Use Cloudflare. Install a security plugin, keep WordPress updated regularly.
Common WordPress Security Expert Suggestion
For a small blog, the advice works most of the time but updates may break the site, so you need to consider adding staging environment to the mix to check updates are not breaking your site on staging environment and deploy to production after checks.
Let’s think about HRPeak, an ATS built-in Assessment Center scale-up which has pretty large enterprise customer base. Clients have thousands of job openings, the site gets traffic, forms needed to be sent via their own custom API endpoint. Add a web app which is used for certificate validation on the public site. Can it stay online even if on a datacenter failure?
We faced a 15 hour offline on their primary datacenter because of datacenter-ISP related issue. But that was what we prepared for, and the site was still online from an independent second datacenter. This was possible, because this is not about yet another WordPress plugin for security or backup, it is the architecture to keep the website open under unwanted situations.
Why Standard WordPress Setups Fail
Let’s be direct about why typical WordPress recommendations don’t work for enterprises.
Problem 1: Everything in One Place
What most WordPress setup is: Put your website, forms, custom app, and everything else in one WordPress installation and even worser, put all your websites in one account so if one gets hacked, others will too.
What actually happens:
- One security problem affects everything
- Slow performance for everything (too much sharing resources)
- Can’t update one part without risking the whole site
- Backup and recovery is all-or-nothing
- Even worser, multiple company websites are placed under same users/folders
In plain English: It’s like keeping all your valuables in one room. If something goes wrong in that room, you lose everything. More shortly, putting all the eggs in one basket.
Problem 2: The WordPress Update Trap
You need to update WordPress core, plugins and templates regularly. When you have many plugins, it gets complicated. Updates may broke the whole site or partially. Not updating leads security issues. Using staging takes time and effort. Here’s the impossible choice every WordPress owner faces:
Option A: Update WordPress immediately when security patches come out
- Stay secure against hackers
- Risk breaking your entire website
- Forms might stop working
- Custom features might break
Option B: Test updates carefully before applying with a staging environment
- Make sure nothing breaks
- If hackers exploit the vulnerability, you’re hacked
- Testing takes time
It’s impossible to choose. Update fast and break things, or test slowly and stay vulnerable. There’s no good option when everything shares one WordPress installation.
In plain English: Imagine your house needs urgent repairs, but doing the repairs means everyone has to move out for a week. That’s the WordPress Update Trap.
Problem 3: Security Plugins Don’t Actually Isolate
Security plugins add protection, but they:
- Make your site slower (checking everything)
- Still expose WordPress to the public (just with a guard at some doors, may be not at back door)
- Can’t prevent all attacks (they’re reactive, not proactive)
- Create plugin conflicts with other features
- Security plugin may even cause security issues by themselves, check a widely used security plugin causing security issues on millions of WordPress sites from here
In plain English: Security plugins are like hiring security guards for your airport, but there are many entries and independent units inside the airport which you may not truly check – like a cleaning company can turn into a security threat, or a visitor may use an unknown method which can bypass your guards. Better than nothing, but not true security.
What We Built: Using WordPress While Isolating WordPress from Public by Architecture
Instead of one vulnerable system, we built redundant infrastructure across multiple datacenters with automatic failover.
Copied!PUBLIC INTERNET ↓ CLOUDFLARE (DNS & Failover) ↓ GLOBALISER EDGE DATACENTERS (Multiple Geographic Locations) ├─ Edge Location 1 ├─ Edge Location 2 └─ Edge Location 3+ ↓ SPECIALIZED BACKEND SERVERS ├─ WordPress (main website) ├─ Certificate management ├─ Validation systems └─ Email backend (client's)
Plain English: Users connect to our edge datacenters (multiple locations). Those edge datacenters connect to specialized backend servers designed for specific functions. If one edge datacenter fails, Cloudflare routes traffic to the others. If one backend system has issues, the others continue working.
How This Architecture Works
Public-Facing (Multiple Edge Datacenters)
Users connect to our edge datacenters in different geographic locations. Each datacenter serves:
- Main website (company info, services)
- Certificate validation (public lookup, 45ms response)
- Contact forms (frontend interface)
If one datacenter’s ISP fails → Cloudflare routes to others → Users never notice.
