How to Migrate from OVH/OVHcloud to a Reliable Cloud Server

OVH — now rebranded as OVHcloud — is one of the largest hosting providers in Europe. With over 400,000 servers deployed across more than 30 data centers, they offer competitive pricing on everything from shared hosting to bare-metal dedicated servers. For many European businesses, OVH was the default choice for affordable infrastructure.

But in March 2021, a fire at OVH's Strasbourg data center (SBG2) permanently changed the industry conversation about high availability and data replication. The incident destroyed thousands of servers and, critically, the backup systems stored in the same facility. Customers who trusted that their data was safe discovered that their primary servers and their backups had been co-located — and both were gone. The event was a wake-up call: affordable pricing means nothing if a single point of failure can erase your entire infrastructure overnight.

Years later, many OVH customers still operate on infrastructure with similar architectural limitations. If you are evaluating an OVH alternative or planning to migrate from OVH, this guide walks through why organizations are making the move, what to look for in a replacement provider, and how to execute the migration step by step.

OVH's Scale — And Its Single Points of Failure

To be fair, OVH does several things well. Their scale gives them purchasing power that translates into competitive pricing, especially for bare-metal dedicated servers in European locations. Their product catalog is enormous — VPS, public cloud, private cloud, dedicated servers, web hosting, domain registration, email, and more. For developers who want cheap compute and are comfortable managing everything themselves, OVH delivers on price.

However, that scale comes with trade-offs that matter when reliability is a requirement:

Local Storage Architecture

Most OVH VPS and cloud instances use local storage — meaning your data lives on the physical disks of a single server. If that server's drives fail, or the server itself becomes unavailable, your data is at risk. There is no automatic replication to other nodes. This is fundamentally different from a distributed storage architecture where data is written to multiple physical locations simultaneously.

Backup Co-location

The SBG2 fire exposed a critical architectural decision: OVH stored automated backups in the same physical facility as the production servers they were backing up. When the building burned, both the live data and the backups were destroyed. While OVH has since made changes to their backup infrastructure, this incident revealed a design philosophy where cost optimization took priority over geographic redundancy.

Limited HA for VPS Customers

OVH's VPS product line — which is where many small-to-medium businesses start — offers limited high-availability options. There is no automatic failover to a different physical host if the underlying hardware fails. If the hypervisor your VPS runs on encounters a hardware issue, your server goes down and stays down until OVH's operations team manually intervenes. For businesses running production applications, this gap is significant.

Inconsistent Support Quality

Support experiences with OVH vary widely depending on the product tier and region. Many customers report slow response times for standard support tickets, with meaningful assistance often gated behind premium support contracts. For businesses that lack a dedicated sysadmin team, this can mean extended periods of downtime during incidents.

Complex Product Naming and Feature Overlap

OVH's product catalog has expanded organically over the years, resulting in a confusing array of product names and tiers. The distinction between "VPS," "Public Cloud," "Hosted Private Cloud," and various bare-metal offerings is not always clear. Customers frequently find themselves on the wrong product for their use case, and migrating between OVH product lines can be nearly as complex as migrating to a different provider entirely.

What the SBG2 Fire Taught the Industry About High Availability

The March 2021 fire at OVH's Strasbourg campus was not a minor incident. SBG2 was completely destroyed, SBG1 was partially damaged, and SBG3 and SBG4 were taken offline as a precaution. An estimated 3.6 million websites went down. Customers included government agencies, banks, news organizations, and e-commerce platforms. Some lost data permanently.

The core lesson was not that fires happen — any physical infrastructure carries that risk. The lesson was that single-facility architectures, including backup strategies that rely on the same physical location, create catastrophic single points of failure. When both your production environment and your backups can be destroyed by a single event, you do not actually have a backup strategy. You have the illusion of one.

This is the exact class of failure that MassiveGRID's architecture is designed to prevent, through several interlocking mechanisms:

Ceph Triple Replication

MassiveGRID's cloud server infrastructure uses Ceph distributed storage with 3x replication. Every block of data is written to three separate physical nodes simultaneously. If one node fails — whether due to a disk failure, hardware malfunction, or physical event — the remaining two copies ensure zero data loss and continuous availability. The Ceph cluster automatically re-replicates to restore the third copy onto healthy nodes, maintaining the replication factor without manual intervention.

HA Clusters with Automatic Failover

Because storage is decoupled from compute in MassiveGRID's architecture, virtual machines are not tied to a single physical host. If a hypervisor node fails, the VM is automatically restarted on a different healthy node in the cluster. This failover happens without manual intervention and typically completes within minutes. The VM boots from the same Ceph-replicated storage, so no data is lost and no restoration from backup is required.

Geographically Distributed Infrastructure

MassiveGRID operates data centers across multiple geographic regions — New York, London, Frankfurt, and Singapore. Backups and replicas can be distributed across these locations, ensuring that no single physical event can affect both production data and backup copies. This geographic distribution is the fundamental architectural difference between a provider that can survive a facility-level failure and one that cannot.

