it comes to exercises with this magnitude and complexity - there'll always be things that fall through the cracks. We adopt a mentality that even if some redirects are a not quite pointing to the right place, having some site presented is better than nothing working at all. The end of the migration isn't the end - it's the beginning - and now the clean up and finessing starts.

Not the best Christmas Gift

The fallout from Edgio’s Chapter 11 process brought an unexpected Christmas gift to technologists across OTT, streaming, and digital publishing organisations worldwide, as the the 15th January 2025 was announced as the date Edgio start pulling the plugs on servers. As a result, the last 30 days and most of the holiday season has for many, been completely consumed by rapid (and a bit chaotic) migrations from Edgio’s CDN and delivery services to alternative solutions.

One of the most significant aspects of the Chapter 11 news was that contracts had been purchased rather than the underlying technologies. In other words, a migration was inevitable, whether you wanted it or not.

Now that we’ve navigated a few of these transitions, I’d like to share five key preparation steps that will help you effectively manage a CDN and delivery migration when time isn't on your side.


5 Practical Preparation Steps

 

1. Maintain Clear Naming Conventions

One of the biggest challenges when migrating domains, subdomains, and properties in large organisations is the sheer volume of them. When engineers use naming conventions like `qa-1-test-pipeline-release4.domain.com`, it becomes difficult for any migration team under pressure to identify who owns each domain - and what it does.

Moral of the story: A consistent and clear naming convention will pay dividends in the long run. This principle applies not only to domains but also to APIs, rules, certificates, and redirects. Get ahead of the migration curve by establishing a uniform naming system for everything. Make it intelligible and human readable.

  

2. Implement Domain and Subdomain Registries

Following on from the importance of naming conventions, having a registry that tracks each domain, subdomain, or redirect and who requested it, is crucial. In several of these migrations, teams wasted valuable time trying to determine who originally requested a subdomain, when it was created, for why, or whether it’s even still in use.

Why does this matter? During bulk migrations from Provider A to Provider B, configurations can become corrupt or malformed. Considerable time was spent unravelling incorrect redirect rules and figuring out where assets should point, rather than where they ended up after the migration. A centralised registry with a point of contact for each domain, subdomain, or rewrite rule can drastically reduce confusion and speed up troubleshooting.

 

3. Regular Housekeeping Pays Dividends

Any migration process highlights the sheer number of rules that exist - often with layers of rules built upon rules. This complexity can make it challenging to trace where issues occur mid- or post-migration. Many organisations lose sight of how large this problem can become; allowing anyone to request any rule for any purpose can easily spiral out of control.

Good housekeeping involves regular clean-ups of unused rules, redirects, domains, and subdomains. This not only follows best practices but also reduces the testing burden after migration. Consider conducting a clean-up every six months. During these intervals, report on each domain and path, showing how many visitors or hits a given address or URL receives. Create governance around retiring unused elements and schedule consistent follow-up audits.


4. Not all WAF's are Created Equally

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) can be a production environment’s best friend but a testing environment’s worst enemy. Engineers often find that sites, APIs and endpoints they believe have been successfully migrated fail during tests - only to discover that strict WAF rules are blocking traffic at the edge. If Origin's are using IP whitelists or host headers to protect themselves, the challenges are made all the more complicated.

A useful approach is to move every WAF rule into COUNT or REPORT mode during testing (or in pre-production/staging environments). You can re-enable blocking once the migration is complete. This way, if something stops working after blocking is turned back on, you’ll know immediately whether the WAF is the culprit, or the migration of the configurations. Keep in mind that not all WAFs are created equal - business logic and intellectual property rules that worked in one provider may not behave the same way in another.


5. Communications Framework

It’s easy to under-communicate or over-communicate when a migration is under pressure. Much of the early concern around business interruptions could have been alleviated by providing a simple, transparent view of which domains and properties belong to whom, their purposes, and their current status.


  1. Create a registry and use this as an overall tracking sheet

Try to create plans and registries in advance. They needn’t be overly detailed, but even a basic list of domains and properties - along with ownership details, whether they point to internal or external services, and a human-readable description - will greatly reduce confusion. If this situation arises again, you’ll be better prepared to tackle it head-on. Oh, and forget GANTT charts and traditional project plans. These will help with resource management, but it's easier to track issues against domains and properties than a traditional resource based model.


  1. Figure out the day to day real time communication plan

Additionally, I recommend an open channel for comms across the business. Use a Slack or Teams channel. Whilst I acknowledge that a small and focussed team is often good to lead the charge, many of the domains, properties, sites and redirects will have been created by a wide product and marketing team. Their assistance is going to be key as you need help with last minute testing, fielding information out to partners or third parties, or simple just in getting answers to questions quickly.


