The document is a guide to navigating the complexities of WordPress hosting, discussing essential aspects such as server architecture, uptime, security, and performance. It emphasizes the importance of SSL, regular backups, and maintaining updated software while also considering the budget and support needs. The guide concludes with a checklist of recommendations for effective website hosting management.

1. The Hosting Survival Guide
How to make sense of the WordPress hosting jungle!
Ricky Blacker
Sales Engineer

2. About Me
● Web Developer
● Co-organiser of WordPress
Meetups and WordCamps
● Really bad at sports
Ricky Blacker
Pre-Sales Engineer &
WordPress Evangelist

3. About Me

4. About Me

5. So Let’s Get Started!

6. In The
Beginning
And all was good in the hosting
world :)
There was static HTML & CSS

8. But things changed!
Along came dynamic
content, and of course the
CMS.

9. The Fun Begins!
Now we had to worry about
more than just the server
security, we have logins,
updates, conflicts, stress.

10. What is Web Hosting?
A web host, or web
hosting service provider,
is a business that provides
the technologies and
services needed for the
website or webpage to be
viewed in the Internet.

11. So What Do You Need From
Hosting Today?

12. Infrastructure!

13. Server Architecture

14. Server Architecture - VPS

15. Server GUI
Custom/Proprietary

16. Plans
Shared
$
Dedicated
or
VPS
$$$
Managed
Hosting
$$$$$

17. Shared
Shared
$
Dedicated
or
VPS
$$$
Managed
Hosting
$$$$$

18. Shared Hosting

19. Dedicated
Shared
$
Dedicated
or
VPS
$$$
Managed
Hosting
$$$$$

20. Dedicated Hosting

21. Managed
Shared
$
Dedicated
or
VPS
$$$
Managed
Hosting
$$$$$

22. Managed Hosting

23. Cloud Hosting

24. Location

25. 25
Where do you need to be?

26. Where do you need to be?

27. Where do you need to be?

28. Where do you need to be?

29. Availability

30. Uptime
● At least 3 9’s
● Monitoring
● Pingdom
● Uptime
Robot

31. Uptime
● At least 3 9’s
● Monitoring
● Pingdom
● Uptime
Robot
SLA level of 99.9 %
uptime/availability gives the following
periods of potential
downtime/unavailability:
Daily: 1m 26.4s
Weekly: 10m 4.8s
Monthly: 43m 49.7s
Yearly: 8h 45m 57.0s

32. Uptime
● At least 3 9’s
● Monitoring
● Pingdom
● Uptime
Robot
SLA level of 99.99 %
uptime/availability gives the following
periods of potential
downtime/unavailability:
Daily: 8.6s
Weekly: 1m 0.5s
Monthly: 4m 23.0s
Yearly: 52m 35.7s

33. Uptime
● At least 3 9’s
● Monitoring
● Pingdom
● Uptime
Robot
99.99 %
Daily: 8.6s
Weekly: 1m 0.5s
Monthly: 4m 23.0s
Yearly: 52m 35.7s
99.9 %
Daily: 1m 26.4s
Weekly: 10m 4.8s
Monthly: 43m 49.7s
Yearly: 8h 45m 57.0s

34. Security

35. Security
● Threat Detection And
Blocking
● Proactive Security
Maintenance
● Managed Patching
And Updates
Make sure all software is
at least a supported
version, latest stable is
better.
Source: https://sucuri.net/reports/2018-hacked-website-report/

36. 36

37. SSL
SSL is now
easier than
ever with Let’s
Encrypt open
source
certificates.

39. Maintenance

40. Backups
● Constant
● Reliable
● Offsite
● Easy
Restore

41. Staging
With constant
updates to
WordPress core
and plugins, having
a staging
environment
allows you to test
away from your
live site.

42. Support

43. Support
● 24/7 (if possible)
● Chat/Phone
● WordPress
Knowledge
● Free

44. Budget

45. Budget
You get what you pay for,
but also make sure you
get what you are paying
for.
● How much $$$ is
your site
generating?
● What is the impact
to you or your
business if it goes
down?

46. Performance

47. Drivers of Performance
Which car is quickest - a 1.6 litre or a 4.5 litre ?

48. Drivers of Performance
Which car is quickest - a 1.6 litre or a 4.5 litre ?

49. Get The Facts!
Use tools to find
out what you
need to make
your site
performant

50. Update Your Software
Make sure you have the latest version of WordPress,
but also the LAMP stack!
Linux Version 4+
Apache Version 2.4+
MySQL Version 5+
PHP Version 7+

51. PHP Version
In upgrading a
website from PHP
5.6 to 7.2 we saw
speed
improvements of
up to 40%.
Number of raw hits that could be handled

52. PHP Version
From 7.2 to 7.3
we’ve seen as
much as 15%
faster page
transaction times.

54. You cannot update because WordPress 5.2.2 requires
PHP version 5.6.20 or higher

55. Database Optimisations
InnoDB supports row-
level locking which
means inserting and
updating is much
faster as compared
with MyISAM.

56. Cacheing
Server side cacheing is
much more efficient
than cacheing plugins

57. Shopping and
Membership sites!
● Mostly uncached
● Heavier on resources
● Is it capable of
handling large spikes
in traffic?

58. Shopping and
Membership sites!
Beware of seasonal and
marketing spikes!

63. Summary

64. Summary
● Get SSL for Security
and SEO
● Backup regularly
● Use staging to
minimise impact on
your live site
● Get good support
● Budget for what you
need
● Anticipate and have
resources to meet
demand
● Keep all software up
to date

65. THANK YOU
ricky.blacker@wpengine.com

66. Questions?