A WordPress stack is a server that has been built from the ground up for one purpose only: To host a WordPress website in the leanest, meanest, most efficient and fastest manner possible.
Our WordPress Power Stack packages use a combination of technologies all optimised and focussed on host a single WordPress website.
The technologies used include:
- Wordpress optimized Nginx.
- Server side WordPress caching using Redis.
- Wordpress focussed database config using MariaDB.
- PHP-FPM customised for an optimised WordPress installation.
- A Firewall stack to keep everything secure.
Furthermore all of the typical additional technologies that are typically pre-installed with a hosting server operating are never installed. The stack's resources are all used only for making WordPress work, fast.
For example there is no control panel on our WordPress Power Stack installations. Resources are all dedicated to your website performance and security.
Specialist hosting companies will build their own customised server stacks.
We tested many different stack configurations in real world applications (websites) before deciding on our WordPress stack. Decision making included the maturity of the technologies in play, absolute leanest and meanest config to make full use of resources, server side caching technologies yet tied in with a "clear cache" button in the WordPress dashboard, and security and backup options. The packages cater for only one website per stack so the installed WordPress site is not battling for resources with other websites running on the instance.
The stack is very lean so you will not find cpanel or any other control panel hogging up resources. For this reason we only offer our WordPress Power Stack as a fully managed service. You can still install and update plugins and develop the website however there is no access to the server. If you need cpanel or another control panel our Wordpress Power Stack is not for you! Talk to us as we can customise a cpanel VPS for you or offer you an unmanaged VPS or Cloud instance with the control panel of your choice.
What do you mean by a "managed" server?
A server is a virtual computer. It behaves very much like a Dedicated Web Server. (A dedicated web server in this context is a big computer that is used for hosting many websites.)
With a dedicated web server a systems administrator needs to configure it so that it displays websites efficiently, fast, and to many people all over the world.
However there is not only performance and load to consider but also security!! All dedicated web servers, VPS and instances that are connected to the internet are under constant attack, not only from "the Russians" but from "the Chinese", "the Americans" and, well, the "the whole hacker world"!
If one looks at the logs of any web server, even if it has been connected to the internet only for a few minutes, attacks begin to appear from everywhere by "bots". These bots are a little bit like those nasty flying robots in the movie "The Matrix" in that they just keep coming and coming. As a system administrator one needs to identify these bots and swat them away, all the while letting legitimate website viewers in and delivering them the goods! (The web pages, images and other media) The system administrator also needs to let "good bots" through i.e. the Google Bot that frequently comes along to appraise a website and decide where and how it will be ranked in the Google search engine.
"Bad bots" will try and sneak though cracks in the armour of the server. If the bots get in they can cause havoc, steal data, send spam, and take over the server, sometimes secretly, and nearly always for nefarious purposes! So a system administrator must manage the server, in this case a cloud server, to ensure that the bad bots and bad actors can't break in! This means keeping software and security frameworks, firewalls etc up to date!
System administrators, usually in tandem with the Network Operation Centre (NOC), must also have methods to deal with "Denial of Service (DOS) attacks". These attacks are when a bad actor decides to swarm a server with thousands of bots all at once causing a server to fall to its knees and stop working.
Another important system administrator task is to maintain rolling backups of the server. These backups are critically important! If a cloud server instance fails for any reason, be it because of some type of attack, a mistake from a website programmer, or because of a computer hardware failure it can be a miserable situation. But with a selection of backups to choose from a system administrator can bring up an entire cloud server instance (and all attached website/s) in a short time.
With a computerjazz.net Managed Cloud Server all of these tasks are something that you don't need to think about. With two decades of server administration we will make sure that your cloud server continues to do what it is supposed to do: deliver your website pages and content reliably and quickly. If anything at all goes wrong the cloud server can be restored in a short amount of time. Backup restorations are not expected but are sometimes required. When they are needed it is usually a mission critical function: "Everything is broken. Nothing works!! Do you have a backup?"
"Yes, indeed we do!"
A well managed cloud server is a very powerful platform that can be used to reliably host enterprise websites for the long term.
