Month: December 2022

Categories
DevOps & Infrastructure

Migrating amazonwebshark To SiteGround

BlogMigration

In this post, I examine the process of migrating amazonwebshark to SiteGround and give an overview of the processes involved.

Table of Contents

Introduction

When I started amazonwebshark I had to make some infrastructure decisions. I registered the domain name with Amazon Route 53, and then needed to choose a blog hosting platform.

In December 2021 I took advantage of a Bluehost offer and paid £31.90 for their Basic WordPress Hosting package. This included a variety of services including:

My Bluehost renewal came through earlier this month, priced at £107.76. I’ve had great service from Bluehost and have no complaints, but that price was quite a leap. So, before I accepted it, I decided to do some research and see what my alternatives were.

Hosting Alternatives

In this section, I go through the results of my research into alternative hosting platforms.

Amazon Lightsail

I started by looking at Amazon Lightsail. Essentially, Lightsail is a simplified way of deploying AWS services like EC2, EBS and Elastic Load Balancing.

Lightsail pricing differs from most AWS services. Instead of the common Pay-As-You-Go pricing model, Lightsail has set monthly pricing. For example, a Linux server with similar memory, processing and storage to my Bluehost server currently costs $3.50 a month.

There is an important difference though. While Bluehost has teams of people responsible for tasks like server maintenance, database recovery, hard disk failures and security patches, with Lightsail the infrastructure would become my responsibility. I would save money over Bluehost, but at the cost of doing my own systems admin.

And the above list isn’t even exhaustive! It doesn’t include the setup and maintenance of services like CDN, SSL certificates and email accounts, all of which come with their own extra requirements and costs.

At this point, Bluehost was still on top.

SiteGround

SiteGround is in the same business as Bluehost. It offers a variety of hosting solutions for an array of use cases and has good standing in the industry.

SiteGround also had a great Black Friday offer this year! It was offering pretty much the same deal as Bluehost at £1.99 a month:

2022 11 25 SitegroundOfferScroll

This is INSANELY cheap, especially considering how much all this infrastructure costs to run!

SiteGround has also developed a free WordPress plugin to automate migrations from other hosting platforms. While this isn’t unique to them, a combination of good reviews, extensive services, low hassle and a great price was more than enough to get me on board.

Migrate What Exactly?

Before continuing, I thought it best to go into a bit of detail about what exactly is being migrated. I’ve mentioned servers, databases and domains, but what gets moved where? And why?

Well, because I’m moving things around on the Internet, I need to talk about the Domain Name System (DNS).

Wait! Come back!

Explain DNS Like I’m 5

What follows is a very simple introduction to DNS. There’s far more to DNS than this, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.

Let’s say I want to phone The Shark Trust. I can’t type “The Shark Trust” into my handset – I need their phone number. So I open my phone book, turn to the S section and find The Shark Trust. Next to this entry is a phone number: 01752 672008. I type that number into the handset and get through to their office.

DNS is like the Internet’s phone book. Websites are held on servers, and the ‘phone numbers’ for those servers are IP addresses. When I request a website like amazonwebshark.com, my web browser needs to know the IP address for the server holding the site’s data, for example 34.91.95.18.

Explain DNS With Pictures

This WebDeasy diagram show DNS at a high level:

WebDeasy: How the Domain Name System (DNS) works – Basics

When a URL is entered into a web browser, a query is sent to a DNS server. Using the phone book analogy, the web browser is asking the DNS server for the amazonwebshark.com phone number.

DNS servers don’t have any IP addresses, but they know which ‘phone book’ to look in. These ‘phone books’ are called name servers. The DNS server finds and contacts the right name server, which matches the amazonwebshark.com domain name to an IP address.

The DNS server then returns this IP address to the web browser, which uses it to contact the server hosting the amazonwebshark.com resources.

In the diagram, the DNS-Server represents Route 53. Route 53 holds DNS records for the amazonwebshark.com domain name, and knows where to find the name servers that have the amazonwebshark.com IP address.

The webdeasy.de server represents the Bluehost name servers. These servers can answer a variety of DNS queries, and are considered the ground truth for initial site visits and browser caching.

amazonwebshark’s DNS Setup

At the start of December 2022 the amazonwebshark.com domain name was hosted by Route 53, with an NS record pointing at the Bluehost name servers:

2022 12 02 Route53Bluehost

The basic infrastructure looked like this, with outbound requests in blue and inbound responses in green:

2022 12 27 amazonwebsharkDNSdiagram

And that’s it! To further explore DNS core concepts, this DNSimple comic is well worth a read and this Fireship video gives a solid, if a little more technical, account:

Data Migration

In this section, I start migrating my amazonwebshark data from Bluehost to SiteGround.

