Dedicated Plesk architecture for e-commerce PrestaShop on Hetzner

The Challenge: An E-commerce PrestaShop Under Pressure

The client company, an emerging name in the Italian online retail scene, was experiencing rapid expansion. However, their pre-existing IT infrastructure, which was no longer adequate, was struggling to keep up. This was resulting in a number of critical issues that were undermining growth and customer satisfaction:

• Difficulty in Ensuring Uptime During Promotional Events: Crucial periods such as Black Friday, seasonal sales, or the launch of new collections were putting a strain on the system. The previous infrastructure, likely based on shared solutions or undersized VPS, would collapse under the weight of traffic spikes, causing downtime, loss of direct sales, and significant damage to brand reputation. Frustrated users abandoned the shopping cart, and marketing opportunities were thwarted.
• High and Unpredictable Maintenance Costs: Managing the legacy infrastructure had become a bottomless pit. Frequent manual interventions, reactive rather than proactive troubleshooting, and the need to continually "patch" the system generated high operational costs that were difficult to predict. There was a lack of strategic infrastructure vision, with internal IT resources often overloaded.
• Difficult Use by Developers: The development team struggled with an inflexible and cumbersome environment. Deployments were slow and error-prone, consistent staging environments were lacking, and integrating new features was a long and frustrating process. This inefficiency slowed innovation and the ability to respond quickly to market needs.

These challenges were not simply technical glitches, but tangible obstacles to the company's growth and profitability.

The Goals: Toward Superior Performance, Reliability and Agility

In close collaboration with the client's technical and business leaders (CTO, IT Managers), we defined clear, measurable and ambitious goals for the new infrastructure project:

1. Increase Traffic Handling Capacity by 300% During Peaks: The infrastructure had to be able to fluidly handle at least three times the volume of simultaneous users than before, especially during the most intense promotional campaigns, ensuring a seamless browsing and shopping experience.
2. Improve Page Load Time by 50%: Dramatically reduce latency to improve User Experience (UX), SEO ranking (Core Web Vitals) and, consequently, conversion rate. Faster pages mean more satisfied customers and more sales.

In addition to these primary targets, the project implicitly aimed to:

• Improve Overall Uptime: Aim for an uptime SLO (service level objective or performance goal for service), of 99.9% or better.
• Optimize Operating Costs: Reduce extraordinary maintenance costs and improve management efficiency.
• Increase Development Team Agility: Provide a more modern, standardized and easy-to-use environment for deployments and code management.
• Strengthen Overall Security: Protect customer data and platform integrity.

The Solution: Designing A Dedicated PrestaShop Ecommerce Architecture Made to Measure.

To meet these challenges and achieve the goals, I designed and implemented a robust, scalable and securededicated PrestaShop ecommerce architecture based on Hetzner infrastructure and strategically orchestrated.

The architecture, as illustrated in the diagram, consists of the following key components:

1. Foundations: Hetzner Dedicated Server.

   Why Hetzner? Hetzner was chosen because of the excellent price/performance ratio of its dedicated servers, the reliability of its hardware, and the quality of its network connectivity in Europe. This guarantees computational resources (CPU, RAM, NVMe SSD) entirely dedicated to PrestaShop e-commerce, eliminating the "noisy neighbors" issues typical of shared environments.

2. Management and Application Core: Plesk Hosting Panel

   Why Plesk? Plesk was selected for its intuitive interface and powerful features that simplify Linux server administration, PrestaShop site management, databases, SSL certificates, and web server configurations. This reduced the learning curve for the client team and facilitated the implementation of DevOps practices.

   Optimized Technology Stack: Within Plesk, we configured a web stack optimized for PrestaShop:

   • Nginx as Reverse Proxy: To efficiently serve static content (images, CSS, JavaScript) and manage incoming connections, reducing the load on Apache.
   • Apache with PHP-FPM: For dynamic processing of PrestaShop's PHP code, ensuring performance and flexibility. PHP versions and PHP-FPM configurations have been finely tuned for PrestaShop's specific needs.

