As Ars Technica grew, the need for a more reliable hosting solution became more pressing. Our team had outgrown its shared hosting plan and was looking for a way to keep up with our demands while staying within budget. After exploring a few different options, we decided to host Ars Technica in the cloud.
In the first part of this series, we looked at the hardware and resources necessary to host our website in the cloud. Now it’s time to take a closer look at the software involved.
When deciding on a software solution for hosting a website, there are a few things to take into consideration. The most important factor is scalability. We needed a solution that could handle an ever-increasing amount of traffic, without sacrificing performance or reliability.
We chose the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform to host our website. AWS offers excellent flexibility and scalability. It was an ideal choice for our fluctuating traffic demands. We were also attracted to the cost-effectiveness of AWS, compared to other solutions.
Beyond the cloud-hosting platform, we needed to install the necessary software and applications. For Ars Technica, this meant the typical LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP). We also added a few other third-party services and open source applications, such as Postfix and WordPress.
An important aspect of a good cloud setup is automation. We chose to use Amazon’s CloudFormation service, which allowed us to easily configure our applications. We used CloudFormation templates to set up new instances, and to update existing ones. This way, we could easily make changes to our hosting environment, such as adding additional servers or applications.
Finally, we needed to secure our cloud environment. AWS provides robust security measures, such as encryption and authentication. We made sure to regularly monitor our system’s security status, and act quickly if any threats were detected.
We’re now hosting Ars Technica in the cloud, with the goal of providing a better experience for our users. Our website has been running reliably for over a year, without any major issues. Hosting in the cloud has allowed us to easily scale to meet our needs, while keeping costs low.
For anyone considering moving their website to the cloud, it’s important to carefully consider every component of the setup. Ensuring you have the right hardware and software is essential to successful cloud hosting.
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