Western Mass Hosting's LEMP Articles

Home / LEMP / Page 2

High Performance Wordpress and Server - Part I - Server Setup

High Performance Wordpress and Server - Part I - Server Setup

I have successfully managed to get around a 1 second load time on my Wordpress site, While getting 250 concurrent users over a 1 minute test period. (Source: https://webpagetest.org/result/210128_Di26_15d11aa18013d1df9ebc867e1aa9c2f3/) This was done with a combination of items, stemming from the server install up to Wordpress theme development. Here is how…
Read More
Development Hosting LEMP Linux Security Server Management Software Source Code Ubuntu Wordpress bash nano nginx shell shell scripting speed up the web web hosting wordpres hosting wordpress wordpress performance

Choosing NGINX for growth with Wordpress

Do it Because They Do WordPress.com is the cloud version of WordPress that is hosted and supported by Automattic.WordPress.com serves more than 33 million sites attracting over 339 million people and 3.4 billion pages each month. Since April 2008, WordPress.com has experienced about 4.4 times growth in page views. WordPress.com VIP hosts many popular…
Read More
Hosting LEMP Linux nGinx Security Server Management Software Updates Wordpress hosting ngins speed up the web web hosting

Cookie Notice

This site utilizes cookies to improve your browsing experience, analyze the type of traffic we receive, and serve up proper content for you. If you wish to continue browsing, you must agree to allow us to set these cookies. If not, please visit another website.

Choosing NGINX for growth with Wordpress

Do it Because They Do

WordPress.com is the cloud version of WordPress that is hosted and supported by Automattic.WordPress.com serves more than 33 million sites attracting over 339 million people and 3.4 billion pages each month. Since April 2008, WordPress.com has experienced about 4.4 times growth in page views. WordPress.com VIP hosts many popular sites including CNN’s Political Ticker, NFL, Time Inc’s The Page, People Magazine’s Style Watch, corporate blogs for Flickr and KROQ, and many more. Automattic operates two thousand servers in twelve, globally distributed, data centers. WordPress.com customer data is instantly replicated between different locations to provide an extremely reliable and fast web experience for hundreds of millions of visitors.

Problem

WordPress.com, which began in 2005, started on shared hosting, much like all of the WordPress.org sites. It was soon moved to a single dedicated server and then to two servers. In late 2005, WordPress.com opened to the public and by early 2006 had expanded to four web servers, with traffic being distributed using round robin DNS. Soon thereafter WordPress.com expanded to a second data center and then to a third. It quickly became apparent that round robin DNS wasn’t a viable long-term solution.While hardware appliances like F5 BIG-IP’s offered many features that WordPress.com required, Automattic decided to evaluate different options built on existing open source software. Using open source software on commodity hardware provides the ultimate level of flexibility and also comes with a cost savings

“Purchasing a pair of capable hardware appliances in a failover configuration for a single datacenter may be a little expensive, but purchasing and servicing 10 sets for 10 data centers soon becomes very expensive.”

At first, the WordPress.com team chose Pound as a software load balancer because of its ease of use and built-in SSL support. After using Pound for about two years, WordPress.com required additional functionality and scalability, namely:

  • On-the-fly reconfiguration capabilities, without interrupting live traffic.
  • Better health check mechanisms, allowing to smoothly and gradually recover from a backend failure, without overloading application infrastructure with unexpected load of requests.
  • Better scalability both requests per second, and the number of concurrent connections. Pound’s thread-based model wasn’t able to reliably handle over 1,000 requests per second per load balancing instance.

Solution

In April 2008 Automattic converted all WordPress.com load balancers from Pound to NGINX. Before that Automattic engineers had been using NGINX for Gravatar for a few months and were impressed by its performance and scalability, so moving WordPress.com over was the natural next step. Before switching WordPress.com to NGINX, Automattic evaluated several other products, including HAProxy, and LVS. Here are some of the reasons why NGINX was chosen:

  • Easy, flexible and logical configuration.
  • Ability to reconfigure and upgrade NGINX instances on-the-fly, without dropping user requests.
  • Application request routing via FastCGI, uwsgi or SCGI protocols; NGINX can also serve static content directly from storage for additional performance optimization.
  • The only software tested that was capable of reliably handling over 10,000 request per second of live traffic to WordPress applications from a single server.
  • NGINX’s memory and CPU footprints are minimal, and predictable. After switching to NGINX the CPU usage on the load balancing servers dropped three times.