SiteGround has an automated migrator plugin that copies existing WordPress sites from other hosting platforms. And it’s very good! The process boils down to:

The process can also be seen in this Avada video:

The plugin copies all the amazonwebshark server files, scripts and database objects in a process that takes about five minutes. SiteGround then provides a temporary URL for testing and performance checks:

2022 12 02 SiteGroundMigratonComplete

After completely migrating amazonwebshark to SiteGround, the next step involves telling the amazonwebshark domain where to find the new server. Time for some DNS!

DNS Migration

In this section, I update the amazonwebshark DNS records with the SiteGround name servers.

I repointed the existing amazonwebshark NS record from Bluehost to SiteGround by updating the values in Route 53 from this:

2022 12 02 Route53Bluehost

To this:

2022 12 02 Route53SiteGround

My change then needed to propagate through the Internet. Internet Service Providers update their records at different rates, so changes can take up to 72 hours to complete worldwide.

Free DNS checking tools like WhatIsMyDNS can perform global checks on a domain name’s IP address and DNS record information. The check below was done after around 30 hours, by which time most of the servers were returning SiteGround IPs:

2022 12 06 DNSPropagationCheck

Any Problems?

First, the good news. There was no downtime while migrating amazonwebshark to SiteGround! During the migration, DNS queries were resolved by either Bluehost’s or SiteGround’s name servers. Both platforms had amazonwebshark data, so both could answer DNS queries.

Additionally, as I set a change freeze on amazonwebshark until the migration was over, there was no lost or orphaned content.

I did lose some WPStatistics hit statistics data though. There is no data for December 03 and December 04:

2022 12 18 WPStatisticsHits

This was my fault. The DNS propagation took longer than it should have because of a misunderstanding on my part!

So why was data lost? WPStatistics stores data in tables in the site’s MySQL database. When I first migrated my data on December 02, the Bluehost and SiteGround tables were the same. After that point, Bluehost continued to serve amazonwebshark until December 05, and wrote its statistics in the Bluehost MySQL tables.

It was only after I corrected my DNS mistake that SiteGround could start serving content and writing statistics on the SiteGround MySQL tables. So SiteGround didn’t record anything for December 03 and December 04, and as no additional data migration was done the statistics that Bluehost recorded never made it to the SiteGround tables.

I can recover this if I want to though. I took a full backup of my Bluehost data before ending the contract. That included a full backup of the Bluehost MySQL database with the WPStatistics tables. I’ll take a look at the tables at some point, see how the data is arranged and decide from there.

Future Plans

I’m considering moving amazonwebshark to a serverless architecture in 2023. While the migration was a success, servers still have inherent problems:

  • Servers can break or go offline.
  • They can be hacked.
  • They can be over or under-provisioned.

Serverless infrastructure could remove those pain points. I don’t use any WordPress enterprise features, and amazonwebshark could exist very well as an event-driven static website. Tools like Hugo and Jekyll are designed for the job and documented well, and people like Kendra Little and Chrissy LeMaire have successfully transitioned their blogs to serverless infrastructures.

The biggest challenge here isn’t architectural. If I moved to a serverless architecture, I would want something similar to the Yoast SEO analysis plugin. This plugin has really helped me improve my posts, and by extension has made them more enjoyable to write.

I’ve seen lots of serverless tooling for migrating resources and serving content, but not so much for SEO guidance and proofreading. Any amazonwebshark serverless migration would be contingent on finding something decent along these lines. After all, if the blog becomes a pain to write for then what’s the point?

Summary

In this post, I examined the process of migrating amazonwebshark to SiteGround and gave an overview of the processes involved.

I’m very happy with how things went overall! The heavy lifting was done for me, both companies were open and professional throughout and what could have been a daunting process was made very simple!

If this post has been useful, please feel free to follow me on the following platforms for future updates:

Thanks for reading ~~^~~

Categories
Me

YearCompass 2022-2023

2022 12 YearCompass20222023

In this post, I use the free YearCompass booklet to reflect on 2022 and to plan some professional goals for 2023.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. Life moves fast! The idea that goals set on a given day will still be relevant in six or three months (or sometimes even one!) should be taken with a pinch of salt. Especially after working in technology for a while!

I prefer to not wait. My attitudes towards forward planning are best summed up by these quotes:

The best time to write a story is yesterday. The next best time is today.

R. A. Lafferty

The best time to do something significant is between yesterday and tomorrow.

Zig Ziglar

Enter YearCompass – a free tool for reflection and planning. I first heard about YearCompass from Brent Ozar:

I put it on my calendar for December and, well, here it is.

