Managed WordPress Demystified
3 likes2,777 views
The document announces WordCamp Toronto 2015 on October 3-4 at Humber College Lakeshore Campus. It then provides an overview of managed WordPress hosting by Alex Sirota of NewPath Consulting, including common issues that managed hosting addresses and examples of hosting options like GoDaddy, DreamHost, Flywheel, WP Engine, and Pantheon.
Managed WordPress Demystified
- 1. WordCamp Toronto 2015 Oct 3-4 - Humber College Lakeshore Campus Alex Sirota, Director, NewPath Consulting www.newpathconsulting.com @alexsirota Managed WordPress Demystified Insights from a Worldwide Survey of Managed WordPress Hosts
- 2. 2
- 3. Why care about hosting? • Boring, no? • So much choice and variety in 2015, need to be informed • Hosting partner critical for your sanity and your customer’s satisfaction: 2-4s maximum load times... • And can make your WordPress configuration and development much safer, friendlier and FUN! 3
- 4. 4
- 5. Story 1: December Hack • Customer on shared hosting at large Canadian host, WordPress installed with default “admin” username, core not upgraded in months. Solution: Restore from recent backup + Security baked into hosting 5
- 6. Story 2: WordPress Migration ≠ Good Times • Hacked site needs to be moved over QUICKLY as per customer demand. Solution: Migration services with a 1-click migrate 6
- 7. 7
- 8. Story 3: The dreaded “white screen of death” • You updated some theme/plugin code, and BOOM! Solution: Use a workflow to promote changes tested in staging environment, then promote to production automatically. Rollback production if required. 8
- 9. A picture explains the differences... 9 Build your own car ($-$$) Public transit ($) Uber for Hosting ($$-$$$$) Host specific implementation
- 10. WordPress Hosting Options Shared GoDaddy Hosting 1and1 BlueHost DreamHost Hostgator Thousands more Virtual Private Server Many major shared hosts offer VPS options Digital Ocean Amazon Web Services Linode 100s more Managed WordPress 20+ options available today (⅓+ of managed WordPress Hosts are shared hosts as well) Really just a marketing term We will look closer at 5 hosts, all quite different 10
- 11. Deep dive on the term “Managed WordPress” Cost + Support Different customers (SMBs, Agencies, Development shops) Support varies from light configuration to development Very competitive market - you do get what you pay for! Architecture Architecture affects: Level of caching and optimization Workflow Security Great custom UI make complex processes user friendly. No cpanel! Bells & Whistles Migration Support (free to fantastick!) Pre-packaged proprietary plugins and themes (e.g. Genesis comes free with WebSynthesis, 5-minute quickstart on GoDaddy Pro) 11
- 12. No more of this... 10 Easy Steps for your cloning and WordPress migration: 1. Download the plugin wp-db-backup. 2. Upload this plugin to your current server. Go to the ‘Plugins’ menu to activate it. 3. Proceed to the menu ‘Manage‘ -> ‘Backup‘. Select all your tables, and click on ‘Backup’ so you can download the gzip file onto your computer. 4. Extract the gzip file you’ve downloaded. There now should be a sql file. This file contains your WordPress database. In the next steps, we will put this database into new server. 5. Create a MySql Database and user for your blog in the new hosting account. This is explained in detail 12
- 13. Fantastic Five: 5 very different approaches 13
- 15. Go Pro with GoDaddy • Super user-friendly including automatic migration from most WordPress installations, simple DNS configuration • GoDaddy Pro is a free membership program for freelancers that provides exclusive tools and support. • Staging -> production deployment for a complex WordPress site can be finicky • WordCamp Toronto 2015 sponsor! 15
- 16. Simple migration user interface... 16
- 17. 17
- 18. GoDaddy Pro Monitoring Dashboard with SMS/Email Alerts 18
- 19. DreamPress 2 from DreamHost Speed and Flexibility ‘R Us 19
- 20. DreamHost (shared) to DreamPress (managed) • 2 VPSs for each domain (application server and MySQL server), no “secret” sauce, Varnish and HHVM • Regularly contact plug-in authors that don’t “play nice”, but don’t restrict plugins (see wiki), • Wiki on DreamPress 2 has tech details, detailed FAQs • DreamHost to DreamPress upgrade • WordCamp Toronto 2015 Sponsor! 20
- 22. Pretty sweet domain name chooser on signup - all gTLDs represented to choose a new domain quickly 22
- 23. FlyWheel Agency Friendly + Team Oriented 23
- 24. FlyWheel Awesomeness • Simple collaboration for agencies and customers https://getflywheel.com/why-flywheel/collaboration/ • One Click Staging Environment https://getflywheel.com/why-flywheel/staging-sites/ 24
- 25. Simplicity for complex processes 25
- 26. Team collaboration, 1-click site cloning 26
- 27. Built in MySQL database manager 27