  1. Create a squad and a distribution list

The most successful migrations are those that use a small and focussed group to work through the migration challenges and communicate to the business effectively. Expose a method for anyone in the company to ask for help or flag that something isn't quite right. Define a contact and setup a distribution list to help this process - critically - put out a company email so everyone knows who to contact.


  1. Communicate to your audience

It's likely that there's going to be something along the way that gets missed. Pre-empt any potential outage to consumers or audiences and put a small maintenance message on your website or service in advance. Whilst any outage is never ideal - it looks better from a reputation perspective when users stumble upon the odd 404 or origin error.


Summary

When it comes to exercises with this magnitude and complexity - there'll always be things that fall through the cracks. We adopt a mentality that even if some redirects are a not quite pointing to the right place, having some site presented is better than nothing working at all. The end of the migration isn't the end - it's the beginning - and now the clean up and finessing starts.

Not the best Christmas Gift

The fallout from Edgio’s Chapter 11 process brought an unexpected Christmas gift to technologists across OTT, streaming, and digital publishing organisations worldwide, as the the 15th January 2025 was announced as the date Edgio start pulling the plugs on servers. As a result, the last 30 days and most of the holiday season has for many, been completely consumed by rapid (and a bit chaotic) migrations from Edgio’s CDN and delivery services to alternative solutions.

One of the most significant aspects of the Chapter 11 news was that contracts had been purchased rather than the underlying technologies. In other words, a migration was inevitable, whether you wanted it or not.

Now that we’ve navigated a few of these transitions, I’d like to share five key preparation steps that will help you effectively manage a CDN and delivery migration when time isn't on your side.


5 Practical Preparation Steps

 

1. Maintain Clear Naming Conventions

One of the biggest challenges when migrating domains, subdomains, and properties in large organisations is the sheer volume of them. When engineers use naming conventions like `qa-1-test-pipeline-release4.domain.com`, it becomes difficult for any migration team under pressure to identify who owns each domain - and what it does.

Moral of the story: A consistent and clear naming convention will pay dividends in the long run. This principle applies not only to domains but also to APIs, rules, certificates, and redirects. Get ahead of the migration curve by establishing a uniform naming system for everything. Make it intelligible and human readable.

  

2. Implement Domain and Subdomain Registries

Following on from the importance of naming conventions, having a registry that tracks each domain, subdomain, or redirect and who requested it, is crucial. In several of these migrations, teams wasted valuable time trying to determine who originally requested a subdomain, when it was created, for why, or whether it’s even still in use.

Why does this matter? During bulk migrations from Provider A to Provider B, configurations can become corrupt or malformed. Considerable time was spent unravelling incorrect redirect rules and figuring out where assets should point, rather than where they ended up after the migration. A centralised registry with a point of contact for each domain, subdomain, or rewrite rule can drastically reduce confusion and speed up troubleshooting.

 

3. Regular Housekeeping Pays Dividends

Any migration process highlights the sheer number of rules that exist - often with layers of rules built upon rules. This complexity can make it challenging to trace where issues occur mid- or post-migration. Many organisations lose sight of how large this problem can become; allowing anyone to request any rule for any purpose can easily spiral out of control.

Good housekeeping involves regular clean-ups of unused rules, redirects, domains, and subdomains. This not only follows best practices but also reduces the testing burden after migration. Consider conducting a clean-up every six months. During these intervals, report on each domain and path, showing how many visitors or hits a given address or URL receives. Create governance around retiring unused elements and schedule consistent follow-up audits.


4. Not all WAF's are Created Equally

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) can be a production environment’s best friend but a testing environment’s worst enemy. Engineers often find that sites, APIs and endpoints they believe have been successfully migrated fail during tests - only to discover that strict WAF rules are blocking traffic at the edge. If Origin's are using IP whitelists or host headers to protect themselves, the challenges are made all the more complicated.

A useful approach is to move every WAF rule into COUNT or REPORT mode during testing (or in pre-production/staging environments). You can re-enable blocking once the migration is complete. This way, if something stops working after blocking is turned back on, you’ll know immediately whether the WAF is the culprit, or the migration of the configurations. Keep in mind that not all WAFs are created equal - business logic and intellectual property rules that worked in one provider may not behave the same way in another.


5. Communications Framework

It’s easy to under-communicate or over-communicate when a migration is under pressure. Much of the early concern around business interruptions could have been alleviated by providing a simple, transparent view of which domains and properties belong to whom, their purposes, and their current status.


