Need guidance: Architecture for cPanel WHM & WHMCS hosting service provider

Question

Hello Sirs;

**Scenario:** I am seeking to establish a small web hosting company for local customers. Advertising would be just by word of mouth. There might be 10 to 12 customers at or after the start.

**Question 1:**  Which architecture (1. or 2. below) is best if I am just getting started with i). just a small hosting service ii). but with plans to expand in the future?

1. one server only; a virtual private server with a localhost database for customers and storage on the same server; or
2. separate a). server b). databases c). image storage; a virtual private server plus a relational database service (RDS) plus  an S3 bucket for image storage

**Question 2:** If I start with a single VPS and host the databases and image storage on the same VPS what level of difficulty would present itself if I later sought to separate the hosting platform into a VPS plus a separate RDS plus a separate S3 bucket?

I would appreciate suggestions and feedback on my questions above.

Thank you in advance.

Answer

Hi, the most (cost-) efficient way to start such a web site is to use Amazon LightSail: https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/

It's a managed solution where most of the "heavyweight lifting" (deployment, patching, monitoring)  is done for  you by AWS. You can focus more on the dev of your website itself.

And you can switch to native EC2if at some point you want to take the full thing back under your control: 
From FAQ https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/features/
```
Upgrade to EC2
As your cloud ideas expand, you can easily move to EC2 with a simple, guided 
experience. With this feature, Lightsail offers you the comfort of knowing that 
as you grow your website or application we can help you scale in a way that fits 
your needs.

Upgrading is simple, you’ll take a snapshot of your instance and follow the 
step-by-step process in the Lightsail console to export your snapshot to EC2. 
You can then use the Upgrade to EC2 wizard to get your new EC2 instance up
 and running.
```

Best,

Didier

Need guidance: Architecture for cPanel WHM & WHMCS hosting service provider

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