Quickly launch an ecommerce website with your own domain name using WordPress and WooCommerce
This Guidance helps customers set up an ecommerce website on WordPress. It includes optional AWS services that can augment their website backup and security applications. Small and medium-sized businesses and partners can use this architecture to quickly launch a WordPress website with ecommerce and analytics capabilities, without having to delve into complex coding or configuration. The website is deployed on Amazon Lightsail with standard, predictable pricing per month.
Architecture Diagram
Step 1
Website content is served through an Amazon CloudFront instance hosted in Amazon Lightsail.
Step 2
All resources are managed in Lightsail, including compute and storage.
Step 3
WordPress Administrator credentials are created, stored and retrieved from AWS Secrets Manager.
Step 4
Custom domains and secure socket layer (SSL) can be configured in Lightsail and the customer’s domain registrar.
Step 5
WordPress plugins (WooCommerce, Elementor, and website usage analytics) are automatically installed and activated in the customer’s WordPress instance.
Step 6
Your website instance is now created. You can log in to the website with the user name and password that you provided in Step 3.
Well-Architected Pillars
The AWS Well-Architected Framework helps you understand the pros and cons of the decisions you make when building systems in the cloud. The six pillars of the Framework allow you to learn architectural best practices for designing and operating reliable, secure, efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable systems. Using the AWS Well-Architected Tool, available at no charge in the AWS Management Console, you can review your workloads against these best practices by answering a set of questions for each pillar.
The architecture diagram above is an example of a Solution created with Well-Architected best practices in mind. To be fully Well-Architected, you should follow as many Well-Architected best practices as possible.
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Operational Excellence
This solution automates provisioning of an ecommerce website on Lightsail. With a few clicks, you can start building a WordPress website on Lightsail, with WooCommerce as an ecommerce plugin, and use AWS global virtual technology to get up and running in a few minutes. With optional monitoring, you can anticipate potential spikes and make changes proactively to avoid failures.
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Security
The solution uses Amazon CloudFront, which provides DDoS protection by caching requests on the Amazon global content delivery network. Repeated requests are served from the edge, which limits the computational load on the origin WordPress server.
Additionally, the solution uses SSL that enables HTTPS, thereby securing end-to-end web traffic and data.
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Reliability
The solution is built on Lightsail, which is available in several Availability Zones in 14 Regions around the world. Availability Zones are collections of data centers that run on physically distinct, independent infrastructure, and are engineered to be highly reliable.
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Performance Efficiency
Lightsail enables content delivery network (CDN) distributions using CloudFront. This allows for easy distribution of website content to a global audience by setting up proxy servers across the world. Your users across the globe can access your website geographically closer to them, reducing latency.
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Cost Optimization
With Lightsail, you pay a low, predictable price. Lightsail bundles resources such as memory, vCPU, and solid-state drive (SSD) storage into one plan, so budgeting is predictable. All Lightsail plans include static IP addresses, domain name system (DNS) management, one-click secure shell protocol (SSH) terminal access (Linux/Unix), one-click Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access (Windows), and server monitoring.
Data transfer of 2TB is included within Lightsail pricing for the small instance, making it ideal for small and medium businesses.
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Sustainability
By choosing the right sized instances, you use only the resources you need, thereby reducing unnecessary emissions. By using services with dynamic scaling, you minimize the environmental impact of the backend services, and ensure scaling of compute resources based on your website needs.
Implementation Resources
A detailed guide is provided to experiment and use within your AWS account. Each stage of building the Guidance, including deployment, usage, and cleanup, is examined to prepare it for deployment.
The sample code is a starting point. It is industry validated, prescriptive but not definitive, and a peek under the hood to help you begin.
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Disclaimer
The sample code; software libraries; command line tools; proofs of concept; templates; or other related technology (including any of the foregoing that are provided by our personnel) is provided to you as AWS Content under the AWS Customer Agreement, or the relevant written agreement between you and AWS (whichever applies). You should not use this AWS Content in your production accounts, or on production or other critical data. You are responsible for testing, securing, and optimizing the AWS Content, such as sample code, as appropriate for production grade use based on your specific quality control practices and standards. Deploying AWS Content may incur AWS charges for creating or using AWS chargeable resources, such as running Amazon EC2 instances or using Amazon S3 storage.
References to third-party services or organizations in this Guidance do not imply an endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation between Amazon or AWS and the third party. Guidance from AWS is a technical starting point, and you can customize your integration with third-party services when you deploy the architecture.