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How To Choose The Best Web Hosting For WordPress
WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the internet, making it the most popular content management system by far.
If you’re planning to create a WordPress website, choosing the right web hosting is crucial for your site’s performance, security, and success. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the key factors to consider when selecting a WordPress host.
Understanding WordPress Hosting Options
Before diving into specific factors, it’s important to understand the main types of WordPress hosting available:
- Shared Hosting: The most affordable option where your site shares server resources with other websites. Suitable for small sites with low traffic.
- Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting: Provides dedicated resources within a shared environment, offering better performance and scalability than shared hosting.
- Dedicated Server Hosting: Gives you an entire physical server for your website, ideal for large, high-traffic sites requiring maximum control and performance.
- Managed WordPress Hosting: Specialized hosting optimized for WordPress with enhanced security, performance, and support features.
- Cloud Hosting: Utilizes a network of connected servers to provide flexible, scalable hosting resources.
Now let’s explore the critical factors to consider when choosing a WordPress host.
WordPress Compatibility and Optimization
Native WordPress Support
While most web hosts support WordPress, look for providers that offer:
- One-click WordPress installation
- Automated WordPress core updates
- WordPress-specific security features
- Optimized server configurations for WordPress
Managed WordPress Hosting
For serious WordPress users, managed WordPress hosting offers several advantages:
- Servers optimized specifically for WordPress performance
- Enhanced security measures tailored to WordPress vulnerabilities
- Automatic updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins
- Regular backups and easy restoration options
- Expert WordPress support staff
- Staging environments for testing changes
While managed WordPress hosting typically costs more than standard hosting, the added features and peace of mind are often worth the investment for business-critical websites.
Performance and Reliability
Server Resources
Ensure the hosting plan provides adequate resources for your needs:
- CPU allocation
- RAM
- Storage space (SSD preferred for faster performance)
- Bandwidth/data transfer limits
Uptime Guarantee
Look for hosts that offer at least a 99.9% uptime guarantee. However, be sure to read the fine print and understand how uptime is calculated and what compensation is offered for downtime.
WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the internet, making it the most popular content management system by far. If you’re planning to create a WordPress website, choosing the right web hosting is crucial for your site’s performance, security, and success.
This comprehensive guide will walk you through the key factors to consider when selecting a WordPress host.
Understanding WordPress Hosting Options
Before diving into specific factors, it’s important to understand the main types of WordPress hosting available:
- Shared Hosting: The most affordable option where your site shares server resources with other websites. Suitable for small sites with low traffic.
- Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting: Provides dedicated resources within a shared environment, offering better performance and scalability than shared hosting.
- Dedicated Server Hosting: Gives you an entire physical server for your website, ideal for large, high-traffic sites requiring maximum control and performance.
- Managed WordPress Hosting: Specialized hosting optimized for WordPress with enhanced security, performance, and support features.
- Cloud Hosting: Utilizes a network of connected servers to provide flexible, scalable hosting resources.
Now let’s explore the critical factors to consider when choosing a WordPress host.
WordPress Compatibility and Optimization
Native WordPress Support
While most web hosts support WordPress, look for providers that offer:
- One-click WordPress installation
- Automated WordPress core updates
- WordPress-specific security features
- Optimized server configurations for WordPress
Managed WordPress Hosting
For serious WordPress users, managed WordPress hosting offers several advantages:
- Servers optimized specifically for WordPress performance
- Enhanced security measures tailored to WordPress vulnerabilities
- Automatic updates for WordPress core, themes, and plugins
- Regular backups and easy restoration options
- Expert WordPress support staff
- Staging environments for testing changes
While managed WordPress hosting typically costs more than standard hosting, the added features and peace of mind are often worth the investment for business-critical websites.
Performance and Reliability
Server Resources
Ensure the hosting plan provides adequate resources for your needs:
- CPU allocation
- RAM
- Storage space (SSD preferred for faster performance)
- Bandwidth/data transfer limits
Uptime Guarantee
Look for hosts that offer at least a 99.9% uptime guarantee. However, be sure to read the fine print and understand how uptime is calculated and what compensation is offered for downtime.
Amazon AWS to offer its RDS database service on VMware
At VMworld US, Amazon AWS announced its intention to offer a version of its RDS managed database service for VMware private cloud environments. The objective is to enable the implementation of hybrid architectures by companies, but also eventually the migration to AWS.
Since last year, VMware has been marketing a public cloud service, VMware on AWS, hosted on the cloud giant’s infrastructure. The goal is to give companies a counterpoint to the publisher’s private cloud offer to offer them homogeneous hybrid cloud services. To build this offer, VMware relied on bare machines provided by AWS.
