19 institution Moodle site on Win2003!

[mark]

Just learned our LEA appointed Moodle host is to build our installation as WAMP.

We already have a dedicated LAMP web server for all 12 LEA High Schools, now the LEA have spent 14-19 money on setting this up for us.

I think the reason for the strange choice is that the FE College host has no 'Nix experience.

But I seen Geoff post that Apache + Windows and IIS + PHP don't play well together, and that PHP on windows doesn't scale up well for a lot of users.

Am I right to be concerned?

[CyberNerd]

I'd say LAMP over WAMP, it costs less, is lower maintenence and there is much more support for LAMP.
Having said that, there is a moodle-windows forum so some support is available. It's all about choosing the most approprate system for the job.
For moodle LAMP is clearly more approprate considering the global support for LAMP. But If the admins are that clueless that they can't install a nix server then the project might just be doomed from the start.

[Geoff]

But I seen Geoff post that Apache + Windows and IIS + PHP don't play well together, and that PHP on windows doesn't scale up well for a lot of users.

Am I right to be concerned?

It depends. You'll generally need 2x - 3x the hardware to do the same job with WIMP as with LAMP. If they've bought enough hardware to do the job, then fair enough.

[mark]

Geoff was on about poorer performance here: http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...&p=33625#33625

Just wondered if anyone could back that up.

[CyberNerd]

It stands to reason that there will be poorer performance -windows has more overhead, Just look at what system specs other edugeekers are deploying for wamp setups compared to linux.
http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...ewtopic&t=5909

Also beware that a number of apache modules are not available for windows, thus limiting functionality

[ChrisC]

The general number of background processes in windows compared to linux is going to reduce performance in itself.

Chris

[Chafftech]

We have moodle running on a w2k sp4 server using WAMP server. I dont consider myself clueless about any aspect of ICT. w2k was already on server and it was very quick and easy to install moodle within 3hours including setting up ldap authentication for logins. Performance is fine on it, and I have even performed upgrade from 1.6 to 1.7. It has been fully live since October.

[mark]

Right. Thanks guys. They said it was going to be WAMP not WIMP.

We're debating wether it's worth keeping our sites on our existing LAMP server. One school is doing that for the time being anyway.

Thanks Chafftech - I've had several windows versions running - I know it works ok - just the performace I was concerned about with 12 High schools, 3 special schools, the FE College etc all using this one server.

[CyberNerd]

.. so either suffer reduced functionality, worse support, higher licensing costs and higher support costs. Or pay for CPD. hmm tough choice.

[webman]

And of course if they have training, they can put the knowledge to use in the future to replace Windows with Linux and in turn reduce the TCO even further.

[Geoff]

hey said it was going to be WAMP not WIMP

Ah I presumed you were going to use IIS. Anyway, using Apache on Windows is a problem. Because Windows has absolutely diabolical context switching times, it kills Apache performance stone dead.

[ChrisC]

Mind you, running the moodle for windows installer package gets it up and running in about 5 mins flat.....

it comes packaged with mysql, php and apache, and does a little service config during the install, so cuts out a lot of the work.

I know this won't affect you, but I thought it was cool.

Chris

[CyberNerd]

nice try, but still not as simple as 'sudo apt-get install moodle'
which installs and configures all the dependencies, and you don't even need to find the installer.