TECHNICAL WALKTHROUGHS

Infrastructure Engineering Scenarios

Example scenarios that explain common infrastructure problems and possible approaches. They are not client endorsements or promised results; outcomes depend on each environment and agreed scope.

Performance Tuning Architecture Breakdown

High-Concurrency WordPress Database Locking & 504 Timeout Remediation

The Challenge

A digital media publisher experienced recurring 504 Gateway Timeouts and extreme CPU load spikes on MariaDB during breaking news traffic surges.

The Environment

Dedicated Bare-Metal Server (64GB RAM, 16 vCPUs, NVMe Storage, AlmaLinux 9, Nginx + PHP-FPM 8.2).

Diagnostic Assessment:

Analysis of MySQL slow query logs revealed that default WP-Cron was firing on every request, triggering concurrent transient updates that locked the wp_options table.

Implementation Workflow:

1. Disabled WP-Cron and scheduled a 5-minute Linux system cron via WP-CLI. 2. Configured Redis with maxmemory 4GB and allkeys-lru eviction policy. 3. Increased MariaDB innodb_buffer_pool_size from 8GB to 40GB.

Expected Considerations:

This approach is intended to reduce request contention and improve query latency. Validate the effect with before-and-after application and database measurements.

Technologies Used: AlmaLinux 9 MariaDB 10.11 Redis 7 Nginx PHP-FPM WP-CLI

Server Migration Architecture Breakdown

Multi-Terabyte cPanel Fleet Migration to KVM Cloud Nodes

The Challenge

A regional hosting provider needed to decommission aging bare-metal servers and migrate 320+ active shared hosting accounts (1.8TB of data) without dropping client emails or web traffic.

The Environment

Source: Legacy CentOS 7 Dedicated Servers. Target: Modern AlmaLinux 9 KVM Nodes running WHM.

Diagnostic Assessment:

Direct bulk migration during business hours would cause massive network saturation and DNS TTL caching errors for client email spools.

Implementation Workflow:

1. Staged initial user data and databases in background over 48 hours. 2. Lowered DNS TTL across all zones to 5 minutes. 3. Executed final differential sync and switched IP routing during a 30-minute off-peak window.

Expected Considerations:

A staged transfer with a final delta sync can limit the cutover window. Confirm mail flow, DNS resolution, application behavior, and data integrity before retiring the source.

Technologies Used: cPanel/WHM AlmaLinux 9 rsync WHM Transfer Tool BIND DNS Clusters

Cloud Ops Architecture Breakdown

AWS EC2 Storage Exhaustion & Automated Snapshot Disaster Recovery Architecture

The Challenge

An e-commerce SaaS platform experienced frequent unmonitored EBS storage fill-ups causing transactional database crashes and had no verified offsite recovery strategy.

The Environment

AWS EC2 instances (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS), EBS gp3 volumes, Nginx, Node.js API backend, PostgreSQL 15.

Diagnostic Assessment:

Log rotation was failing for application stdout logs, and manual EBS snapshotting was inconsistent, creating an unquantifiable RPO risk.

Implementation Workflow:

1. Configured Unified CloudWatch agent to report disk percentage every 60 seconds. 2. Expanded root EBS volume to 200GB live without rebooting using growpart and resize2fs. 3. Enforced automated daily cross-region AWS Backup snapshot retention.

Expected Considerations:

Monitoring and automated snapshots can reduce the risk of storage-related outages. Confirm recovery objectives with scheduled restore tests and documented retention policies.

Technologies Used: AWS EC2 AWS EBS gp3 AWS CloudWatch AWS Backup PostgreSQL 15 Ubuntu Server

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