Hey there, welcome back to Cloudways, your go-to platform for hassle-free web hosting solutions. We’re all about making web hosting easier so you can grow your business faster. I’m Shahzeb Ahmed, Community Manager at Cloudways, and in this video, I’ll be showing you powerful Cloudways features you can use with just one click. This includes scaling servers, creating a staging environment, cloning servers and much more. So let’s get into it. Scalability Scalability Let’s start with vertically scaling servers Let’s say your website is getting a lot of traffic and you need more server resources to ensure great performance. Cloudways has an easy and intuitive slider that enables you to vertically scale your server with just one click. Whether you’re using DigitalOcean, Google Cloud or Amazon Web Services, you can quickly get the resources and performance you need. Just to note if you are using Digital Ocean, you can scale your servers up using the slider however, you can’t use the slider to scale down Don’t worry though, since you can easily scale down another way. In another way, you just create a clone of the server with less resources. I’ll quickly walk you through the process of vertically scaling a server. First, log in to the Cloudways Platform using your credentials. Then choose a server size that you would like to scale. Click on vertical scaling under Server Management. Under Server Size, You can hover over different server sizes to get more information. When you’ve decided which server size you want, select that size. You can see the hourly and monthly charges below. Click Scale now. Next you’ll be shown some warnings about the scaling process. Once you are ready, you can click Proceed. It may take a few minutes to get your server up and running again with some additional computing power. Create a Staging Environment Now, let’s look at how to Create a Staging Environment create a staging environment with a few clicks. A staging environment or website is basically a way for you to test new updates, themes or plugins without affecting your life site. It’s a way to reduce risk and make sure everything works as it should before it goes live A staging website is a copy of your existing website with three major differences. First, staging website are private and password protected. Second, search engines can’t index them and third, any changes made won’t affect your live website until they are pushed live. Cloudways offers free one click staging environments for all users and for all your applications, this help you speed up your development work and save time and money in the long run. Here’s how you create a staging environment on Cloudways: Open servers, and click www. Then choose your application. Under Application Management, click Staging Management. Next, click Launch Staging Application. Choose the server where you would like to build the staging environment. You can choose the same server or a different server Finally, hit Continue. The staging application will be a complete clone of your live application. The time needed to create it will depend on the amount of data your web application contains. Once the staging application is launched, it will also be available in the applications list with the staging tag. Let’s move on to cloning servers and application Clone servers and application You might need to clone a server for a few reasons, like switching cloud providers, relocating your server, switching server types, testing new features, creating backups for safety, and performing server updates securely. When you clone your server, it creates an exact duplicate of your current server but the cloned server is entirely separate, having a different IP address and new staging domains for its applications. Here’s how you can clone a server with just a few clicks using the Cloudways Platform. From the top menu bar, open Servers. Click on the 3 dots menu for your desired server. and click Clone Server. Here, you can customize which configurations you want to copy to your cloned server, then click Proceed Now you need to provide some information to begin the server cloning process, like choosing your infrastructure provider, selecting your server size, and selecting your server location. Finally, click on Clone Server Your new cloned server should be deployed soon. The cloning process time depends on the size of the data to be copied. Now let’s look at how to clone an application Choose the server where the application you want to clone is deployed. Then click www and choose your application. Next, open the Quick Actions menu and select Clone App/Create Staging. Here, you need to select your destination server where you want your application to be cloned. You can go with the same server, a different available server, or a new server, so choose an option from the drop-down and click Continue. That’s it! Continuing on with our next feature, I’ll show you how to add team members Adding a team member and set their access levels. This is a great feature if you work in larger teams, or if you are an agency managing multiple clients, and you need to limit or permit access to certain areas of the Cloudways Platform. This feature really helps make your work easier and trouble-free. I’ll show you now how to create, update, and remove team members and set their access levels in the side menu, go to ‘Teams.’ Select ‘Add Member’ and fill in the team member’s details, like their email, name, job title, and status. You can also decide whether they should have access to billing and support or complete server or console access. For Console Access, you can assign which console the team member should have access to. A team member can also have access to both at the same time. Once you’re ready, click ‘Add Member.’ And there you have it! You’ve added a team member who can help you with your servers and applications, with access tailored to your needs. You can also edit a team member’s access whenever you like and remove them at any time. It’s that simple! Next let’s look at our feature for server transfer Server transfer If you ever need to transfer a server from your Cloudways account to another Cloudways account, especially after you’ve finished creating an application, this feature will help. It’s perfect for agencies and developers who want to give their customers complete control once a project is done, including managing the costs. choose the server you want to transfer. Hover your mouse on the circular grid icon at the bottom-right corner of the console and then select the Transfer Server option. Now, enter the email address of the target account to which you want to transfer the server. Click on Transfer Server to start the process. The person receiving the server will get an email with a link to accept the transfer, which is valid for 48 hours. They just need to click “Accept Transfer Server Request” to start the process. Then you’re done! Next, let’s look at how Cloudways makes cron job management easy WordPress cron job optimizer Cron jobs are like your system’s automated assistants, handling tasks at scheduled times including regular backups system maintenance, and sending emails and newsletters without you having to do them manually. Cloudways has a new WordPress Cron Optimizer that can really save you time. This feature organizes cron jobs in a smart way so you avoid overloading your server. It’s a great help for digital agencies or individuals with multiple websites, as it eliminates the need for manual optimization. In a nutshell, the Cron Optimizer effortlessly handles cron jobs in the background to boost server performance and stability 24/7, and the best part is, it’s free for all Cloudways customers! You can enable the Cloudways Cron Optimizer by going to the Applications tab. There you select your target application, and then you go to Application Settings. From there, you can toggle the option on or off with a single click. The last feature we’ll look at today is Purge Site Cache. Purge site cache Of course visitors want your web pages to load fast, and to help with this Cloudways has a powerful caching system with multiple layers. If you make changes to your website, sometimes the caching layers need to be cleared. Normally you would have to clear each layer one by one, but our Purge Site Cache feature enables you to quickly clear all layers at once. With this feature, you can easily and quickly show the newest version of your site to visitors. of your site to visitors. It’s a simple solution that keeps you in control, so you don’t have to worry about old content or complicated caching To use the Purge Site Cache feature, go to the top menu bar, open Servers and choose the server where your desired application is deployed. Click the globe icon to view all the applications and choose your application. Under Application Management, select Application Settings and navigate to General Under Purge Site Cache, simply click Purge. When you do this, the feature will instantly remove your app’s cache from all our caching layers. I hope this video has given you a good understanding of some of Cloudways’ great one-click features, and that you’ll log in to our platform to give them a try. for more helpful content to simplify your web hosting experience. Happy hosting!