But this year, it was AWS that announced its intention to use VMware technologies to implement its database solution as a Service RDS (Relational Database Service) in an “on premises” version. RDS should thus become AWS’ first genuinely hybrid infrastructure service (the provider already offers an on-premise extension of its public service IoT Greengrass).
AWS RDS: facilitate the deployment and management of databases
Amazon Relational Database Service is Amazon Web Services’ managed SQL database offering. It supports a wide range of database engines including MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and Amazon’s own SQL database, Aurora. RDS ensures automated provisioning of database instances and incorporates sophisticated replication, migration and backup mechanisms.
The technology also makes it possible to organize the replication (synchronous and asynchronous) of databases and can orchestrate the automatic switchover between several availability zones in the event of failure. It controls all RDS functions via the AWS management console, Amazon RDS APIs or the cloud provider’s command line interface.
Speaking on stage at the opening keynote of VMworld, Andy Jassy, Amazon AWS CEO explained that RDS on VMware would offer on VMware on-premise clusters, the same service as RDS on AWS (except for in-house DBMS support, Aurora).
Amazon will propose a pre-version of the service in the coming months. Jassy didn’t specify what the prerequisites will be to make it work, nor did he determine how we would administer the future RDS on VMware. He just indicated that the replication mechanism implemented by AWS in the cloud would have an equivalent on-premise since it will be possible to replicate databases between VMware clusters.
Towards an opening of AWS technologies to on-premises?
The RDS offer on VMware breaks with Amazon’s important policy of offering its technologies only on its public cloud. It could signal the supplier’s desire to deploy its solutions more widely in hybrid mode.
By partnering with AWS to offer hybrid offerings, VMware can provide an alternative to Microsoft’s (with Azure Stack) or Nutanix’s hybrid offerings.
Everything you Need to Know about Cloud-Native Applications
In today’s fast-paced world, with its proliferation of data and devices that create them, this approach is no longer viable. Instead, companies are striving to unlock the value of this data surge and instruct their developers to respond with highly scalable solutions and ever-tighter deadlines.
What is Cloud-Native Computing ?
A new paradigm has emerged, driven by the need for scalability, flexibility, and agility. It is further supported by both the declining cost of cloud computing services and the increasing agility of applications and networks to bridge the performance gap between local and remote computing.
Cloud-native applications run exclusively on cloud-based infrastructure and are designed specifically to take advantage of the cloud’s new features and functionality.
To get to this stage, you must first migrate applications from on-premise infrastructure to a cloud-based infrastructure, using the infrastructure offerings as a service (IaaS) from your cloud computing provider. The first advantage is the elimination of initial investment costs. Of course, the process is not as simple as that, but it can be successfully achieved by replicating the on-site infrastructure using software and hardware components that work together.
For example, you can replicate a 50-node cluster by renting and connecting 50 virtual machines in the cloud and installing the same applications and operating systems that run on site.
While offering the standard benefits of cloud computing (such as replacing capital expenditures with operating expenses, flexible on-demand services, and lower maintenance), this type of configuration provides a stepping stone to a 100% cloud-native configuration. The next step is, therefore, to migrate to an environment where your cloud computing provider’s platform infrastructure as a service (PaaS) abstracts the idea of the server operating system and allows the enterprise to focus only on the applications and services they provide, rather than how they deliver those services.
This is the first point of contact with the “cloud native” concept. It requires a redesign of applications and their interactions but means that business imperatives can guide design, and thus results.
Native cloud computing applications go even further. In a PaaS model, the underlying platform provides pre-configured operating system images that require no patching or maintenance and can be scaled automatically based on application load. A native cloud regime extends the PaaS concept by providing developers with a complete abstraction of the underlying infrastructure via a runtime billing model that automatically adapts to each trigger call.
This implies that applications are broken down into their individual functions (small code blocks), using the appropriate language for that function, be it JavaScript, C#, Python or PHP, or scripting languages such as Bash, Batch, and PowerShell. These functions can then be triggered in various ways, including HTTP so that they can react to various events. These are native cloud computing applications, made up of small components that can be developed, tested and deployed quickly. Some companies deploy dozens of new code fragments every day. Why not yours?
Key benefits of Cloud-Native Applications
Conclusion
The concept of cloud-native applications is still in its infancy. However, there is an important dynamic behind the idea of agile applications that deliver results quickly and promote agility while reducing costs. Given that the leading cloud computing service providers support the concept, thus demonstrating business demand, it would be unwise to ignore it.