The distinction matters: OVH's SBG2 incident did not expose a failure in fire suppression. It exposed a failure in architecture — the decision to co-locate primary data and backups in the same facility. MassiveGRID's Ceph 3x replication and multi-node architecture ensure that your data survives hardware failures by design, not by luck.

Migration Steps: OVH to MassiveGRID

Migrating from OVH to MassiveGRID is a straightforward process. The steps below cover a typical Linux server migration — the same approach applies whether you are moving from an OVH VPS, Public Cloud instance, or dedicated server.

Step 1: Audit Your Current OVH Environment

Before you begin, document your existing setup. SSH into your OVH server and record the key details:

# Check OS and version
cat /etc/os-release

# Record installed packages (Debian/Ubuntu)
dpkg --get-selections > ~/package-list.txt

# Record installed packages (CentOS/RHEL/AlmaLinux)
rpm -qa > ~/package-list.txt

# Check disk usage
df -h

# Check running services
systemctl list-units --type=service --state=running

# Note any cron jobs
crontab -l > ~/crontab-backup.txt

# Record open ports and firewall rules
ss -tlnp
iptables -L -n > ~/firewall-rules.txt

This inventory tells you exactly what resources your new MassiveGRID server needs: how much disk space, which services are running, and what software dependencies exist.

Step 2: Provision Your MassiveGRID Server

Based on your audit, choose the appropriate MassiveGRID product tier (see the recommendation section below). Provision your server through the MassiveGRID portal and select the data center location closest to your users. Once provisioned, note the server's IP address and SSH credentials.

Step 3: Transfer Your Data

Use rsync over SSH to transfer your data from OVH to MassiveGRID. This method is efficient because it only transfers changed files, and it can be resumed if interrupted:

# Transfer web files
rsync -avzP --progress /var/www/ root@YOUR_MG_IP:/var/www/

# Transfer database dumps
mysqldump --all-databases --single-transaction > ~/all-databases.sql
rsync -avzP ~/all-databases.sql root@YOUR_MG_IP:~/

# Transfer configuration files
rsync -avzP /etc/nginx/ root@YOUR_MG_IP:/etc/nginx/
rsync -avzP /etc/apache2/ root@YOUR_MG_IP:/etc/apache2/

# Transfer SSL certificates (if using custom certs)
rsync -avzP /etc/letsencrypt/ root@YOUR_MG_IP:/etc/letsencrypt/

# Transfer mail data (if applicable)
rsync -avzP /var/mail/ root@YOUR_MG_IP:/var/mail/

Step 4: Install Services and Import Data on MassiveGRID

SSH into your new MassiveGRID server and install the required services:

# Update the system
apt update && apt upgrade -y    # Debian/Ubuntu
# or
dnf update -y                    # AlmaLinux/Rocky

# Install your web server
apt install nginx -y             # or apache2

# Install database server
apt install mariadb-server -y

# Import your databases
mysql < ~/all-databases.sql

# Install application runtimes (PHP, Node.js, Python, etc.)
apt install php-fpm php-mysql php-curl php-xml -y

# Restore cron jobs
crontab ~/crontab-backup.txt

Step 5: Test Before Switching DNS

Before updating your DNS records, verify that everything works on the new server. You can test by modifying your local machine's /etc/hosts file to point your domain at the MassiveGRID IP:

# Add to /etc/hosts on your local machine (temporarily)
YOUR_MG_IP    yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com

Browse your site, test all critical functionality, check database connections, verify email delivery if applicable, and confirm SSL certificates are working. Only proceed to DNS changes once everything tests correctly.

Step 6: Update DNS and Go Live

Update your domain's DNS A records to point to your MassiveGRID server IP. If you are using MassiveGRID's DNS, you can manage this through the portal. Keep your OVH server running for 48-72 hours after the DNS change to handle any cached DNS lookups that still resolve to the old IP.

# Verify DNS propagation
dig yourdomain.com +short

# Monitor for any remaining traffic on the old OVH server
# Once traffic has fully shifted, you can decommission the OVH instance

Step 7: Configure Backups on MassiveGRID

Once live, take advantage of MassiveGRID's backup infrastructure. Unlike OVH's approach of co-locating backups, MassiveGRID's Ceph storage already provides triple replication at the block level. For additional application-level backups, configure automated snapshots through the portal or set up your own backup schedule to a different geographic region.

Which MassiveGRID Tier Is Right for OVH Customers?

The right MassiveGRID product depends on what you are running on OVH today and what level of management and availability you need. Here are the most common migration paths:

Developer on OVH VPS → H/A Cloud VPS or H/A Cloud VDS

If you are a developer or small team running a VPS on OVH for staging environments, personal projects, or small production applications, MassiveGRID's H/A Cloud VPS (starting at $3.99/mo) gives you what OVH's VPS cannot: automatic failover and Ceph-replicated storage. Your VPS on MassiveGRID runs on a high-availability cluster — if the physical host fails, your VM restarts on a healthy node automatically. On OVH, the same failure means you wait for manual intervention.

If you need guaranteed CPU resources rather than shared vCPUs, the H/A Cloud VDS (starting at $19.80/mo) provides dedicated CPU cores with the same HA architecture. This is ideal if you have experienced noisy-neighbor performance issues on OVH's shared VPS platform.

