driftar’s Blog My journey to Shifter Karl Widmer @widmerkarl www.driftar.ch

Agenda 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch • Who am I… • Why WordPress? • My website’s journey until today • Why Shifter?

Agenda 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch • Who am I… • Why WordPress? • My website’s journey until today • Why Shifter?

Agenda 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch • Who am I… • Why WordPress? • My website’s journey until today • Why Shifter?

Agenda 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch • Who am I… • Why WordPress? • My website’s journey until today • Why Shifter?

Who am I… 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

Who am I… Tl;dr - Job • Working in IT • Specialized in virtualization • Broad general IT knowledge • Working for a company… • …specialized in surface technologies • 15’000+ employees world wide • Responsible for data center & cloud Tl; dr – Hobbies • Firefighter • Voluntary service in my home town • Reading • Science fiction, war stories • Books about technology • Blogging • Primarily about technology / IT • Coffee lover! 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

Why WordPress? 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

Why WordPress? To be honest, I just wanted to start with a website somehow. I’m not a programmer, nor did I understand much about content management systems and all that stuff. I stumbled across WordPress and tried it. Easy as that. WordPress… • …is easy to set up • …is easy to configure • …is easy to use • ..is flexible • …is extensible • …doesn’t need much (of everything) 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

My website’s journey until today 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

A digital nomad… 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

First steps on AWS • Found documents back from 2011… • Built a small environment on AWS EMEA • First steps with Bitnami • Easy to deploy 1-2-3 WordPress • All self-managed • EC2 / S3 / CloudFront / Route53 • First experience with WordPress • Website not «in production», only for fun and playing with technology • Somewhen I moved away from AWS… 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

…and moved to Vexxhost • Migrated to Vexxhost, Canada • Searching for a hoster specialized in WordPress hosting • Searching for more speed • My website was now «in production» • New experience, some managed services • But still all under my own control • Not very happy with the speed at the end • Somewhen I moved away from Vexxhost… 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

…and moved again, to SiteGround • Hosting company based in UK • Closer to my location • Still searching for more performance • Searching for specialized WordPress hosting • My website is still «in production» • Some managed services, but huge level of self-management • First experience with Cloudflare • DNS • CDN • Protection • I moved away from here as well… 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

…and landed at Shifter! 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

Why Shifter? 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

Why Shifter? It all started on Twitter… • People talking about their blogs • Is it better to have dynamic or static content? • Talking about performance of each kind of content That made me think about having a static WordPress site and searched for hosting companies. But is that even possible with PHP and MySQL? It is! Finally, with Shifter, I’ve found a company that was capable of having a static WordPress site! 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

Why Shifter? • Quick and easy onboarding • Nice people working there! • They helped me a lot during migration and normal operations as well • Fairly priced • Great out-of-the-box features • Integrated CDN • Secure by design • Automated core updates • Automatic scaling, no servers needed 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch

Why Shifter? • Speed! • Static content loads faster than dynamic content • WordPress • My favorite CMS • Easy handling • Start and stop WordPress at any time • Use it as you would use it everywhere • But there are «but’s» • Forms and comment function with external services 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear

Thank you. Feel free to reach out to me by mail or Twitter. @widmerkarl [email protected] 20.05.2020 driftar's Blog - www.driftar.ch