Over the past few weeks, VJWP has undergone a number of behind-the-scenes updates that should streamline our workflows and improve our processes.

First, we moved our servers from Digital Ocean to Amazon Web Services. I started the first iteration of VJWP using an Omeka installation on a LAMP server, and I found Digital Ocean’s platform to be easy for a beginner who didn’t know much about creating and maintaining web servers. Digital Ocean also has quite a bit of documentation online, which I found very useful when I first set up the project. But Digital Ocean charges a flat rate per server instance, and I enjoy experimenting with servers and testing configurations and settings out on ad hoc development servers. Amazon has a pay-per-use model, and that makes a lot more sense for digital humanities projects like VJWP and it allows for experimentation across multiple instances without committing to a flat-rate fee for each individual server.

I also decided I wanted to switch from an Apache server to an NGINX server. VJWP is a static site, and it’s typically the case that NGINX is faster for static sites while Apache is faster for dynamic content. My guess was that the difference would probably be pretty marginal, but I wanted to experiment anyway since I’ve only ever used Apache for my projects. In the couple of days that the NGINX version of VJWP has been live, users have reported noticeably faster loading speeds. Many of our pages load large image files or PDFs, so I’m pleased that the experience has improved. Setting up the NGINX configurations for the site seemed to be a little less intuitive than setting up similar configurations for the Apache version, but that’s probably just because I’m very comfortable with Apache now and have less experience with NGINX.

Finally, since we moved to AWS, I decided to experiment with Amazon Linux 2023. Previously, the site was on an Ubuntu server, but I’m using more RHEL-based servers at work (and I use Fedora at home), so I was interested in seeing how AL2023 works. So far I’m enjoying it, and I like how it’s closer to the RHEL-based servers I’m using more in my day job.

Most of these details are probably irrelevant to the average VJWP user (except hopefully the NGINX load speed), but it’s been a fun process. Now it’s time to refocus on catalog updates and posting more author biographies.