Moving of the things
For a while, I have been unhappy with my blog. I don’t know if it’s just me being picky or what. I have gone back and looked at some of the posts, and I am very disappointed in myself for “creating” such … drivel. Anyway, that’s not the focus of this post. One of the bigger things I have been frustrated with is having my blog hosted on a shared VPS. So a few months ago, I decided I would migrate this blog to AWS.
What an adventure
Originally I thought I could just do a lift and shift-type operation. Not the case. Nope, not even close. There’s something to be said for hosted environments. What I have learned is, AWS is a black hole of possibility and cost. If you can dream up, and afford it, there is almost nothing you can’t build in AWS.
Some of the things I learned
- I learned how to install Wordpress several times, which Lightsail makes really easy.
- Setting up DNS can be cumbersome and challenging if networks aren’t your thing
- There’s no built-in mail support, so you have to have a plan for that
- Getting the CDN to work correctly is hard
- You better be patient and good with googling, because there is no easy answer
I can’t complain too much, it’s been interesting to learn. I’m still not sure I have it totally correct, so I guess I’ll be making tweaks done the road.
Things I hadn’t planned on while moving my blog
- So in the process, I severely blew up the theme which led me to starting over from scratch.
- I also destroyed the media gallery, so I’ll have to go back and edit posts.
- I culled the plugins
- I had to push through not giving up
- I have lots of clean up to do
To say this was humbling is an understatement.