ROI Media Works Server Upgrade
We’ve moved!
Servers that is. ROI Media Works has upgraded all of our hosted, managed, and future clients to Amazon Web Services. AWS is the king of cloud hosting, powering our favourite companies like Netflix and Expedia. AWS offer a tremendous scope of hosting options, giving us easy access to build the perfect platform to meet our high standard of speed. We’ve constructed our new environment on a dynamic resource system, meaning when you’re marketing campaign is roaring, our hosting will soar – your visitors will receive a fast experience and response.
What should I notice?
Speed. We aim to have our website admin panels as fast as local applications. We do this for you, and hey for us too. We’re working on your websites and your campaigns all day long – and we’re efficient, we do not tolerate latency – when you click, something should happen right away! Our new server is fast and that’s something we worked hard and invested in to create, maintain, and constantly improve.
For our current clients, your website’s login domain has changed. We’ve centralized our branding into a single focus and have updated our new server with this brand alignment. You will be redirect to our new login url for your website automatically: wordpress.roimediaworks.com. (We are no longer using roi.li or roicloud.systems domains for our WordPress networks. Don’t worry about updating your bookmarks, we’ll keep our redirects intact).
Besides speed, our new platform allows us to make valid SSL certificates at no extra cost. What’s SSL? It’s the little lock icon you see on your trusted sites, it makes your websites more secure, gives you a better reputation with Google, and helps form customer trust and assurance. We’ve enabled it by default for the admin panel and will be rolling out SSL certificates to existing clients on request. Check out our blog explaining SSL more here.
Our Stack
ROI Media Works websites are built on a Wordpress Network. (Just an update: WordPress is now powering 27% of the internet, it’s the most popular platform out there). This WordPress Network allows ROI to optimize your site and help it evolve with the ever-changing demands and standards of web technology and protocols. We secure, enhance, and maintain your site via top-rated third party plugins, and update our proprietary security and network plugins weekly. Below WordPress we keep your site running fast (like Usain Bolt fast) with the most up-to-date LAMP stack, and we secure your site further at server level with Let’s Encrypt, and a constantly updated WordPress-focused firewall on Apache. Take a look at our full server stack, and see what we have powering your site:
Why Move?
Our old host wasn’t bad, in fact, back in 2011 Media Temple was one of the leaders and trend setters in online hosting. MediaTemple was (and still is) costly (about double the standard price), but there was value. Unfortunately just before 2014, Media Temple sold out to GoDaddy, revealing one of their main business goals was being bought out. We do not support, use, or endorse GoDaddy whatsoever for a pile of reasons that list too long (and reads like a rant). In our opinion, if Walmart operated in the digital world, it would look alot like GoDaddy.
At the time of acquisition MediaTemple’s PR division ensured us they were running MediaTemple independently still, so we didn’t run away. However, as we crest on two and a half years later, we felt the “great support” had turned into “delayed and annoying sales support”, that their great service, had turned into normal service, and that their priorities are no longer aligned with what we expect of a top shelf hosting provider. Adding to the list, Media Temple depreciated our service on their platform: twisting our arm, forcing us to either do a mass migration with IP address changes, or be stuck with outdated software that we didn’t have access to upgrade. Basically, in our opinion, what made them them, had been bought out and dissipated.
As a resolve, we of course migrated – but not to their new platforms (and not to other “current leaders” in web hosting like 1&1 or Digital Ocean), we migrated to a full-system-admin company, one with such power, such financial backing, and such expert systems and solutions, that this wouldn’t happen to us again. AWS is our new home, and it’s not going anywhere.
What’s Next
We’ll be constantly updating this new server and platform. Having a centralized focus allows our server admin to constantly focus on making the engine behind your site as finely tuned as possible. We’ll be upgrading our DNS Servers and integrating a Content Delivery Network to make your website even faster, world-wide.