I’d been thinking of moving my hosting and domains under AWS or Amazon Web Store for some time now, so why you ask? To be fair my last hosting was sound, it did what it needed to do. Serve web pages to the Internet and not give me too much hassle.
I’ve not been one for doing the ready built hosting packages like godaddy.com and wix.com. I’ve always veered to a manual approach with hosting, sorting out my domains and configuring the majority of things myself. I think this comes from an inquisitive mind but also in the spirit of learning.
Since I first heard of AWS I thought I should really check it out and see what all the fuss is. I have to say, its pretty impressive, albeit with a bit of a steep learning curve. If you’re a newbie to website administration and design then prepare for a ride if this is something yo’re thinking of doing. You’ll need to know about domains, DNS entries, A records, CNames, Linux (if choose as the server), IP addresses, changing nameservers, transferring domains, the list goes on. On top of the usual networking and webbie stuff, you then have to get your head around which AWS services you need. I’ve installed an instance of a WordPress multi-site so chose to use Lightsail. As I’ve got a couple of different domains on a Multi-site, I’ve had to configure DNS zones in Route53. To be fair you have to do this with a standard WordPress install, but I’ve had to get my head around different domains on a multi-site.
Why all of this unnecessary hassle?
I know what you’re asking, “Why put yourself through all of this unnecessary hassle?“. For me it’s personal progression it’s Lifelong learning, it’s not becoming stagnant with my skill set. Work in education and you know this too well. You watch with envious eyes as the world of the private sector moves much faster with technology than you do. Working as a one man, technology expert army you also find support at a premium, and at times you find yourself learning old technologies. Not on purpose, but because you find yourself searching the Internet for how-to’s and that’s what you come across. Something I found out all to well when implementing a SharePoint install on my own as a company wide Intranet solution, having never done it before I was implementing older tech when the world had moved to 365. That was a rough ride!
Lifelong Learning underpins strength of mind
Apart from the obvious of having to educate myself on all of this, how do you tie all of this to learning? During my degree, I was always exploring the boundaries of what I trying to do. If I had a module assignment, I would go straight to the marking criteria and look at what gained me a 1st (70%), that was always my personal minimum target. Once I knew what I needed, I pushed over and above to secure it. Doing so made sure I had room for manoeuvre, and in my mind s where the real learning and exploration takes place. Doing this makes you a stronger learner, it means when the going gets tough and you need to dig in because something isn’t going to plan, you have gained the skill-sets and mental strength to know that with patience and determination you will succeed.
Want to know more about the migration to AWS?
Contact me to find out more. Blog posts will be coming.