3. Performing Database: MySQL/MariaDB Optimized.

   PrestaShop relies heavily on the database. We have configured a MySQL server (or MariaDB, depending on specific preferences and compatibility) with targeted parameter optimizations (e.g., innodb_buffer_pool_size, query_cache_size) to maximize query speed and the ability to handle large numbers of transactions.

4. Perimeter Security and PrestaShop Performance Optimization: Cloudflare

   All traffic to e-commerce is routed through Cloudflare. This strategic choice offers multiple benefits:

   • DNS Management: Reliable and fast management of DNS records.
   • CDN (Content Delivery Network): Static content is distributed globally, reducing latency for end users and easing the load on the Hetzner server. This is crucial for PrestaShop performance optimization.
   • WAF (Web Application Firewall) and DDoS Protection: A robust shield against common attacks, SQL injection, XSS and Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
   • SSL/TLS Certificates: Free and simplified certificate management for HTTPS.

5. Reliable Communications: Outsourcing of Email Services.

   To ensure maximum deliverability and separate mail issues from the main web server:

   • Transactional Emails (Brevo ): All PrestaShop-generated emails (order confirmations, notifications, password recovery) are sent via Brevo (formerly Sendinblue), a specialized provider that ensures high delivery and tracking rates.
   • Email Users (Gmail - Google Workspace): Enterprise email accounts are managed through Google Workspace, leveraging its reliability, security and collaborative features. MX records are configured on Cloudflare accordingly.

6. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: Backup to Hetzner Storage Box.

   A robust backup strategy has been implemented, with automatic and regular backups of the entire server (site files and database) to a remote Hetzner Storage Box. This ensures the possibility of rapid recovery in the event of hardware failure or other catastrophic incidents.

7. Secure Access and Control:
   • Server-Side Firewall: An iptables firewall (via UFW) configured directly on the server allows only necessary traffic (SSH, HTTPS, ports for Plesk), blocking everything else.
   • SSHvia keys and fail2ban : SSH access has been configured for access via key, fail2ban actively checks logs for repetitive incorrect logins, eliminating the problem of brutefoce of passwords

This architecture, focused on the PrestaShop Hetzner combination, was the key to addressing performance and reliability challenges. The decision for a dedicated PrestaShop migration to this new infrastructure was thoughtful to minimize downtime by scheduling the transition during low-traffic maintenance windows.

The Implementation Process and DevOps Practices Adopted.

The project implementation followed a structured approach, integrating DevOps practices to ensure efficiency and quality:

1. Analysis and Design (Weeks 1-2):
   • In-depth audit of existing infrastructure and critical issues.
   • Detailed requirements gathering and definition of measurable objectives.
   • Design of target architecture (the one described above) and selection of technologies.
2. Server Provisioning and Configuration (Week 3):
   • Provisioning of the dedicated server on Hetzner.
   • Installation and configuration of the Linux operating system (Debian, optimized for performance and security).
   • Hardening of the operating system: disabling unnecessary services, fail2ban configuration, security updates.
   • Installation and configuration of Plesk Panel.
3. Application Environment Setup and Migration (Weeks 4-5):
   • Configuration of web environment (Nginx, Apache, PHP-FPM) and database (MySQL/MariaDB) using Plesk.
   • Dedicated PrestaShop Migration: Planning and execution of migration of site files and PrestaShop database from old environment to new server. Data consistency testing.
   • Configuration of external services: Cloudflare (DNS, CDN, WAF), Brevo for transactional email, Storage Box for backups.
4. Optimization and Testing (Week 6):
   • PrestaShop performance optimization: Fine-tuning of web server configurations, PHP, database. Activation and configuration of PrestaShop caches (e.g., Smarty cache, APCu).
   • Load testing (with Apache Bench, JMeter) to simulate expected traffic peaks and verify system resilience.
   • Full functional testing of e-commerce.
   • Security testing and vulnerability scan.
5. Go-Live and Initial Monitoring (Week 7):
   • Go-live window planning to minimize impact.
   • DNS switch to point to Cloudflare and then to the new server.
   • Intensive monitoring of performance, logs, and uptime in the first few hours/days post-launch. Implementation of alerts via Plesk and external tools (UptimeRobot, Icinga).

