Hello,
I work with a company that gets emails all the time and I’m about to change the DNS to use another hosting provider and redo their website. But I’m worried about email accounts.
If I change the DNS, there is no way of knowing if it will take 24 or 72 hours to change, then go and configure the new DNS on their computers.
There are 3 people working there and they don’t know anything about computers, they panic even if they have to change the search engine.
Is there a way to manage all of this from home?
Why would they need to configure a new DNS on their computers? The idea of a DNS is that it is managed for you without needing to update a computer directly…
Are you changing their web hosting or changing their building’s networking?
When I change DNS (A or MX records) both sites are up and running. You cannot control the spread. But until the switch to another provider is propagated, the old site works as usual. The change is almost seamless. Please note that the browser cache may contain the old site until you clear the browser cache.
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I think you don’t understand how DNS works if you think you need to change DNS on your users’ computers.
DNS is always configured on a server, never on a user computer. What server? It would depend on the type of network and the configuration, but I would say that in your case you don’t have to worry much about it.
90% of the time when you switch hosting companies, you just go to the domain provider and give them the DNS1 and DNS2 that would point to that particular domain, and the new hosting company will take care of everything internally, and you didn’t do anything about it.
As to whether it will take between 24 or 72 hours, no one can say. According to the protocol, 72 hours is the maximum time for the new IP address to propagate around the world, but it rarely takes that long.
At first, you would need these 24 hours for your new DNS to be transmitted to all DNS servers in the world. Today is not like that.
Maybe in 30 min and it’s all done.
Yet the protocol states that the maximum time for a change like this is 72 hours. But you only need 72 hours if there is a disaster.
The best time to make this change would be outside of that company’s office hours, and possibly on a Saturday.
They are certainly less likely to receive mail on a Saturday at 3 am, for example.
Most of the time I would do it like Sunday at 7am. It works with most companies. And, as I said, today the servers update DNS addresses so much better, that in 30-60 minutes it is more likely that everything will be fine, and if there is a weirdo in the company that checks its emails at 8 a.m. on a Sunday, everything will be operational
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Hello, thank you for your answer !!
Yes, I don’t understand what you say. I am still learning and there is so much to learn.
What I mean is that they work with Outlook and if I transfer the domain I don’t know if I should go to the company and change the email information, ie IMAP, POP3 and SMTP information. Is it automatic?
Thanks in advance for your reply, I feel like a dinosaur right now asking for help.
Thanks!
If you’re only changing their DNS, then no, you don’t need to update the SMTP and POP servers. They remain the same.
All DNS does is translate domain names to IPs. As long as the new DNS server translates the same domains to the same IP address as the old DNS server, you will be fine.
Also, if they give the same answer, the rollover period doesn’t really matter, because I’d get the same answer whether I’m talking to the old or the new DNS server.