Additionally, on December 1st Paul Randal of SQLSkills posted an offer of mentorship. Paul wants to see a blog post from interested parties, which overlaps with YearCompass pretty well.

With this post, I can meet both goals at the same time. Whichever choice Paul makes, I’ll have a strong list of 2023 goals that I can refer to in the new year.

Let’s start by examining YearCompass.

YearCompass

From the YearCompass site:

YearCompass is a free booklet that helps you reflect on the year and plan the next one. With a set of carefully selected questions and exercises, YearCompass helps you uncover your own patterns and design the ideal year for yourself.

YearCompass.com

YearCompass started as a reflection tool for a small group of friends and was made publicly available in 2012. It is available as an A4 and A5 PDF, with options to fill out the booklet both digitally and by hand. YearCompass is currently available in 52 languages.

YearCompass positions itself as an alternative to New Year’s Resolutions. Each PDF has two sections. The first half examines the previous year and the second half considers the next one.

Each section consists of a series of prompts and questions. These guide the user through the reflection process and help them identify their priorities and plan for the future.

Some of the questions are:

  • What are you most proud of?
  • Who are the three people who influenced you the most?
  • What does the year ahead of you look like?

While prompts include:

  • List your three biggest challenges from last year.
  • This year, I will be bravest when…
  • I want to achieve these three things the most.

There are no hard and fast rules for completing YearCompass. The book suggests a break between sections, although some prefer to do the whole thing in one sitting.

Personally, I dedicated an hour to each section on separate days, then went back to it for the rest of the week as I remembered other things. This helped a lot with the sections I struggled on.

YearCompass 2023 Goals

In this section, I examine my 2023 professional goals from my YearCompass booklet.

Confidence Building & Anxiety Management

One of the reasons I started amazonwebshark was in response to the imposter syndrome I felt after becoming a Data Engineer in 2021. In the first half of 2022 I got the balance wrong, as what I was posting wasn’t really improving me as a Data Engineer. This ended up fueling the very anxiety I was trying to control!

My recent projects and posts have boosted my confidence and improved my data skills. I’ve been able to apply learnings from here to my working role, and have tried things here that have increased my fluency with our current codebase.

In 2023 I want to continue this momentum. I have some ideas for future projects that will flex my creativity, focus my development and further boost my confidence such as:

I also have subscriptions for A Cloud Guru and DataCamp, and want to explore those sites more next year. I’m going to have a proper think about prioritisation over Christmas, and will get some peer advice when I have some ideas.

Collaborating & Communicating

In the first few months of 2022, my confidence and anxiety issues led to slips in my communication and teamwork. I found it hard to ask for help and struggled to articulate myself, and was in a bad place for a while.

Thankfully I was about to get some help and turn this around over Summer. Although I’m still mixing things up when I talk at the moment, I’ve been about to bolster my communication skills and increase my value within my team.

If 2022 was about repair, then I want 2023 to be about strengthening. I have more Data Engineering knowledge than I did a year ago, and feel like my finger is more on the pulse at work now. I want to continue to add value to and bring resilience and agility to the projects we are responsible for.

Knowledge Sharing & Presenting

This year I’ve learned about a range of languages, tools and methodologies as part of my role. I’ve also earned the AWS Certified Developer Associate certification and the Microsoft SC-900 and AI-900 certifications, so I’ve improved my knowledge of topics like development, deployment, security, monitoring and machine learning.

While all this knowledge is great, it’s no good if it just stays in my head! On the back of boosting my confidence skills and bolstering my communication skills, I want to improve my knowledge-sharing and presentation skills.

I want to link my knowledge-sharing efforts to my efforts to improve my confidence and communication. Opportunities to apply my knowledge and skills at work are frequent, and being able to give knowledgeable, confident and persuasive suggestions and feedback will help both me and my team create value and meet our goals.

I also want to improve my presentation skills. We have regular departmental meetings that encourage lightning talks, and having presented twice this year I now feel that I have some good foundations to build on. I want to get more competent at presenting, with long-term ambitions to speak at a user group or community event when my confidence allows!

Summary

In this post, I used the free YearCompass booklet to reflect on 2022 and to plan some professional goals for 2023.

On reflection, my YearCompass 2023 goals relate to each other pretty well. Improving my communication skills and anxiety management will make it easier to collaborate and will help me present better. Improving my confidence will help me become more influential and persuasive, and I will feel more comfortable when sharing knowledge.

If this post has been useful, please feel free to follow me on the following platforms for future updates:

Thanks for reading ~~^~~