- 28. WP engine 5+ Year WordPress Pioneer and Performance Champion 28
- 29. WP engine - a WordPress pioneer... • All focus on WordPress for 5+ years, co-invented term “Managed” WordPress • A “labs team” researches performance improvements (eg HHVM, geoIP, Steven Word) • In March 2015, WP engine received investment of $23M • Team of 8-12 speak at WordCamps & WordCamp Toronto 2015 sponsor! 29
- 30. Backup interface - note backups before and after WordPress core upgrades 30
- 33. Pantheon: A DevOps dream • DevOps for organizations who cannot afford a DevOps team, with full dev->staging->production workflow • Uses existing Linux “container” technology (like Google App Engine, Heroku), HHVM, Drupal, Your SLA = Largest Customer SLA • FREE developer websites, only pay for production • WordPress Toronto 2015 sponsor! 33
- 34. What could go wrong? Everything... 34 From Josh Koening’s (Pantheon) “Workflow is a Dance”
- 35. Multidev: an innovation for DevOps 35 5 things you can stop: - “It worked on my machine.” - Wrangling local dev tools - Praying for scale - Reconciling out-of-sync development databases - Delaying sign-off
- 36. Public Managed WordPress Survey http://bit.ly/wpsidebyside Survey performed February 2015 with feedback from WordPress Hosting Group on Facebook: over 2,000 hosting experts across the world. Join today! https://www.facebook.com/groups/wphosting/ 36
- 37. Let’s recap... • Hosting is a huge factor for developer sanity and customer satisfaction • Review Signal Performance benchmarks for 2015 • Things can go wrong, so need a great partner, here are 5 • Evaluate & make the best decision for your customers! 37
- 38. Managed WordPress = WordPress Superhero Thanks to http://www.wpauctions.com/ for image! 38
- 39. Q&A @alexsirota @newpathtech (888) 781-2539 Visit newpathconsulting.com to find out more about our sales, marketing and operational fixed-fee services. 39
- 40. Shared Hosting (Traditional) • Installed via control panel or manually • Limited access and resources available (Error 500) • You’re on your own for: • backup/restores • updates • ongoing attacks • Inexpensive • Support for WordPress is “best effort” 40
- 41. VPS Virtual Private Server • Various server “images” available with WordPress • Full “root” access • Can expand storage, memory, # of CPUs • You’re on your own for: • backup/restores • updates • ongoing attacks • Can be expensive with good support 41
- 42. Managed WordPress • Installation and environment tuned for WordPress • Don’t have to worry about performance and scale • No “root” access, and restriction on certain plugins • Features include: • Automatic backup & restore • WordPress core auto updates and notification • Attack detection and mitigation (DDoS) • Development/Deployment workflow • Caching always setup for speed-up 42
Editor's Notes
- #2: In this presentation, Alex Sirota (@alexsirota), Director of NewPath Consulting will: - demonstrate some of the very cool features in several Managed WordPress systems including GoDaddy's Managed WordPress Solution (part of GoDaddy Pro), SiteGround, FlyWheel and WPEngine - present a new survey of more than 20 Managed WordPress hosts across the world (http://bit.ly/wpsidebyside)
- #11: Managed WordPress is a new category of web hosting that specializes in doing 1 thing only: ensuring your WordPress websites are reliable, secure and well-maintained.
- #14: I chose these for experience and their visibility in the marketspace
- #29: Sort of creating the Managed WordPress business model...
- #41: You must do WordPress and plugin updates and migrations on your own. If there's a problem, it's up to you to fix. There are no WordPress experts at shared hosting sites. You are sharing a server with thousands of other sites. Speeding up your site is entirely up to you and even then you can't go faster than your plan allows. You are on your own to install, maintain your own security system and backups using plug-ins that you have to evaluate, install and maintain. Full site backups are available sometimes on demand and can take a few hours or a few days to actually restore. You're on your own. Maybe online knowledge base and some tech support, but more complex issues will leave you hanging. $1-$10 / month
- #42: Same as shared hosting but lots more flexibility on resources...
- #43: Your host takes care of all technical details so you can focus on design and new features. Your host provides solutions to speed up the site with memory upgrades, fast disks and caching solutions. Your host ensures a secure WordPress install from usernames, passwords, database tables and security plugins that are installed to ensure you don't hacked. At least 30 days of backups are available for you as well to restore to a snapshot should there be a problem. Expert support from WordPress experts usually available 7x24 $10-$300 per month