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Comment by cardmagic | Hacker News Reader

John,

I am so sorry for the inconvenience, we are working on some tools to make the process easier, but for now here is a tutorial:

http://blog.phpfog.com/2012/11/12/migrating-your-php-apps-fr...

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That doesn't really seem to be about migrating, but about setting up an arbitrary php app with AppFog. Here's a few things that are wrong with it:

* It assumes you have the directory locally. Can't it be downloaded from phpfog?

* It doesn't say anything about copying environment variables.

* It doesn't talk about making sure you have at least as much system resources. It should say how to find how much memory you had with phpfog to make sure you have enough with appfog.

* It doesn't cover data migration.

* Even without covering data migration, it could at least have covered migrating the database configuration, but it doesn't.

* It leaves with an appfog domain name. It should say how to switch them.

* Too much of the post is devoted to going through AppFog's features.

* It has some cheesy marketing for AppFog like "af-plus-php-equals-win" and "Lots more functionality where that came from".

I don't think I could bring myself to call it a migration tutorial.

Please note: this is the first in a series of tutorials. This tutorial in particular is devoted solely to migrating application code. Tomorrow, we will post the first of two data migration tutorials that will walk users through the data migration process.

I know, I know. It's all that was available at the time this was announced, a little over a month before free accounts are scheduled to be shut down. Some people are probably already migrating.

Is it true that appfog's filesystem is volatile? Does this mean that it could be wiped without a system fault or a user shutting down the system? If so, there doesn't seem to be a clear migration path to appfog for PHP users that are using the writable directory support. If not, it should probably be documented that writes will only go to the one instance and that if you're using multiple app server instances you need to set something up.

I appreciate the help, but ... "you need to install Ruby and RubyGems..." I find it funny that you are asking all these PHP people to setup/install ruby just to migrate their PHP application.

You have my cc on file, a semi-happy customer and now you want me to do all this work? YOU should be doing all the work for the migration - think of it as a way to maintain revenue!!!!

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