Moving your Aleyant eMail Hosting to a different company

Frequently Asked Questions
  • Will I be able to keep my existing email addresses?  
    Yes.  You can keep the exact same email addresses, including your own domain name.  Your customers and other contacts will never know this email server migration happened.
  • Can I continue to use my domain name as part of my email address or will I need to use something like gmail.com or outlook.com?  
    Yes. You can keep your existing domain name.  There are many email hosting companies that allow this.  
  • If Aleyant is hosting my website using my domain name, can I still use a different company to host email?  
    Yes.  There is no requirement that the same company host both your website and your email.  It is very common to have separate companies handle this.  Aleyant can continue to host your website on your domain, while another company hosts your email, also using your domain.
  • How long does it take to switch email providers?  
    The process is usually very quick.  We recommend you start the configuration process early in the week and make the change at the end of the day on Friday.  See the Migration Process section below for more information.
  • Can I move my existing email messages over to a new provider?  
    Yes.  Most email providers include a migration tool that will move over existing email messages and contacts in your account.
 
Migration Process
The process of moving your email hosting to a different company will be different, depending on the vendor that you select. However, the steps will generally be the same:
  1. Select a new email vendor.  We have provided some recommendations here.
  2. Create your domain name in the new system.  The email vendor will either do this for you, or give you an administrative area to do this.
  3. Create the individual email accounts.  The email vendor will most likely give you an administrative area to do this.  We recommend you use the same passwords as your current email addresses.
  4. Configure the migration tool.  Most email providers offer some sort of migration tool that you can configure.  It will handle moving existing email and contacts over to your new account.
  5. Find out where your DNS (Domain Name Server) is hosted and how to make changes.  DNS is the service that converts domain names into IP addresses.  There’s a good chance Aleyant may be hosting it.  You may also be using the domain name registrar’s DNS service.  It’s important to know how to make changes.  When the time comes for you to switch over to the new email provider you will need to update the existing DNS entries for email.  Your new email vendor will provide you with the new DNS entries.  We suggest you use this site to confirm who is hosting your DNS: http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp.  If you see ns1.aleyant.net and ns2.aleyant.net listed as the Name Servers, then Aleyant is hosting your DNS.  We  are happy to continue hosting this for you.  You will need to create a support ticket (http://support.aleyant.com) to let us know what the new DNS entries are.
  6. Update your DNS entries when you are ready to switch over to the new service.  We recommend you do this at the end of the day on Friday.  The switch generally occurs in an hour or two, but may take up to 48 hours.  
  7. Update your email clients (Outlook, Mac Mail, etc) as needed.  Your new email vendor will give you this information.
  8. Notify Aleyant when your email hosting has been successfully moved over.  We will remove your domain from our servers so you do not experience any deliverability problems.