This is the first of our Product Update series that our product team will regularly roll out in the coming months. We have always been a customer-centric brand and most of the Platform features are the result of customers highlighting a need to add or enhance a feature.
November has been a busy week for our teams as we roll out several great features and incorporate some much-needed enhancements and improvements to the Platform.
This month, we introduced three important additions to our platform.
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Refreshed GCE Lineup
Google Compute Engine (GCE) has long been a favorite provider among users who value performance and scalability. In this update, we have brought more clarity to the way our users interact with GCE web hosting server options on the Server Launch screen.
Our users can now choose from Standard, Compute-Optimized, and High-CPU series. Within each series, users have the option to select between several server sizes. We believe that with this clearer classification, the users can better pick the series (and the combination of server resources) that best fit their project requirements.
With the refreshed offering, we hope that our users will have more clarity about the GCE server options and make informed decisions about the server package that caters to their present and future business requirements.
We have compiled detailed information about each series (complete with performance benchmarks) in this KB article. This article also contains step-by-step instructions for launching, scaling, and cloning your GCE servers.
Disable XMLRPC For WordPress Applications
XML Remote Procedure Calls used to be a developer-favorite feature for connecting WordPress applications with external sources. However, with the commonplace use of WordPress REST API, the use of XML RPC has declined because of the better versatility of the REST API.
Today, XML RPC is considered a security loophole in WordPress architecture and hackers can easily exploit it by targeting xmlrpc.php for Brute Force attacks. However, XML RPC is still supported by WordPress in order to maintain backward compatibility.
Because of the threat, our users can now disable XML RPC for their WordPress application by moving a toggle on the Application Setting screen (found under the Application Management side menu). Based on product adoption, we also plan to make this a default feature for all applications.
Read more about the threat posed by XML RPC and how to switch it off in this KB article.
Disk Cleanup Made Easy
Running out of disk space is not just a hassle – it has serious implications for the performance and continuity of your business operations. While our users can always upgrade to a bigger disk size, this is generally not the preferred option mainly because of budgetary concerns.
Servers and applications accumulate junk files that take up disk space. With our newly introducedDisk Clean Up feature, our users can easily remove unnecessary files that waste disk space and slow down application performance.
The feature can be accessed through the Optimization tab under the Settings & Packages screen (under Server Management Menu). This newly-introduced feature allows the users to remove files from common folders including logs, local backups, public_html, and temp.
The best part – the disk clean up process can be automated to be a regularly scheduled activity so that you always have ample disk space and do not have to worry about freeing up disk space manually.
This is a pretty comprehensive feature that allows users fine control over what they wish to retain or delete to make room for essential data. The detailed KB article highlights process automation and the options available to the users.
On a related note, users can see a clear breakdown of the disk space usage and identify the components that are taking up the disk space.
Final Words
We hope that you will find these additions and features helpful in managing your websites hosted with Cloudways. Do you have any suggestions for a new feature? You can add it to our Feedback Portal and we will see how (and when) we can accommodate your ideas!
Happy Hosting!
Owais Khan
Owais works as a Marketing Manager at Cloudways (managed hosting platform) where he focuses on growth, demand generation, and strategic partnerships. With more than a decade of experience in digital marketing and B2B, Owais prefers to build systems that help teams achieve their full potential.
