The Layershift Logbook

Many businesses unknowingly continue running old PHP versions long after a website launches. In many cases, production sites still run exactly as they did on day one, including the PHP version.

Once that PHP version reaches end of life (EOL), it no longer receives security updates, and the security risk increases over time, even if the site still appears to work normally. This is one of the most common causes of avoidable website security issues, and it is usually fixable with a combination of planned upgrades and properly managed hosting.

Companies are increasingly moving to cloud and hybrid models because their in-house IT teams, who used to just manage Exchange servers and desktops, often don't have the right tools, time, or specialised skills to run today's always-on platforms.

And even when businesses are already using the cloud, there's a huge difference between simply "being in the cloud" and actually having a high-availability architecture managed by experts. That distinction has become critical for business resilience.

Fail2Ban is still one of the simplest and most effective ways to cut out a huge amount of malicious noise before it ever reaches your applications, and in 2026 it slots neatly into Plesk as an extra hardening layer on top of your existing firewalls. Used properly, it lets you automatically block brute force attempts, exploit scans, and spammy traffic across SSH, Plesk panel, web, and mail services, while keeping genuine users flowing through.​

The guys at PayPal famously experimented with alternatives to Java in search of performance gains. One important, but easily overlooked, way to keep your Java app performing at its best is to make sure that the JVM is well tuned to your needs - and that includes taming the Garbage Collector.​

There are multiple ways to execute PHP scripts on a web server. We’re often asked about the difference between these modes, so here it is!