Integrated DevOps Practices:

• Infrastructure as Code (Principles): Although Plesk is a GUI, key configurations and setup scripts have been documented and versioned for reproducibility.
• Automation: Automation of backups, security updates (with caution and testing), and initial setup facilitated by Plesk.
• CI/CD Facilitated: The new infrastructure, with its stability and clarity of Plesk, made it easier for the client's development team to adopt future CI/CD pipelines for PrestaShop releases.
• Continuous Monitoring: In addition to initial monitoring, dashboards and alerts were set up to track key server (CPU, RAM, disk, network) and application metrics.

As Linux Administrator and Cloud Architect, my role was crucial in designing the cloud architecture and ensuring that the operating system was robust, secure, and performant, laying the foundation for the success of the entire architecture.

Tangible Results and Benefits Delivered: An E-commerce Transformed

The transition to the new dedicated PrestaShop ecommerce architecture produced outstanding results, exceeding client expectations:

• Increased Traffic Management Capability by +350%: During the first post-migration promotional event (a seasonal sale launch), the site handled 350% more simultaneous users than previous peaks, without any slowdown or downtime. This was verified through Google Analytics Real-Time and server logs.
• Average Page Load Time Reduced by 60%: Tests conducted with GTmetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights showed an average reduction in loading time of key pages (homepage, category pages, product pages) by 60%, from an average of 4.5 seconds to 1.8 seconds.
• Uptime Achieved of 99.98%: In the first 6 months post-migration, uptime recorded was 99.98%, a marked improvement over previous instability.
• Reduced Overtime Maintenance Costs by 70%: Due to the stability of the system and the ease of management through Plesk, reactive maintenance tasks and associated costs have plummeted.
• Improved DeveloperExperience: The client's development team reported a significant improvement in deployment efficiency and environment management, with a reduction in the time needed to release updates.
• Strengthened Security: No security incidents recorded post-migration, thanks to the combination of the server-side firewall, Cloudflare's protections, and hardening best practices.
• Improved Conversion Rate: Although not a primary goal tracked by me, the client reported a 15 percent increase in conversion rate in the following months, attributed in significant part to the improved UX and speed of the site.

These results demonstrate how targeted and competent infrastructure design can have a direct and positive impact on an e-commerce business.

Insight from the Project and Know-How

This project provided a significant opportunity to put my professional knowledge and skills to use. The experience proved to be formative and rewarding, allowing me to further solidify my skills in several crucial areas:

Professional Knowledge:

• The importance of a deep initial analysis to fully understand the client's needs and critical issues.
• The value of constant communication with the client during all phases of the project.
• The confirmation that seemingly "traditional" solutions such as dedicated servers, when well architected and integrated with modern cloud services, can offer performance and reliability for specific workloads such as PrestaShop.

Expertise:

• Cloud Architecture: Designing a performant and secure infrastructure, integrating on-premise (dedicated) and cloud (SaaS) services.
• DevOps Engineering: Implementation of practices for automation, monitoring and collaboration between development and operations, facilitated by the use of Plesk and custom scripts.
• Linux Systems Administration: Operating system hardening, kernel- and application-level performance optimization, advanced network services management.
• Problem Solving: Root cause analysis of previous infrastructure problems and development of effective solutions.
• Technical Project Management: Project planning, execution and monitoring, meeting timelines and objectives.
• PrestaShop Specialization: Understanding the specific hosting and performance needs of the PrestaShop platform.

Conclusion: Ready for Your Next Technology Challenge.

The success of this dedicated PrestaShop ecommerce architecture project on Hetzner demonstrates how a strategic and technically sound approach can transform a company's digital foundation, enabling growth and innovation. The combination of dedicated resources, intelligent management, and state-of-the-art cloud services provided the client with a stable, fast, and secure platform ready to meet future challenges.

If your company is facing similar challenges with its e-commerce infrastructure or needs specialized expertise in Cloud Architecture, DevOps or Linux Administration to optimize performance, improve reliability or modernize systems, I'm ready to hear from you. Contact me now: Free 30' Linux Consulting and Architectures.