Advantages of Migrating from Hosting Services to Cloud Infrastructure

In this article, we summarize the advantages of migrating from a traditional hosting service to a cloud environment based on our real experience migrating to AWS.

Table of Contents

Advantages of Cloud Infrastructure (AWS)

There are several advantages to using a cloud environment, including the following:

Scalability – Resources such as CPU, memory, and storage can be increased or decreased depending on demand.
High availability – Cloud infrastructure can be designed with redundancy to reduce the risk of downtime.
Flexible resource management – Servers, storage, and networking can be configured and managed more easily.
Cost efficiency – Many cloud services use a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing you to pay only for the resources you actually use.
Improved performance – Cloud providers offer various instance types and global infrastructure that can help improve application performance.
Automation and infrastructure as code – Infrastructure can be managed using automated deployment tools and configuration management systems.
Access to advanced services – Cloud platforms provide additional services such as managed databases, monitoring tools, and AI-related services.

After migrating from a traditional hosting service to a cloud environment, we gained the following benefits:

Improved WordPress page load performance
Greater flexibility for server customization
Lower operating costs compared to traditional hosting services
The ability to monitor server resource usage
More advanced and granular security settings

Hosting services share server resources with other users

Hosting services provide WordPress environments that are built on servers where resources are shared with other users. In many cases, the servers are configured to provide reasonably optimized performance for each user. However, the server configuration is not necessarily tailored to your specific needs.

In cloud environments such as AWS, you can configure servers exactly the way you want and build the infrastructure that best fits your requirements.

By migrating from a hosting service to a cloud environment, we were able to research and design a server setup optimized for WordPress and build the environment that works best for our needs on AWS.

Building an Optimized Server Environment on AWS

We used the following AWS services to build our server environment:

EC2
S3
CloudFront
CloudWatch
Other related services

What is EC2?

EC2 is a service that allows you to launch virtual machines (virtual servers) on AWS.
With EC2, you create a virtual server called an instance and configure it to run your applications.

In our case, we launched an EC2 instance and built a LAMP environment in order to run WordPress.

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2

What is S3?

S3 is a cloud storage service available on AWS that works like external storage for storing data. It is designed to store and retrieve files in a simple and scalable way.

In our setup, images uploaded to WordPress on the EC2 server are stored in S3. We then use CloudFront, AWS’s CDN service, to deliver these images efficiently and optimize the overall WordPress environment.

https://aws.amazon.com/s3

Knowledge Required to Migrate from Hosting Services to the Cloud

To migrate from a hosting service to a cloud environment using your own technical knowledge, it is necessary to understand the following technologies:

Linux
MariaDB or MySQL
NGINX (or Apache)
PHP
Other technologies related to WordPress

To migrate from a hosting service to a cloud environment using your own technical knowledge, it is necessary to understand the following technologies:

Linux
MariaDB or MySQL
NGINX (or Apache)
PHP
Other technologies related to WordPress

Steps to Migrate from a Hosting Service to AWS

Migration from a hosting service to AWS can be carried out using the following steps:

Transfer domain management from the hosting service to AWS
Launch an EC2 instance on AWS
Migrate WordPress data from the hosting service to AWS
Perform other necessary configuration and setup tasks

Domain Transfer from a Hosting Service to AWS

To transfer domain management from a hosting service to AWS, you need to complete procedures on both sides: the hosting service and AWS. On the AWS side, the transfer process is performed using Route 53.

For detailed instructions, refer to the following AWS documentation.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/domain-transfer-to-route-53.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/Route53/latest/DeveloperGuide/domain-transfer.html

Launch an EC2 instance on AWS

Using AWS EC2, we launch an instance (virtual server).

Set Up an Environment to Run WordPress on EC2

You set up an EC2 instance environment optimized for WordPress. Specifically, this involves using NGINX instead of Apache, MariaDB instead of MySQL, and storing WordPress media files in S3 while using CloudFront to cache them, improving page load speeds.

Migrating WordPress Data from a Hosting Service to AWS

Next, the WordPress data is migrated from the hosting service to AWS. This includes transferring the database, media files, and other necessary WordPress files to the new server environment.

Additional Configuration and Setup

After the migration, monitoring tools such as CloudWatch are configured so that the server can be operated and maintained efficiently.

Things to Consider When Migrating to the Cloud

We have summarized important considerations when migrating from a hosting service to AWS in the following article.

Key Considerations When Migrating from a Hosting Service to the Cloud

Conclusion