Business on OVH Shared/Managed Hosting → H/A Managed Cloud Servers

For businesses running websites, e-commerce stores, or SaaS applications on OVH's managed or shared hosting, MassiveGRID's H/A Managed Cloud Servers (starting at $27.79/mo) offer a significant upgrade in both reliability and support quality. You get fully managed infrastructure with proactive monitoring, security patching, and a support team that handles server administration so your team can focus on your application.

The managed tier is particularly relevant for OVH customers who have struggled with support response times. MassiveGRID's managed services include direct access to experienced engineers who understand your environment — not a queue-based ticketing system where you compete with hundreds of thousands of other customers for attention.

Enterprise on OVH Dedicated Servers → H/A Managed Cloud Dedicated Servers

Organizations running OVH dedicated servers for production workloads face an inherent contradiction: they chose dedicated hardware for performance and control, but OVH's dedicated servers are single points of failure by design. If the hardware fails, the server is down until replacement parts arrive and data is restored from backup — assuming the backup is intact and accessible.

MassiveGRID's H/A Managed Cloud Dedicated Servers (starting at $76.19/mo) resolve this contradiction. You get dedicated CPU, RAM, and I/O performance — resources that are not shared with other tenants — combined with Ceph-replicated storage and automatic failover. If the physical host fails, your workload migrates to another dedicated node. This is the performance of dedicated hardware with the resilience of a distributed system, fully managed by MassiveGRID's operations team.

OVH vs. MassiveGRID: Feature Comparison

Free Migration Assistance

If the technical steps outlined above seem time-consuming, MassiveGRID's team can handle the migration for you. For customers on managed tiers — H/A Managed Cloud Servers and H/A Managed Cloud Dedicated Servers — MassiveGRID offers free migration assistance. Their engineers will audit your existing OVH environment, plan the migration, execute the data transfer, verify functionality, and coordinate the DNS cutover. You stay focused on your business while the migration happens in the background.

For self-managed tiers (H/A Cloud VPS and H/A Cloud VDS), the support team is available to answer questions and provide guidance throughout your migration process.

Ready to migrate? Contact MassiveGRID's team to discuss your current OVH setup and get a migration plan tailored to your environment. For managed tiers, migration assistance is included at no additional cost.

Why Organizations Are Choosing MassiveGRID as an OVHcloud Alternative

The decision to migrate from OVH is rarely about a single issue. It is a combination of factors that accumulate over time: a support ticket that went unanswered during a critical incident, the realization that a hardware failure could mean extended downtime, the discovery that "automated backups" were stored on the same physical hardware as the production system, or simply the desire for infrastructure that is architected for resilience rather than just affordability.

MassiveGRID is not the cheapest option available. If your sole criterion is the lowest possible monthly cost for a VPS, OVH will often win on sticker price. But the actual cost of hosting includes the cost of downtime, the cost of data loss, and the cost of the engineering time your team spends compensating for infrastructure limitations that should not exist in the first place.

When you factor in Ceph 3x replication, automatic failover, geographically distributed backups, enterprise DDoS protection, and responsive expert support — all included in MassiveGRID's platform — the value equation shifts significantly. You are not paying more for hosting. You are paying for infrastructure that is designed to keep your applications running when things go wrong.

The Architecture Difference

At its core, the difference between OVH and MassiveGRID comes down to architecture. OVH was built to deliver compute at scale and at low cost. MassiveGRID was built to deliver compute with high availability as a foundational requirement. These are different engineering philosophies, and they lead to fundamentally different outcomes when hardware fails — which it eventually will.

On OVH, a hardware failure is an incident that requires manual intervention, potential data restoration, and often extended downtime. On MassiveGRID, a hardware failure is an event that the system handles automatically — your VM restarts on a healthy node, your data is intact because it was already replicated across multiple nodes, and the cluster self-heals by re-replicating to maintain the redundancy factor.

That architectural difference is what the SBG2 fire taught the industry to value. Not every failure will be as dramatic as a data center fire. But every failure — from a single disk to a full server — tests whether your infrastructure was designed to survive it. MassiveGRID's infrastructure was.

Conclusion

OVH built an impressive hosting business on the strength of competitive European pricing and massive scale. But for organizations where uptime, data integrity, and responsive support are not optional, OVH's architectural limitations present real risks. The SBG2 fire was the most visible demonstration of those risks, but the underlying issues — local storage without replication, limited failover, inconsistent support — affect OVH customers on a daily basis in less dramatic but still meaningful ways.

Migrating to MassiveGRID is a straightforward process that can typically be completed in a few hours for simple setups or a few days for complex environments. The result is infrastructure where your data is triple-replicated across nodes, your VMs fail over automatically, and your support requests are handled by engineers who know your environment.

Whether you are a developer looking for a reliable OVHcloud alternative for your VPS, a business that needs managed hosting with genuine high availability, or an enterprise that requires dedicated performance without single points of failure, MassiveGRID offers a clear upgrade path from OVH. Explore MassiveGRID's cloud server platform and see how infrastructure designed for resilience changes what is possible for your applications.