Overview

A personal project I built in my free time to retain and expand my DevOps and platform engineering knowledge. The platform runs on a heavy WordPress stack featuring BuddyBoss Platform, LearnDash, and Elementor Pro plugins known for their resource intensity. I built a production-ready infrastructure with automated deployment pipelines, multi-tier caching, and performance optimizations to keep my skills sharp while exploring modern tooling and practices.

Tech Stack

Backend & Application

  • PHP 8.3
  • WordPress 6.8.3
  • MariaDB 11.2
  • WP-CLI
  • BuddyBoss Platform Pro
  • LearnDash LMS
  • Elementor Pro

Infrastructure & DevOps

  • Docker & Docker Compose
  • Nginx
  • GitHub Actions
  • Ansible Playbooks
  • Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
  • DigitalOcean

Performance & Caching

  • OPcache
  • Redis(Object Cache)
  • Nginx FastCGI Cache

Security & Monitoring

  • New Relic Infra and PHP Agent
  • New Relic Logging and Alerts
  • UFW Firewall/Fail2ban
  • SSL/TLS Encryption
  • Automated Backups
  • Health Checks

Architecture

The infrastructure spans four environments: local development with Docker Compose, and three deployed environments (dev, staging, production) on DigitalOcean managed by Ansible. GitHub Actions handles automated CI/CD with branch-based deployments. Cloudflare sits at the edge for DNS and CDN, while the origin server runs Nginx, PHP-FPM, MariaDB, and Redis.

Infrastructure provisioning is fully automated with Ansible playbooks. A single playbook handles all environments by loading environment-specific variables, deploying the full stack (Nginx, PHP, MariaDB, Redis), configuring SSL certificates, and setting up security measures. This reduces deployment time and eliminates manual configuration errors.

Implementation, Challenges & Solutions

Key challenges I addressed while building the deployment pipeline, infrastructure automation, and performance optimizations for this resource-heavy WordPress stack.

1. Deployment Inefficiency

The Challenge
  • Manual FTP deployments introduced human error and inconsistency
  • File overwrites occurred without coordination between developers
  • Production failures had no audit trail to identify what changed or when
  • Rollback procedures were slow and unreliable
The Solution
  • Built automated CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions
  • Implemented branch-based deployment routing (dev, staging, production)
  • Established Git-based version control with complete change history

Benefits:

  • Eliminated all deployment errors caused by manual processes
  • Established full audit trail of changes with commit history
  • Enabled instant rollbacks through version control
  • Reduced deployment time by 90%

2. Inconsistent Environment Behavior

The Challenge
  • Code functioned correctly locally but failed in production
  • Development environments ran different PHP and database versions than production
  • Environment parity could not be guaranteed across dev, staging, and production
  • Local testing produced unreliable results
The Solution
  • Containerized the entire stack with Docker
  • Enforced identical PHP and database versions across all environments
  • Implemented Docker Compose for consistent local development

Benefits:

  • Eliminated environment-specific bugs entirely
  • Reduced debugging time
  • Established reliable local testing that accurately represents production behavior

3. Performance During Traffic Spikes in Load Tests

The Challenge
  • Server failures occurred during traffic spikes
  • Database received excessive repetitive queries
  • PHP recompiled identical content on every page load
  • Site performance degraded under load
The Solution
  • Cloudflare edge caching to serve static assets from geographically distributed nodes
  • Nginx FastCGI cache to serve pre-rendered HTML, bypassing PHP and database
  • Redis object cache to store database query results in memory

Benefits:

  • Reduced database queries by 70%
  • Improved page load times by 60%
  • Enabled stable performance during traffic spikes
  • Eliminated database-related performance bottlenecks

4. Testing on Stale Data

The Challenge
  • Production bugs could not be reproduced in development or staging
  • Test environments contained outdated data from months prior
  • Stale datasets failed to represent actual production conditions
  • Debugging required guesswork due to unrealistic test data
The Solution
  • Built automated data synchronization script
  • Implemented on-demand production data pulls
  • Automated sanitization of sensitive information (PII, payment data)
  • Established refresh process for development and staging environments

Benefits:

  • Reduced troubleshooting time by 50% through accurate bug reproduction
  • Maintained data compliance by sanitizing sensitive information
  • Enabled realistic feature testing against production-like scenarios

5. Runnin Without Monitoring

The Challenge
  • Site outages were only detected through user reports
  • Server resource usage and performance metrics were invisible
  • Resource exhaustion could not be predicted before occurrence
  • Issues escalated to full outages before detection
The Solution
  • Deployed New Relic for comprehensive application and infrastructure monitoring
  • Configured alerts at 80% thresholds for CPU, memory, and disk usage
  • Implemented slow query tracking for database performance analysis
  • Established error tracking with transaction-level debugging data
  • Built real-time metrics dashboard for proactive monitoring

Benefits:

  • Prevented multiple outages by detecting resource issues before failure
  • Reduced mean time to resolution through immediate issue identification
  • Transitioned from reactive incident response to proactive monitoring

6. WordPress, Themes, and Plugin Update Pitfalls

The Challenge
  • Admin dashboard updates introduced breaking changes without testing
  • Update history was not tracked or documented
  • Untested updates broke plugin compatibility in production
  • Premium plugins lacked consistent version tracking and deployment
The Solution
  • Built JSON package manifest as the single source of truth
  • Defined all package versions in a Git-tracked manifest file
  • Automated installation of exact versions through CI/CD pipeline
  • Established version-controlled update management with full history

Benefits:

  • Eliminated accidental updates and version conflicts
  • Established complete audit trail of package changes
  • Enabled safe update testing in staging before production deployment
  • Simplified rollbacks to Git commit reverts

Results & Impact

90%
Reduction in manual deployment work
70%
Reduction in database queries via Redis caching
60%
Faster page loads with multi-layer caching
<300ms
Average server response time achieved
Zero
Downtime during automated deployments

Overall Achievement: Transformed a standard WordPress installation into an enterprise-grade platform capable of handling high traffic with sub-second page loads, and zero-downtime deployments while maintaining security best practices and developer productivity.

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