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Guidance for Launching a Simple Ecommerce Website with WordPress on AWS

Quickly launch an ecommerce website with your own domain name using WordPress and WooCommerce

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Overview

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.

How it works

These technical details feature an architecture diagram to illustrate how to effectively use this solution. The architecture diagram shows the key components and their interactions, providing an overview of the architecture's structure and functionality step-by-step.

Download the architecture diagram

Well-Architected Pillars

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.

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.

Read the Operational Excellence whitepaper 

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.

Read the Security whitepaper 

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.

Read the Reliability whitepaper 

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.

Read the Performance Efficiency whitepaper 

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.

Read the Cost Optimization whitepaper 

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.

Read the Sustainability whitepaper 

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.

Open implementation guide

Open sample code on GitHub

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.