Four Reasons to Setup Data Backup Solutions Today
Many business owners procrastinate the data backup process, because they do not want to waste time or resources to setup these backups. But the truth is that every day when you are not setting up a data backup is a potential risk that you are taking.
Every business in the modern economy relies on computers, networks and the data they are saving on their devices. These businesses are not able to survive if they were to lose that data. It does not matter if you have a startup or a company with a presence in three different cities.
If you were to lose your data without an appropriate backup, it would hurt your company in immeasurable ways. Here are four reasons why it is important to setup data backup solutions.
- Simple Recovery
People make mistakes all the time. Your employees are human beings and they are going to slip up. Say you have many workstations and devices set up across the office. These devices get them connected to the company network, so they are able to work.
Maybe an employee opens up a phishing email and they have a virus on the computer. Without a real time backup, it would take an hour or more before their computer is working. With backups, you just have to restore to the previous saved point. The system is all good, as the files with the virus are wiped from the system automatically.
- Keeping Company Records Intact
There are so many important company records that are now saved on computers. In the past, these documents were printed out and filed into cabinets. Most companies would have photocopies to ensure they were safe if something happened to the original document.
Data backups are the digital version of creating multiple copies. Say you have relevant tax documents saved on your computers. Or maybe it is financial data from the past few years. These are important files that you cannot afford to lose. Without a data backup solution, these files are compromised.
- Getting a Competitive Advantage
What happens when a company faces a setback with their workstations or devices? They have to go to the data backup. But what if there is no data backup? They are losing time every single second they are unable to access a backup.
And that is time a company is not losing if they have a proper backup system. By ensuring that your data is backed up, you will gain a competitive advantage over companies that did not take the time to set up proper backups.
- Protection Against Natural Disasters
A study from 2007 showed that in the United States, around 40 percent of businesses that suffer a major data loss do not reopen. And many of these data losses are not because of some complicated technological issue. They happen because of a physical disaster. Floods, storms, earthquakes and hurricanes are just some of the natural disasters that can hurt a business.
They could hurt your business too. But if you have cloud backups of your data, you will be up and running within days. Without those backups, you could be out of commission for months – or permanently.
Benefits of Server Based Networks for Small Businesses
Every business has their own way of operating. But as a general rule, small businesses that are not using server based networks are putting themselves at an unnecessary disadvantage.
Connecting computers in a peer to peer manner is fine when we are talking about two or three computers. If you have a startup or a solo operation, with one or two extra people helping you, a server based network is not necessary.
But if you have 5 or more employees who are working together, it does not make sense to continue with P2P communications. A server based network is the way to go. And here are a few reasons why it is the best option:
- Servers Bring Added Reliability
The very foundation of a successful business is reliability. In the past, it meant a different type of reliability. Now we are more reliant on technology than ever before. A reliable network is vital to your operations.
Say you are operating P2P. It means that every PC on the network is crucial to the entire network staying active. If one computer goes down, your whole network is compromised. That means downtime, which costs you money.
Servers work differently. The hardware is created in a way to protect against redundancies. Even if one device fails, the entire system will continue running. And the device can be repaired while the system is still active.
- Servers Bring Better Security
When a P2P network is in operation, maintaining security tiers is very difficult. In most cases, you will have two tiers. You have the administrator who has complete access and you have the users who have limited access.
With a server, you can set up many different categories of users. In fact, every single account can have its own set of permissions. It ensures that you will have no unnecessary access to vital company data.
- Servers Bring Better Remote Accessibility
Even the most basic and inexpensive servers allow for remote access. A Windows 2008 server allowed for two remote users to access the network. Modern servers allow for much more flexibility when it comes to remote access. With a P2P network, such remote access is not possible.
Having employees work remotely is a major part of how modern businesses are run. It is even more crucial for a startup, as you may have employees who are working other jobs at the same time. Now they can do work for your company while they are at another location.
- Servers Bring Proper Virus Management
It is so easy to manage antivirus and anti-malware software on servers. The main PC that is controlling the server can take care of the installation of these antivirus and anti-malware programs. They can also be updated through the main computer.
If you were running a P2P network, you would have to manually take care of the antivirus programs on each device.
Yes, a P2P network is still relevant. It is useful when you have a solo operation or a business with only two or three employees. But the moment you have five or more employees, it makes sense to go with a server based network.
info@databaseanswers.com
Lemont, IL 60439
Weekends: by appointment
info@databaseanswers.com
Lemont, IL 60439
Weekends: by appointment