Hidden Backend (Not Publicly Accessible)
- WordPress for content – Runs on private network, not exposed to public
- Certificate management – Separate WordPress, Custom WordPress Plugin, Private URL only staff access
- Validation backend – Direct database queries, read-only access
- Email system – Client’s SOAP API, completely separate
Plain English: The public sees storefronts (edge datacenters). The warehouses and offices (backend systems) are completely hidden. If one storefront loses power, customers automatically go to other storefronts. The warehouses keep operating regardless.
The 15-Hour Datacenter Outage: Real-World Proof
A few weeks ago, one of our edge datacenters had a complete ISP failure. The internet connection to that datacenter was completely down for 15 hours.
With typical WordPress hosting: Total blackout. No website, no forms, no certificate validations. Everything offline.
What Actually Happened
Hour 0: Datacenter 1 ISP Fails
- Primary edge datacenter loses internet connection
- Cloudflare health monitoring detects datacenter is unreachable
- Within seconds: Cloudflare stops routing traffic there
During 15 hours: Business Continues Normally
- Cloudflare automatically routes all traffic to Edge Datacenter 2, 3, etc.
- Main website stays online (served from working datacenters)
- Certificate validations continue working (other datacenters handle requests)
- Contact forms work perfectly (routing to working locations)
- Backend systems unaffected (different connections, different ISPs)
- Users never know one datacenter is offline
Hour 15: ISP Fixed
- Connection restored to affected edge datacenter
- Cloudflare detects it’s back online
- Gradually routes traffic back to all datacenters
- All locations now serving again
The Results
- User-facing downtime: 0-5 minutes
- Forms lost: Zero
- Ads budget lost: Zero
- Certificate validation app affected? No
- Customer complaints: Zero
- Emergency response costs: $0
- Manual intervention needed: None (automatic failover)
Plain English: One of our stores lost power for 15 hours. Cloudflare automatically sent all customers to our other stores. Customers never noticed. When power came back, that store opened again. No sales lost, no angry customers.
This wasn’t luck. This was architecture.
How This Solves the WordPress Update Trap
Remember the impossible choice? Update and risk breaking everything, or test slowly and stay vulnerable?
With our architecture, that dilemma disappears – and here’s the key insight:
WordPress Isn’t Publicly Accessible = Less Urgent Updates
Traditional setup:
- WordPress exposed to public
- Hackers can attack WordPress directly
- MUST update immediately when security patches come out
- But updates break things
Our architecture:
- WordPress runs on private network
- Not directly accessible from internet
- Only edge datacenters connect to it
- Updates can be tested properly because WordPress isn’t the attack surface
Plain English: When your warehouse isn’t on the street (it’s behind locked gates), you don’t need to panic-update the warehouse security system every time there’s a new lock. You can test the new lock properly first.
The Security Advantage
Security isn’t one plugin. It’s multiple independent barriers.
How It Works
Public sees: Edge datacenters (rate limited, DDoS protected)
Public can’t see: Main Site WordPress Admin, WordPress Certificate management App, Email backend
Public Certificate Validation App’s Database access: Read-only for validation (can query, can’t modify)
Admin access: Private URLs only (not findable from public website)
This is no friction for management, use the WordPress as you do traditionally, but keep it away from public eyes, apply high availability practices for the whole setup.
Attack Surface Reduction
Why:
- WordPress not publicly accessible (can’t attack what you can’t reach)
- Certificate management hidden (private URL only)
- Validation app doesn’t use WordPress (no WordPress vulnerabilities)
- Systems isolated (breaching one doesn’t cascade)
Recent security audit:
- SQL injection attempts → Blocked
- WordPress attacks → Can’t find WordPress (not exposed)
- Cross-system attacks → Failed (systems isolated)
Plain English: Instead of having 500 doors that need guards, we have 2 doors. And the most valuable rooms (WordPress admin, certificate management) aren’t even accessible from the public building.
