Transfer WordPress to Amazon Web Service AWS in Australia

Each client is unique. We review for an allocation of time and a single price, considering domain management or transfer, email setups, the build and transfer of the website, as well as “tier” – e.g. for individuals or business. A good reference is one to three days of work at $250 (no GST) per day or about $35 per hour. You would provide login access to key services such as email, hosting, SSL certificate provider and domain registrar. All existing work is backed up. We need ability to create the DNS CAA record for SSL certificates. If this is not possible, we transfer to another registrar.

Often I discover a client’s existing web service has let something slip through the floor boards – understandable. For example, emails need DMARC authentication which often goes missing, including absent configurations on major exchanges such as MS Exchange. Or, a service accepts email that takes too long to send and receive. I check the completeness of each project, which may be extra time at my expense as I CAP the costs and care about my clients having what I understand as the best. Transfers are not vulnerable to unknowns and price variations, but as an example of variation, if a WordPress site was never updated over five years, it is likely it needs to be updated and modified before using new software and current security.

New work uses an Amazon “snapshot” for disaster recovery. I provide automated crontab shell scripts to make database and file backups to a secure, low cost Amazon S3 (cloud) storage, added security configurations for the server, country blocking as agreed, and automated monitoring on the server. Your Amazon system is reviewed for security updates, or major upgrades as price and frequency of maintenance is agreed with you. All services may be transferred to another party at any time, or sunset if required. There are no issues on who owns what and when.

More complex configurations such as a different server for the database, balanced/distributed load, RAID disk are not supported on the sizing and types of web services indicated here. There is no support for builds on Amazon Lightsail, only transfers away.

Depending on situation, Akamai/Linode Debian 12 x86 architecture builds are an option. Whilst I know how to configure LightSPeed, I now only use Nginx, or sometimes Apache2 (or Amazon httpd). I have experience rebuilding from legacy systems, or installing out-of-date systems due to coding dependencies. I am able to build standard services in VentraIP Australia with cPanel if that is a preference. All systems require email as part of the end-2-end solution that we design.

Amazon pricing is “On Demand” – what you use is what you pay, with an annual discount option on hardware. Pricing is converted by Amazon from USD to AUD inc. GST.

A typical price (as at November 2024) is AUD $11 per month plus annual discounted hardware fee of AUD $95, a total of $230. Without the annual fee, an additional $13.20 per month, for a total of $290. The pricing became higher in 2024, as Amazon now charges for the use of your dedicated static IP4 address. Your server is located in Australia. Servers outside Australia have data security concerns, and handshakes between the user on their browser and the overseas server may be unacceptable to performance analysis and Google Search Engine. E.g., why would you handshake from Canada? There are no commonly accepted and enforced industry best practices and standards around web services. Using Amazon means you control the services on an Enterprise data center platform with strong internal regulations and practices.

By comparison, one provider only recently added a VPS service at $300 per year with servers outside of Australia. A shared cPanel service is $275, which in my experience will be impacted when adding multiple domains or subdomains – the fix would be next level up at $360 per year. For years I have worked on 3rd Party providers’ platforms and am fully aware of the types of problems that arise, even on VPS services. Here are some experiences – a typhoon hits another country, and no services or support is available at that critical time. A provider places the WordPress database on another server, even in another country, which doubles the risk for point of failure – typically unable to establish a connection as a common error.  A provider simply removes a service with no regard to the work it took you to build the service. A provider moves your service to different hardware (even older) without notifying you. A provider markets almost 100% uptime, but the reality is not the case, and there are no metrics and penalties to ensure uptime. A provider lets down their guard during maintenance, a virus infects your website and causes it to be shut down. Help Desk support is superficial, and not provided for critical situations. Some providers in my experience have tried to lock people into their service, such as making it near impossible to install your own SSL certificates. Some have blocked users from configuring adequate PHP values required by WordPress such as memory.  All of these frustrations are removed with Amazon AWS services, and VentraIP cPanel services.