Hosting Provider

I chose to use Amazon Web Services for the Domain Name Registration and Hosting of this website. Amazon offers hundreds of web services. One thing I notices is that Amazon will have its own term for a common service.

I previously experimented with Virtual Private Servers from other companies in the past. What I liked about Virtual Private Servers is the fact you have close to complete control of the Server. In Amazon, they branded their Virtual Private Server as LightSail.

I chose to use the custom Linux and WordPress Bitnami Package. It has built in software to easily generate self-signing certificates (TSL/SSL) that automatically renew on its own.  Normally if you use a Linux Server you have to install Linux, Apache, MySQL, & PHP before you can install WordPress. After that you have to also install self-signing certificate generator and configure Apache. The initial setup took longer than expected. I initially had to keep recreating the Virtual Private Server and relinking the IP address and Domain Name Server settings. It seemed like there was a specific order it had to be done or else it would simply not work. The install directories are slightly different with Bitnami but you still have the same functionality as a normal Linux System. One thing you really can’t do is change the Kernel. The Kernel is specifically designed to run as a Virtual Private Server.