WP2Cloud

Add media: when media files are uploaded to the WordPress they are actually uploaded to the cloud storage. The derivative media files (e.g. thumbnails for pictures) are also uploaded to the cloud storage. Note that Link URL points to the WP2Cloud media file redirector: this URL redirects to the cloud storage URL. Note that this changes the default WordPress behavior for media files and their related derivative files to be stored on the local file system of the Web server hosting the website.

Insert a picture into a post: when a picture is inserted into a post, WP2CLOUD shortcodes are stored in the post for the webpage instead of the actual picture and thumbnail URLs. Such WP2CLOUD shortcode contains the ID that uniquely identifies the media file on the website.

View post source: before the page is delivered by the Web server to the Web client (browser), the WP2CLOUD shortcodes are translated into the actual direct URLs that point to the cloud storage on Amazon S3. The web browser downloads all the media files (including thumbnails) from the cloud storage, bypassing the web server. Note that media files are served by Amazon S3 directly relying on enormous power of the cloud to make serving the content highly scalable.

Setup CDN (optional): to make content delivery even faster, you can setup a Content Distribution Network (CDN) for the media files. When the CDN URL is specified, the media files URLs point to the CDN that takes care of distributing files in the most optimal fashion.

View post source with CDN: when a CDN is used, the media files are served from the CDN.

High-level architectural diagram of a WordPress-powered website that uses cloud storage to store and serve its content. The website's content management is done through WordPress, which uses a MySQL server to store the website's data. The website using the WP2Cloud plugin will upload pictures (and other media files) directly to cloud storage maintaining the files location in MySQL. ClouSE plugs into MySQL and works directly with cloud storage using the cloud storage API to store all website data, site's content and media files. This makes the web server natively stateless, improving its robustness and scalability. Further on, the performance of the website increases as while the web pages (lightweight HTML) are still served by WordPress, media files are now served by cloud storage directly.