In this chapter, you learned about the routine maintenance tasks that come with running a powerful database-driven website (such as database backups and software upgrades). You learned about the different types of add-ons that ExpressionEngine accommodates, and about specific add-ons and add-on developers that are worth being aware of. Finally, you learned about optimizing ExpressionEngine to fight spam and improve page-load times.
The key points to remember after working through this chapter (and the book) are:
Back up your website, including the database.
Upgrade ExpressionEngine when new versions are released (or at least every few versions). If you continue to use an older version, you will not have all the latest features and bug-fixes, and newer add-ons may not be compatible.
ExpressionEngine is highly extensible, and many of the add-ons are high-quality commercial grade pieces of software. If there is something you wish ExpressionEngine could do, research the add-on library first...