Art of BI: Update 1and1 Server PHP Version

Our cloud server is hosted on 1and1.com and the service fairly respectable.  It works.

However, the default linux deployment of the server comes with an earlier version of PHP 5.1.x which is quite antiquated as far as the latest Open Source software developers are concerned.  The long and the short of this is that after much scouring of the internet the solution was underneath my nose the entire time in the 1and1 help/faq section for the plesk control panel.  Log into your 1and1 main control panel and follow the resource link at the bottom of this post.  I followed the instructions precisely, did a restart of Apache (service httpd restart) and everything was perfectly upgraded to the latest PHP 5.3.8 without issue and without conflict.

I hope this helps.

Resources:

http://faq.1and1.com/dedicated_servers/root_server/plesk_/9.html