If you are an avid part of today’s technology, then you might already be aware of WordPress and all the good features it brings to the table. Add a series of wonderful Amazon Web Services to the list and you already have a winner on your hands. With the combination of AWS and WordPress, you get access to some of the best web hosting opportunities in the market.
Without further suspense, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of hosting your WordPress site on AWS, in order to reap maximum benefits from the association.
1) Registering your AWS account: If you are still new to the world of AWS, then as a first step, you need to create a new AWS account. Head over to https://aws.amazon.com; click on “create an AWS account”. Ideally, avoid using the normal Amazon page to create an account. If you do, you will be required to follow a myriad set of approaches, before you reach the AWS registration page. By clicking on the link directly, you can register in a flash. Once you have filled in the primary details, you will arrive at the dashboard, which will offer you a series of options.
Some of these options include, but are not limited to:
a. EC2: EC2 which is the Amazon Workhorse, allows you to compute the capacity in the cloud and make it resizable as per your needs. It helps make web-scaling easier for developers.
b. S3: Storage on Demand or S3 is the disk space which offers a rather simple interface to help store and retrieve data as per convenience. With S3, one can scale trillions of data from anywhere around the web, without having to bother about data security and ease of access.
c. RDS: RDS, also known as Relational Database Service, is easy to setup and operate. It provides developers with 6 of the most familiar database engines, which include the likes of Microsoft SQL Server, Amazon Aurora, MySQL, Oracle, MariaDB and PostgreSQL.
d. SES: SES or Simple Email Service is a cost effective solution which is built on the scalable infrastructure of AWS. With SES, you can easily send and receive emails with no prior commitments. Pay as you go, so that you are never overcharged for usage.
2) Getting to the designing phase within the AWS Infrastructure: Each of the servers above help in getting your WordPress site up and running on the AWS servers. Primarily, EC2 is used to create a web server to power the WordPress installation. RDS, S3, and SES are configured alongside to ensure proper utilities are available to the users through the AWS domains.
3) Choosing between scaling up and scaling out: In AWS, you have the opportunity to setup all WordPress instances on a single EC2 instance. However, this is not a very good approach in the long run. In order to enhance your server’s efficiency, you need to choose between scaling up and scaling out.
a. Scaling up: You can increase the actual hardware and memory resources which are ideally used to power your website. Peruse through options like increasing the RAM size, CPUs, VPS, and investing in a dedicated server.
b. Scaling out: The only limitation with scaling up is the physical hardware limitations imposed during usage. By scaling out, instead of maximizing the usage of the hardware, you throw in a lot of servers into the website. This way, one can host different parts of the website on different servers, in order to maximize efficiency.
4) Creating your web server infrastructure: Once your database is up and running, you need to setup the server instance on the EC2 instance. There are a lot of preconfigured instances pertaining to WordPress which can prove to be handy in a jiffy. With AWS installed, one can even install specific configurations of WordPress. The new instance can be created through the AWS Management Console on the EC2 tab.
5) Installing Apache Web Server + WordPress: After the web server infrastructure is ready to host, you need to install the Apache Web Server + WordPress setup to ensure all software components are in place.
6) Link EC2 Instance with your Domain: Link the public domain of the AWS WordPress installation to your public IP address. This way, you can map your domain name to the concerned IP address.
By following these steps, you can successfully launch your WordPress website on different AWS servers, thereby taking your site’s efficiency up by a notch.