Easy Steps to Build Highly Available WordPress with Amazon Lightsail

Introduction

Amazon Lightsail is like a VPS, which combines the power of AWS resources like storage, memory, database, and low-cost plans for users. It offers a robust API that makes the deployment and integration of applications much easier. It provides better privacy and security from the other servers. With a single click, we can launch our application or website.

In Amazon Lightsail, there is no need to worry about unexpected monthly bills. We have desired monthly instance plans to launch an application, we can also add more storage to the plan if needed in the future. With a monthly fixed plan, we can have control over the cost of resources.

Amazon Lightsail comes with operating systems and applications. Some of the operating systems are Amazon Linux, Ubuntu, Debian, and Pre-configured applications that are available including WordPress, Drupal, Magneto, etc.

Amazon Lightsail has flexible computing power. Amazon Lightsail instances can be upgraded or downgraded because of the migration facilities between instances. As per the need, it can start growing and increasing its computing power by upgrading its RAM and storage.

When it comes to static IPs and DNS configuration it was never easy to set up these, but Lightsail provides a “Networking” tab from where you can create static IP and you can configure custom domains to your static IP, and It provides managed database to your instance. In the Managed database, automatic backup and scaling options are also available.

About Virtual Private Server (VPS)

VPS is a virtual private server, which can host our website or applications with pre-configured applications like WordPress, Django, Magneto, etc.

VPS is chosen by the website owner who has a medium level of traffic to the website. It works using virtualization technology where one physical server is divided into multiple independent virtual servers. It is the next level of shared server and less expensive than the dedicated server. If the user can’t afford a dedicated server, then the best choice for the user is AWS Lightsail. For example, VPS is like creating a partition in a computer or laptop and running the multi-operating system on a single PC.
In VPS we have managed and unmanaged services:
In managed service, the cloud provider takes care of the security, data backup, installation, configuration changes, patch management or we can say infrastructure that is needed for an application or set of jobs we can execute on VPS, and it is managed by the cloud provider. A managed VPS helps clients to focus on their delivery instead of managing the hosting.

In unmanaged service, the VPS provider shares the hosting service, we need to manage all the tasks like installation, data backup, and updating the software.

Amazon Lightsail Top Features

• It is a virtual private server, where we can create a virtual server and delete it after use.
• It offers to customize your application with its own OS platforms like Windows or Linux.
• We can create managed database with one click for data storage.
• We have buckets to store objects and disk storage for volumes.
• To protect the information, lightsail offers snapshots.
• It provides simplified load balancing where traffic can be redirected to multiple instances.

The Pricing model of Amazon Lightsail

Pricing for Linux/UNIX

Pricing for Windows

Step by Step Guide to Create Amazon Lightsail

Step 1:  Open the AWS console and type lightsail in the search bar.

Step 2: After selecting the resource, the Amazon Lightsail home page will appear.

Step 3: Click on “Create Instance” and select the Location and Availability zone.

Step 4: Next pick an image and select the OS platform and blueprint.

Step 5: Create a keypair for the instance, by selecting create key pair.

Step 6: Check the box to enable automatic backup and choose a time for daily backup schedule.

Step 7: Select the desired plan. This can be customized depending on memory, processing, storage and and transfer. 

Step 8: To identify the instance, enter your resource with a unique name and click on create instance.

Step 9: It will take a few minutes to create the instance.

Conclusion

Amazon Lightsail offers a scalable, cloud computing capacity. It offers developers everything to start their app/website or jobs they want to run without worrying about managing infrastructure.
Today you learned about Amazon Lightsail and how to create one. If you have any queries regarding AWS Lightsail, WordPress creation, or other AWS services, kindly drop a comment below and I will get back to you at the earliest possible.

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FAQs

Q1: What can I do with Amazon Lightsail?

• Easy to deploy and manage the application or website with one click.

• Suitable for small-scale applications with a simple interface.

• The main use case is for running websites, web applications, blogs, and e-commerce sites.

Q2: What happens to my certificate when I delete my load balancer?

Your certificate also gets deleted. If you need to use a certificate for the same domain, you need to request and validate a new certificate.

WRITTEN BY Ankith Pokala