Today in 2012, WordPress.com is serving an average of 70,000 req/sec and over 15 Gbit/sec of traffic from its 36 NGINX powered load balancers, with plenty of room to grow. Most of NGINX load balancers serve about 5,000 req/sec, sometimes peaking to 20,000 req/s, and have about 50,000 established connections. Typical hardware configuration is Dual Xeon 5620 8 core CPUs with hyper-threading, 8-12GB of RAM, running Debian Linux 6.0. As part of high availability setup WordPress.com previously used Wackamole/Spread but has recently started to migrate to Keepalived. Even distribution of inbound requests across NGINX-based web acceleration and load balancing layer is based on DNS round-robin mechanism.Following a successful deployment of NGINX as web acceleration, load balancing and traffic management solution, WordPress.com recently completed migration from Litespeed to NGINX across all application backend servers.NGINX combined with the FastCGI Process Manager (FPM) for PHP allows greater control, easier configuration, and no additional maintenance overhead for the 5-member Automattic Systems Team.

Our Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 18th, 2025

Introduction

Western Mass Hosting (“we,” “our,” or “us”) respects the privacy of all individuals and organizations that interact with our services. This Privacy Policy establishes our practices regarding the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of personal information for visitors to our website and clients utilizing our managed hosting and WordPress services. By accessing our website or engaging our services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this policy in its entirety.

Scope and Applicability

This Privacy Policy governs our handling of information collected through our corporate website and in the course of providing managed hosting, WordPress maintenance, and development services. In accordance with global privacy regulations, we serve as a Data Controller for information related to our business operations and client relationships. When processing data on behalf of our clients through hosted services, we act as a Data Processor under applicable data protection laws.

Information We Collect

We collect various categories of information necessary to provide and improve our services. This includes personal contact and payment details provided during account registration, technical information such as IP addresses and device characteristics for security purposes, and records of communications through support channels. For clients utilizing our hosting services, we may process end-user data stored within client websites, though we do not control or monitor the collection practices of such data.

Purpose and Legal Basis for Processing

We process personal information only when we have proper justification under applicable laws. The primary legal bases for our processing activities include the necessity to fulfill contractual obligations to our clients, our legitimate business interests in maintaining and improving our services, and in limited cases, explicit consent for specific marketing communications. We maintain detailed records of processing activities to demonstrate compliance with legal requirements.

Use of Collected Information

The information we collect serves multiple business purposes. Primarily, we use this data to deliver and maintain reliable hosting services, including server provisioning, performance monitoring, and technical support. We also utilize information for business operations such as billing, customer relationship management, and service improvement initiatives. Security represents another critical use case, where we analyze data to detect and prevent fraudulent activity or unauthorized access to our systems.

Data Sharing and Third-Party Disclosures

We engage with carefully selected third-party service providers to support our operations, including cloud infrastructure providers, payment processors, and customer support platforms. These relationships are governed by strict contractual agreements that mandate appropriate data protection measures. We may disclose information when legally required to comply with court orders, government requests, or to protect our legal rights and the security of our services.

International Data Transfers

As a global service provider, we may transfer and process data in various locations worldwide. When transferring personal data originating from the European Economic Area or other regulated jurisdictions, we implement appropriate safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses and rely on adequacy decisions where applicable. Our subprocessors, including AWS Lightsail, maintain robust compliance certifications to ensure the protection of transferred data.

Data Retention Practices

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this policy. Client account information is typically maintained for five years following service termination to comply with legal and financial reporting obligations. Backup data associated with hosting services is automatically purged after thirty days, as specified in our Terms of Service. For data processed on behalf of clients, retention periods are determined by the respective client’s policies and instructions.

Security Measures

We implement comprehensive technical and organizational security measures to protect personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, or destruction. Our security program includes network encryption protocols, regular vulnerability assessments, strict access controls, and employee training on data protection best practices. We maintain incident response procedures to address potential security breaches and will notify affected parties where required by law.

Individual Rights

Individuals whose personal data we process may exercise certain rights under applicable privacy laws. These rights may include requesting access to their information, seeking correction of inaccurate data, requesting deletion under specific circumstances, and objecting to particular processing activities. We have established procedures to handle such requests in accordance with legal requirements, typically responding within thirty days of receipt. Requests should be submitted to our designated Data Protection Officer through the contact information provided in this policy.

Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website employs various technologies to enhance user experience and analyze site performance. Essential cookies are used for basic functionality and security purposes, while analytics cookies help us understand how visitors interact with our site. Marketing cookies are only deployed with explicit user consent. Visitors can manage cookie preferences through their browser settings or our cookie consent tool.

Policy Updates and Notifications

We periodically review and update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices or legal obligations. Material changes will be communicated to affected clients through email notifications at least thirty days prior to implementation. Continued use of our services following such notifications constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

Contact Information

For questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer at info@westernmasshosting.com or by mail at:

Western Mass Hosting
22 Orlando. St.,
Feeding Hills, MA 01030.

We take all privacy-related inquiries seriously and will respond promptly to legitimate requests. For clients with specific data processing agreements, please reference your contract for any additional terms that may apply to our handling of your data.