  1. Create a registry and use this as an overall tracking sheet

Try to create plans and registries in advance. They needn’t be overly detailed, but even a basic list of domains and properties - along with ownership details, whether they point to internal or external services, and a human-readable description - will greatly reduce confusion. If this situation arises again, you’ll be better prepared to tackle it head-on. Oh, and forget GANTT charts and traditional project plans. These will help with resource management, but it's easier to track issues against domains and properties than a traditional resource based model.


  1. Figure out the day to day real time communication plan

Additionally, I recommend an open channel for comms across the business. Use a Slack or Teams channel. Whilst I acknowledge that a small and focussed team is often good to lead the charge, many of the domains, properties, sites and redirects will have been created by a wide product and marketing team. Their assistance is going to be key as you need help with last minute testing, fielding information out to partners or third parties, or simple just in getting answers to questions quickly.


  1. Create a squad and a distribution list

The most successful migrations are those that use a small and focussed group to work through the migration challenges and communicate to the business effectively. Expose a method for anyone in the company to ask for help or flag that something isn't quite right. Define a contact and setup a distribution list to help this process - critically - put out a company email so everyone knows who to contact.


  1. Communicate to your audience

It's likely that there's going to be something along the way that gets missed. Pre-empt any potential outage to consumers or audiences and put a small maintenance message on your website or service in advance. Whilst any outage is never ideal - it looks better from a reputation perspective when users stumble upon the odd 404 or origin error.


Summary

When it comes to exercises with this magnitude and complexity - there'll always be things that fall through the cracks. We adopt a mentality that even if some redirects are a not quite pointing to the right place, having some site presented is better than nothing working at all. The end of the migration isn't the end - it's the beginning - and now the clean up and finessing starts.

Not the best Christmas Gift

The fallout from Edgio’s Chapter 11 process brought an unexpected Christmas gift to technologists across OTT, streaming, and digital publishing organisations worldwide, as the the 15th January 2025 was announced as the date Edgio start pulling the plugs on servers. As a result, the last 30 days and most of the holiday season has for many, been completely consumed by rapid (and a bit chaotic) migrations from Edgio’s CDN and delivery services to alternative solutions.

One of the most significant aspects of the Chapter 11 news was that contracts had been purchased rather than the underlying technologies. In other words, a migration was inevitable, whether you wanted it or not.

Now that we’ve navigated a few of these transitions, I’d like to share five key preparation steps that will help you effectively manage a CDN and delivery migration when time isn't on your side.


5 Practical Preparation Steps

 

1. Maintain Clear Naming Conventions

One of the biggest challenges when migrating domains, subdomains, and properties in large organisations is the sheer volume of them. When engineers use naming conventions like `qa-1-test-pipeline-release4.domain.com`, it becomes difficult for any migration team under pressure to identify who owns each domain - and what it does.

Moral of the story: A consistent and clear naming convention will pay dividends in the long run. This principle applies not only to domains but also to APIs, rules, certificates, and redirects. Get ahead of the migration curve by establishing a uniform naming system for everything. Make it intelligible and human readable.

  

2. Implement Domain and Subdomain Registries

Following on from the importance of naming conventions, having a registry that tracks each domain, subdomain, or redirect and who requested it, is crucial. In several of these migrations, teams wasted valuable time trying to determine who originally requested a subdomain, when it was created, for why, or whether it’s even still in use.

Why does this matter? During bulk migrations from Provider A to Provider B, configurations can become corrupt or malformed. Considerable time was spent unravelling incorrect redirect rules and figuring out where assets should point, rather than where they ended up after the migration. A centralised registry with a point of contact for each domain, subdomain, or rewrite rule can drastically reduce confusion and speed up troubleshooting.

 

3. Regular Housekeeping Pays Dividends

Any migration process highlights the sheer number of rules that exist - often with layers of rules built upon rules. This complexity can make it challenging to trace where issues occur mid- or post-migration. Many organisations lose sight of how large this problem can become; allowing anyone to request any rule for any purpose can easily spiral out of control.

Good housekeeping involves regular clean-ups of unused rules, redirects, domains, and subdomains. This not only follows best practices but also reduces the testing burden after migration. Consider conducting a clean-up every six months. During these intervals, report on each domain and path, showing how many visitors or hits a given address or URL receives. Create governance around retiring unused elements and schedule consistent follow-up audits.


4. Not all WAF's are Created Equally

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) can be a production environment’s best friend but a testing environment’s worst enemy. Engineers often find that sites, APIs and endpoints they believe have been successfully migrated fail during tests - only to discover that strict WAF rules are blocking traffic at the edge. If Origin's are using IP whitelists or host headers to protect themselves, the challenges are made all the more complicated.