Real Performance Numbers
Globaliser Edge Network (Multiple Datacenters)
- Local response time: under 100ms
- Page loads fully: Under 2.5 seconds (LCP on mobile throttled connection)
- No single point of failure: Multiple datacenters
Certificate Validation Application
- Average response: 45ms
- WordPress REST API approach: 280ms (6x slower)
- WordPress with security plugins: 450ms (10x slower)
Why it’s faster:
- No WordPress loading (50+ files and plugins)
- Direct database connection
- Custom small app only for validation
Contact Forms
- Form submission: 300ms average
- Routes to: HRPeak’s SOAP API (their infrastructure)
- Not using: WordPress email or SMTP
- Reliability: Enterprise email backend, not WordPress plugins
When This Architecture Makes Sense
You Need This When:
Downtime costs money:
- E-commerce sites (sales stop during downtime)
- Sites used for marketing (marketing ROI increase, ads budget saved)
- Brands (reputation damage, client trust)
- SaaS platforms (contract SLA violations)
You understand building right once:
- Higher initial investment
- But no compulsory rebuild
- Proven disaster recovery (15-hour test passed)
- Peace of mind under real failure conditions
You Don’t Need This When:
- Simple blog or portfolio site
- Very limited budget (can’t invest in proper architecture)
- No critical business operations (downtime is annoying but not costly)
The Investment Question
We won’t list specific prices here (every enterprise has unique requirements), but here’s how to think about it:
The “Start Simple, Rebuild Later” Trap
Looks good initially:
- Lower upfront cost
- Faster to launch
- Seems practical
What happens 18-24 months later:
- Performance degraded (site getting slower)
- WordPress updates scary (might break everything)
- Need to rebuild from scratch (2-3x original “simple” cost)
- Data migration complex
- Downtime during transition
- Lost momentum
The Enterprise Architecture Approach
Medium initial investment, but:
- Build it right once
- No rebuild needed
- Proven resilience (15-hour datacenter failure = 0 downtime)
- Independent system updates (no cascading failures)
- Scale by adding datacenters (architecture already supports it)
The real question: What would 15 hours of downtime cost your business?
For HRPeak with thousands of job postings and enterprise clients, 15 hours offline would have been:
- Lost leads
- Reputation damage with enterprise clients
- Potential contract violations
- Emergency recovery costs
- Staff overtime for fixes
Preventing that outage paid for the architecture investment several times over.
Why This Architecture Works
It’s Been Tested Under Real Conditions
Not theoretical disaster recovery:
- 15-hour ISP failure: Stayed online via multi-datacenter architecture
- WordPress breaking updates: 0 user impact (system separation)
- Security audit: 99% attack surface reduction
- Performance: 6x faster than WordPress approach
The 15-hour outage wasn’t a drill. It was a real ISP failure to one of our edge datacenters, and the architecture worked exactly as designed. Users noticed nothing.
It Solves Real Problems
Problems every WordPress owner knows:
- WordPress updates break things → System separation solved it
- Single point of failure → Multiple datacenters solved it
- Can’t update without risk → Isolation solved it
- Security vs performance trade-off → Architecture solved both
It’s Based on Engineering Principles
The principles that work for hundreds of operations work for millions:
- Multiple edge datacenters = disaster recovery that actually works
- Specialized backend systems = each optimized for its purpose
- System isolation = no cascading failures
- Private infrastructure = admin operations hidden from public
Scale doesn’t change principles. Whether you have hundreds or millions of operations, the architecture approach stays the same.
We don’t build on hope or luck. We build on tested infrastructure.
When one of HRPeak’s edge datacenters lost connection for 15 hours, their users noticed nothing. Certificate validations continued. Forms worked. Job postings stayed accessible. Enterprise clients never knew there was a problem.
That’s specialized systems designed for specific purposes. That’s separation of concerns and independent operation.
That’s enterprise architecture.
Conclusion: Security Through Architecture, Not Plugins
WordPress is excellent for content management. Security plugins are useful for basic protection. But neither are designed for enterprise disaster recovery or true system isolation.
The result: When one edge datacenter went offline for 15 hours due to ISP failure, Cloudflare automatically routed traffic to the others. Certificate validations continued. Forms worked. Job postings stayed accessible. Users noticed nothing.
The difference between “we have backups and a disaster recovery plan” and “we have disaster recovery that works” is whether your site actually stays up when tested under real failure conditions.
HRPeak’s architecture was tested. It worked.
Enterprise WordPress
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Scaling & High availability & Security & Speed & Maintainability
The architecture demonstrates that enterprise WordPress security isn’t about installing more plugins – it’s about building systems that isolate WordPress from public access, separate concerns properly, and continue operating even when infrastructure fails.
Want to discuss multi-datacenter architecture and WordPress isolation for your enterprise operations? Contact Globaliser.
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