Static Website Architecture


“This is not just a how-to guide. It’s a real-world case study of how I, as a Solutions Architect, handled the seemingly simple task of building a website — and transformed it into a strategic decision-making exercise that touched cost, performance, scalability, and long-term business goals.”

This is a professional case study on how I, as a Solutions Architect approach building a modern website from scratch for a small-to-mid scale business.


Introduction

A business approaches with a requirement to build a professional website. As a Solutions Architect, my role is not just to develop it, but to understand the problem from a business and technical perspective. The goal is to design a cost-efficient, scalable, and maintainable solution aligned with user expectations and operational constraints. This document represents my approach in handling such a requirement from discovery to architecture decisions and cost estimation.

It started with a casual request: “We need a basic business website.”

Simple? Not quite. The client was a bootstrapped creative agency planning a brand relaunch. Their site had to support:

Showcasing services

Client lead capture

Content updates via blog

SEO campaigns

They had less than $100 for setup and wanted to keep infra under $10/month. And no technical team.

This wasn’t just about choosing a hosting provider. This was about making every dollar count while making room for growth.


Discovery Phase

What we need to know

  1. What is the website for?

    • Brand visibility?
    • Showcase of services?
    • Generating leads or inquiries?
    • Content publishing?
  2. Who is the target audience and expected traffic?

    • What is the projected average daily traffic?
    • Are there seasonal spikes or marketing campaigns expected?
  3. What is the client’s budget?

    • Initial budget for design and development?
    • Ongoing yearly maintenance and hosting?
  4. What content will be available?

    • Will the client provide structured web copy?
    • Do they expect help with content strategy?
  5. Design expectations?

    • Do they want to use a pre-built template?
    • Are custom design elements or animations required?

📎 View Full Discovery Questionnaire →


Use Case: Static Business Website

Let’s assume the following requirement:

This type of project seems simple but my job is to ensure it’s resilient, fast, and future-ready.


Evaluating Shared Hosting

The most common go-to for small business websites is shared hosting through providers like Hostinger, GoDaddy, or Bluehost.

These platforms offer plans starting as low as $2–10/month and come with bundled features like:

While this might seem ideal, these plans have a major limitation: bandwidth.

Example: A basic shared plan might allow 10GB/month. If the homepage is 1MB and 1,000 people visit in one day, that’s 1GB already used.

Additionally:

As a Solutions Architect, my responsibility is to look beyond cost and consider future traffic surges, SEO performance, and uptime.

This is where we consider AWS.


☁️ Re-Architecting the Website with AWS

Instead of just “hosting” the site, the aim is to design for scalability, availability, and cost-efficiency backed by AWS cloud services. The choice of services depends on technical complexity, required uptime, expected traffic, and budget.


Option 1: S3 + CloudFront — Scalable Static Hosting

Architecture:

Why this setup?

Security Controls:

Cost Example:

Estimated Total: <$1/month

S3 + CloudFront Architecture


Option 2: Lightsail + WordPress — Simplified CMS Hosting

Architecture:

Why Lightsail?

Security:

Cost:

Lightsail Wordpress Architecture

Option 3: Elastic Beanstalk (EC2 + RDS) — Managed WordPress Stack

Architecture:

Why Beanstalk?

Cost:

Total: ~$42/month

S3 + CloudFront Architecture

Option 4: Custom EC2 + RDS — Fully Manual Infra

Architecture:

Why this?

Challenges:

Estimated Cost:


Image & Asset Strategy

Advantages:


Summary Table

Architecture StackUse CaseMonthly CostScalabilityMaintenanceExtensibility
Shared HostingBasic entry site$2–10LowLowLow
S3 + CloudFrontStatic brochureware<$1Very HighVery LowMedium
LightsailSmall CMS website$6–10MediumLowLow
Elastic BeanstalkScalable CMS~$40–50HighMediumHigh
EC2 + RDS (Manual)Custom workloads$60+HighHighHigh

Final Thoughts

This wasn’t just about publishing a few static pages. This was a rigorous evaluation and execution exercise where I combined cost analysis, scalability planning, and system resilience principles to propose a future-proof solution. Each decision here reflects tradeoff reasoning, not just technology selection.


Check out the GitHub Repo → Github

View Architecture Diagrams → Diagrams

Have a similar requirement? Reach out via rishwanth.perumandla@hotmail.com

RIPE

© 2025 Rishwanth Perumandla

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