A useful approach is to move every WAF rule into COUNT or REPORT mode during testing (or in pre-production/staging environments). You can re-enable blocking once the migration is complete. This way, if something stops working after blocking is turned back on, you’ll know immediately whether the WAF is the culprit, or the migration of the configurations. Keep in mind that not all WAFs are created equal - business logic and intellectual property rules that worked in one provider may not behave the same way in another.


5. Communications Framework

It’s easy to under-communicate or over-communicate when a migration is under pressure. Much of the early concern around business interruptions could have been alleviated by providing a simple, transparent view of which domains and properties belong to whom, their purposes, and their current status.


  1. Create a registry and use this as an overall tracking sheet

Try to create plans and registries in advance. They needn’t be overly detailed, but even a basic list of domains and properties - along with ownership details, whether they point to internal or external services, and a human-readable description - will greatly reduce confusion. If this situation arises again, you’ll be better prepared to tackle it head-on. Oh, and forget GANTT charts and traditional project plans. These will help with resource management, but it's easier to track issues against domains and properties than a traditional resource based model.


  1. Figure out the day to day real time communication plan

Additionally, I recommend an open channel for comms across the business. Use a Slack or Teams channel. Whilst I acknowledge that a small and focussed team is often good to lead the charge, many of the domains, properties, sites and redirects will have been created by a wide product and marketing team. Their assistance is going to be key as you need help with last minute testing, fielding information out to partners or third parties, or simple just in getting answers to questions quickly.


  1. Create a squad and a distribution list

The most successful migrations are those that use a small and focussed group to work through the migration challenges and communicate to the business effectively. Expose a method for anyone in the company to ask for help or flag that something isn't quite right. Define a contact and setup a distribution list to help this process - critically - put out a company email so everyone knows who to contact.


  1. Communicate to your audience

It's likely that there's going to be something along the way that gets missed. Pre-empt any potential outage to consumers or audiences and put a small maintenance message on your website or service in advance. Whilst any outage is never ideal - it looks better from a reputation perspective when users stumble upon the odd 404 or origin error.


Summary

When it comes to exercises with this magnitude and complexity - there'll always be things that fall through the cracks. We adopt a mentality that even if some redirects are a not quite pointing to the right place, having some site presented is better than nothing working at all. The end of the migration isn't the end - it's the beginning - and now the clean up and finessing starts.

Not the best Christmas Gift

The fallout from Edgio’s Chapter 11 process brought an unexpected Christmas gift to technologists across OTT, streaming, and digital publishing organisations worldwide, as the the 15th January 2025 was announced as the date Edgio start pulling the plugs on servers. As a result, the last 30 days and most of the holiday season has for many, been completely consumed by rapid (and a bit chaotic) migrations from Edgio’s CDN and delivery services to alternative solutions.

One of the most significant aspects of the Chapter 11 news was that contracts had been purchased rather than the underlying technologies. In other words, a migration was inevitable, whether you wanted it or not.

Now that we’ve navigated a few of these transitions, I’d like to share five key preparation steps that will help you effectively manage a CDN and delivery migration when time isn't on your side.


5 Practical Preparation Steps

 

1. Maintain Clear Naming Conventions

One of the biggest challenges when migrating domains, subdomains, and properties in large organisations is the sheer volume of them. When engineers use naming conventions like `qa-1-test-pipeline-release4.domain.com`, it becomes difficult for any migration team under pressure to identify who owns each domain - and what it does.

Moral of the story: A consistent and clear naming convention will pay dividends in the long run. This principle applies not only to domains but also to APIs, rules, certificates, and redirects. Get ahead of the migration curve by establishing a uniform naming system for everything. Make it intelligible and human readable.

  

2. Implement Domain and Subdomain Registries

Following on from the importance of naming conventions, having a registry that tracks each domain, subdomain, or redirect and who requested it, is crucial. In several of these migrations, teams wasted valuable time trying to determine who originally requested a subdomain, when it was created, for why, or whether it’s even still in use.

Why does this matter? During bulk migrations from Provider A to Provider B, configurations can become corrupt or malformed. Considerable time was spent unravelling incorrect redirect rules and figuring out where assets should point, rather than where they ended up after the migration. A centralised registry with a point of contact for each domain, subdomain, or rewrite rule can drastically reduce confusion and speed up troubleshooting.

 

3. Regular Housekeeping Pays Dividends

Any migration process highlights the sheer number of rules that exist - often with layers of rules built upon rules. This complexity can make it challenging to trace where issues occur mid- or post-migration. Many organisations lose sight of how large this problem can become; allowing anyone to request any rule for any purpose can easily spiral out of control.

