Deployment options/Site Replatform

I am replatforming a html-only site i.e. rewriting a site from scratch using Zen-Cart. While I'm at it I am moving the site to new hosting company.

So my deployment requirements are:
I need to launch the site without interrupting the current site and switch over only when the new store has been QAed.

The bottom line question is: how do I launch the store, QA the store and then switch/flip from the old html-only site to the new (fully QAed) Zen-Cart.

Here's my plan:
My real domain is visitme.com. that's where the live production site lives and I have another domain mytestdomain.com that I use for testing.

1. visitme.com is live on my old host. It's getting visitors every day.
2. Install ZC under test.mytestdomain.com on the new host. It has only one visitor - me. I'm testing/adding products, etc.
3. QA the store test.mytestdomain.com
4. Enable payment
5. Test a live transaction
6. At this point test.mytestdomain.com is what I want visitme.com to look like. I'm ready to go live to the world.
7. modify configuration of ZC to use visitme.com instead of test.mytestdomain.com as the base (how? with zc_install or will I lose my database/products?)
8. point DNS to new host for visitme.comSeems reasonable to me, but maybe there's a better way...

Sounds like a workable plan to me.

When transfer completed to the new host, you would just need to manually edit both config files with the correct information for the new Hosting account.

Then change your Nameservers at the Registrar and you're done.

Thanks, glad to hear that it sounds reasonable. This train of thought made me think of upgrades as well.

In other eCommerce environments I've always worked with a

• Staging environment - wht users will see tomorrow (or soon)
• Production environment - what users seeStaging is created, reviewed, tested approved then flipped to production. This does not appear to be the norm for ZC. Even upgrades seem to be done directly against the live site without an explicit and separate test environment.

I thought I'd use this technique for upgrades when that time comes. Duplicate all code into a new directory. Apply upgrade to the new directory i.e. same host, 2 urls pointing to 2 directories: visitme.com ->old code and test.visitme.com -> upgraded code. test the upgraded version, then change host to direct traffic to upgrade code directory. Seems like a safe way to make a change...