Q&A with Cloud Expert on Building an E-Commerce Website with Magento & SAS

In the lead-up to this month's webinar "Launch and Scale Your E-commerce Website with Magento", our presenter Wen Chen-yu of the Training and Certification Team shares his tips and knowledge on how to launch and scale an e-commerce website using Magento and SAS.

What is Simple Application Server (SAS) and what type of customer does this service suit?
Chen-yu: Simple Application Server is a Platform-as-a-Service product built on Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS). And the advantage of buying SAS, is that you not only get ECS but also an integrated console that you can use to configure everything on your server. It provides you with an all-in-one solution to launch and manage your application, set up domain name resolution, and build, monitor, maintain your website with just a few clicks. It makes private server building much easier, and it is the best way for beginners to get started with cloud computing and those that want to open a blog or online website. They may also want to choose SAS because it’s a lower financial investment.

What is the advantage of using Alibaba Cloud Simple Application Server compared to other products such as Elastic Compute Service?
Chen-yu: So, if comparing the two products (ECS and SAS), SAS essentially gives you a more integrated platform. It allows you to manage a number of cloud server features from the one console. For example, if you are only using ECS then you have to manage external configurations such as DNS and the server application, as well as the SSH remote login and other consoles. But with SAS, you can do all of these tasks from within the same console. So, it makes things easier and more cost-effective.

Comparison with ECS

Features	Simple Application Server	ECS
Popular Apps, system mirrors	Supported	Supported
Remote server logon	Supported	Supported
Enabling/Disabling/Monitoring server	Supported	Supported
Enabling/Disabling/Monitoring server	Supported	Supported
Firewall	Supported	Supported
Snapshot backup and recovery	Supported	Supported
Domain name, DNS management	Supported	Supported
Server and App management	Supported	Supported
One-click Web SSH remote logon	Supported	Supported
Integration with Alibaba Cloud products	Supported	Supported

What is the advantage of hosting Magento on the cloud rather than on fixed hosting?
Chen-yu: That’s a good question. So if you are hosting Magento on fixed hosting, and then you get more and more customers coming to your platform, you will need to do an upgrade, right? And if it’s fixed hosting, the upgrade will be quite complicated. But if you are using a platform like SAS on the cloud, you can upgrade your website's resources at any time you want.

Is Magento a suitable platform for hosting a website within Mainland China?
Chen-yu: Yes, it is suitable. Actually, if you go to the China version website of Alibaba Cloud and navigate to our Cloud Marketplace, you will see Magento is one of our recommended images to start hosting an e-commerce website in China.

Is it possible to integrate Alipay with Magento as an online payment platform?
Chen-yu: Yes, of course, it is possible. In the China Cloud Marketplace, you will see that we have a number of images from third-party companies. They integrate not only Magento but Alipay in the image, so you can get it directly “ready to go.”

What are some best practices or security products that are affordable for individuals and SMEs to ensure their e-commerce website is secure against hackers and cybercriminals?
Chen-yu: As a user, when you start using Magento, you will directly get a number of free security services from Alibaba Cloud. For example, you will receive Silver Card and also the free Anti-DDoS basic service. These products help to defend against a certain level of hacker attacks. Of course, if you want to have more protection, then at any time you can upgrade your Anti-DDoS Basic to the Pro service and integrate another service called Web Application Firewall (WAF). WAF is an advanced security service suitable for e-commerce websites to defend against hackers and even crawlers or bots that take advantage of campaigns on your e-commerce website.

Join our upcoming webinar hosted by Wen Chen-yu from the Training and Certification Team to find out more about how to launch and scale your e-commerce website with Magento and Alibaba Cloud Simple Application Server.