Meet John

John had a very bad day at work. 

As a diligent web administrator at an enterprise organization, it’s his day-to-day responsibility to help keep their flagship website online and performant.

John started his day of website administration the way he started every day: with an arduous manual backup. But this morning, John hit a snag. The backup process encountered an error, leaving him with an incomplete and unreliable set of backups. He worried about the potential risk of data loss, and dreaded the thought of troubleshooting the issue on top of all the other day’s demands.

Preparing for the worst: securing an enterprise application

Then things took a turn for the worse. 

A sophisticated cyber attack targeted the organization’s application, exploiting a vulnerability in outdated software deployed on the site. John had missed an upgrade as he struggled to maintain the litany of software and integrations associated with the organization’s site. 

As a result, malicious actors could alter the website, tarnishing the organization’s brand reputation with crude and offensive content injected all over the site. 

The organization’s leaders were understandably frustrated as confused and upset customers began discovering malicious content and raised a chorus of concerns online. 

The importance of support in website administration

John found himself in a race against time to contain the security incident, mitigate the impact, and patch the vulnerability to prevent further damage.

John sent a flurry of tickets into his content management system provider’s support portal. But representatives were slow to understand the problem and propose workable solutions. Worse, John had little access to proper documentation or training that might have helped him head off the issue. 

Low security leads to high costs

It took hours of troubleshooting and outside consultation with security experts to identify the breach’s attack vector and replace the outdated software with a new integration. 

Because of the morning’s backup errors, John had to rollback to an outdated deployment of the site to remove the malicious content, losing important customer data stored in the website’s database in the process. 

John worked well into the evening to put out as many fires as he could. Exhausted, he reflected on the cascade of issues that had unfolded. 

He acknowledged the need for a comprehensive review of the incident, an overhaul of backup procedures, and a renewed commitment to stay ahead of emerging security threats. The day sorely tested John’s resilience and expertise, highlighting the unpredictable nature of managing an enterprise website in the ever-evolving landscape of IT and website administration.

Meet John’s friend, Jane

John got coffee the following morning with a former IT colleague, Jane, currently administering a website hosted on WordPress VIP. She was in very good spirits as they discussed their experiences at their respective organizations the day before. 

In Jane’s role as a web administrator, she has a passion for ensuring the seamless operation of her enterprise organization’s WordPress website. 

Jane has control over her day through the WordPress VIP Dashboard

Jane’s day kicked off on the WordPress VIP Dashboard, where she reviewed logs and audited health and performance for all her organization’s websites. In her role, she’s charged with keeping her organization’s applications secure and performant. WordPress VIP makes it easy to identify irregularities and get in touch with a knowledgeable support team to resolve them.

Per usual, nothing was out of place. With peace of mind, Jane continued throughout her day knowing WordPress VIP takes the most arduous maintenance tasks off her plate.

Easy database backups mean easy website administration

Following the morning audits, Jane reported to her executive team about a critical aspect of website administration: backups and recovery. Knowing that she’d receive an alert from WordPress VIP should any anomalies occur in the data shipped, Jane confidently assured leadership that the organization’s websites were prepped with complete and up-to-date backups. 

Further, Jane had configured data backups to automatically ship at an hourly cadence to comply with internal security policy. End result? The executive team were satisfied, confident a full backup was regularly in place to ensure site continuity.

Ensuring secure enterprise websites with vulnerability scanning

Security is always at the forefront of Jane’s mind. So she took proactive measures to protect the organization’s WordPress site by reviewing the plugins panel in the VIP Dashboard. 

Because WordPress VIP automatically scans for potential vulnerabilities, Jane quickly reviewed a plugin update that needed testing. She easily merged the new plugin update to one of their testing applications, confirming the update was successful before rolling it out to production. Based on this short workflow, Jane knew there wasn’t outdated software deployed on the site that could serve as an attack surface for malignant actors. 

Additionally, she trusted WordPress VIP to communicate if a new and critical security vulnerability was discovered and her site affected. WordPress VIP helped Jane accomplish the crucial daily aspects of her role quickly and efficiently, giving her the freedom to spend the rest of her time innovating ways to evolve and optimize her organization’s websites for future business growth. 

Reducing burdens on IT and website administration

Finishing his coffee, John felt a twinge of envy as he listened to Jane’s recounting of her previous day. John’s organization wasn’t on WordPress VIP. He didn’t enjoy the same easy database backups, meticulous auditing and logging, and robust security features. 

Steeling himself for another long day dealing with security checks and site optimizations, John resolved to get in touch with WordPress VIP, hoping he, too, could one day enjoy a good day at work. And many more.