Good housekeeping involves regular clean-ups of unused rules, redirects, domains, and subdomains. This not only follows best practices but also reduces the testing burden after migration. Consider conducting a clean-up every six months. During these intervals, report on each domain and path, showing how many visitors or hits a given address or URL receives. Create governance around retiring unused elements and schedule consistent follow-up audits.


4. Not all WAF's are Created Equally

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) can be a production environment’s best friend but a testing environment’s worst enemy. Engineers often find that sites, APIs and endpoints they believe have been successfully migrated fail during tests - only to discover that strict WAF rules are blocking traffic at the edge. If Origin's are using IP whitelists or host headers to protect themselves, the challenges are made all the more complicated.

A useful approach is to move every WAF rule into COUNT or REPORT mode during testing (or in pre-production/staging environments). You can re-enable blocking once the migration is complete. This way, if something stops working after blocking is turned back on, you’ll know immediately whether the WAF is the culprit, or the migration of the configurations. Keep in mind that not all WAFs are created equal - business logic and intellectual property rules that worked in one provider may not behave the same way in another.


5. Communications Framework

It’s easy to under-communicate or over-communicate when a migration is under pressure. Much of the early concern around business interruptions could have been alleviated by providing a simple, transparent view of which domains and properties belong to whom, their purposes, and their current status.


  1. Create a registry and use this as an overall tracking sheet

Try to create plans and registries in advance. They needn’t be overly detailed, but even a basic list of domains and properties - along with ownership details, whether they point to internal or external services, and a human-readable description - will greatly reduce confusion. If this situation arises again, you’ll be better prepared to tackle it head-on. Oh, and forget GANTT charts and traditional project plans. These will help with resource management, but it's easier to track issues against domains and properties than a traditional resource based model.


  1. Figure out the day to day real time communication plan

Additionally, I recommend an open channel for comms across the business. Use a Slack or Teams channel. Whilst I acknowledge that a small and focussed team is often good to lead the charge, many of the domains, properties, sites and redirects will have been created by a wide product and marketing team. Their assistance is going to be key as you need help with last minute testing, fielding information out to partners or third parties, or simple just in getting answers to questions quickly.


  1. Create a squad and a distribution list

The most successful migrations are those that use a small and focussed group to work through the migration challenges and communicate to the business effectively. Expose a method for anyone in the company to ask for help or flag that something isn't quite right. Define a contact and setup a distribution list to help this process - critically - put out a company email so everyone knows who to contact.


  1. Communicate to your audience

It's likely that there's going to be something along the way that gets missed. Pre-empt any potential outage to consumers or audiences and put a small maintenance message on your website or service in advance. Whilst any outage is never ideal - it looks better from a reputation perspective when users stumble upon the odd 404 or origin error.


Summary

When it comes to exercises with this magnitude and complexity - there'll always be things that fall through the cracks. We adopt a mentality that even if some redirects are a not quite pointing to the right place, having some site presented is better than nothing working at all. The end of the migration isn't the end - it's the beginning - and now the clean up and finessing starts.

If you’d like guidance on documenting ideas or preparing for CDN, OTT, or streaming migrations in your product and technology ecosystem, we’re here to help. With a collection of templates, reference materials, procedures, and frameworks, we can help you get ready for the next Chapter 11 scenario - or any other major migration event. To find out more, drop us a note at hello@spicymango.co.uk, give us a call, or send us a message using our contact form and we'll be in touch.

More insights you may enjoy

More insights you may enjoy

More insights you may enjoy

More insights you may enjoy

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Get in touch

Contact us - we don't bite

Drop us an email at hello@spicymango.co.uk or call us on +44 (0)844 848 0441 or fill out the contact form below for a friendly chat.

We don’t share your personal details with anyone

Get in touch

Contact us - we don't bite

Drop us an email at hello@spicymango.co.uk or call us on +44 (0)844 848 0441 or fill out the contact form below for a friendly chat.

We don’t share your personal details with anyone

Get in touch

Contact us - we don't bite

Drop us an email at hello@spicymango.co.uk or call us on +44 (0)844 848 0441 or fill out the contact form below for a friendly chat.

We don’t share your personal details with anyone

Get in touch

Contact us - we don't bite

Drop us an email at hello@spicymango.co.uk or call us on +44 (0)844 848 0441 or fill out the contact form below for a friendly chat.

We don’t share your personal details with anyone

Get in touch

Contact us - we don't bite

Drop us an email at hello@spicymango.co.uk or call us on +44 (0)844 848 0441 or fill out the contact form below for a friendly chat.

We don’t share your personal details with anyone