I was offered a chance to host a website that is already being hosted elsewhere. The site uses a my-sql back-end database to present its content and also includes search and shopping cart functionality. What do I need to know/do in order to take over the hosting of that site and move it onto our linux based servers?

Many thanks!

To avoid the site's downtime, make sure that you have both servers up and running and start backing up from the old and uploading the files to the new server.

You can export the mysql tables to paradox sql files and import them to your mysql database. I found that phpmyadmin can do the job very easy.

Just my two cents

If phpmyadmin stalls on backing up your database then look into the sql dump command to fix the problem.