Launch day is rarely the build. It is the afternoon DNS flips, mailboxes move, or a new Wi‑Fi network becomes “the official one.” That is when missing logins and surprise TTLs turn a two-hour window into a weekend.
A cutover is a checklist with a rollback. A hope-and-refresh is how shops lose a Saturday.
Why flip day fails
People remember the new homepage and forget the boring layer: registrar logins, old MX records, a guest SSID that still points at the closet router, a certificate that still names the staging host.
Cutover
The planned moment traffic, mail, or devices start using the new system — with a written way back if the new path is wrong.
DNS and the public edge
TTLs decide how long the internet remembers the old address. Lower them a day ahead if you can. Confirm A/AAAA, CNAME, and HTTPS redirects on a phone that is not on the shop Wi‑Fi (caches lie).
- Who owns the registrar? Write it down before you need it at 6 p.m.
- TLS should already be issuing for the live name — see SSL explained
- CDN / proxy orange-cloud surprises belong in the plan, not the incident
The map lives under edge, DNS & TLS.
Mail and Wi‑Fi in the same afternoon (please don’t)
Mailbox migrations and Wi‑Fi cutovers each deserve their own window. If you must combine them, sequence: network first (so staff can work), then mail, then the public site — or the reverse if customers will hit the domain before staff do.
Wi‑Fi flips fail when the old SSID still exists “just in case” and half the phones never roam. Plan a named retirement of the closet router. Coverage notes: office Wi‑Fi.
The sitting checklist
Before anyone announces “we’re live”
- Collect registrar, DNS, hosting, workspace admin, and Wi‑Fi controller logins in one place.
- Write the rollback: old IPs, old MX, old SSID, who can revert.
- Lower DNS TTLs if the registrar allows it; wait for the old TTL to expire.
- Test HTTPS, the contact form, and mail to a Gmail and an Outlook inbox.
- Walk the floor: register, office, stockroom. Guest SSID isolated from POS.
- Leave a one-page note: what changed, what to watch for 48 hours, who to call.
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