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Our Moodle server is feeling the strain. What server should we buy?

reggiep

By reggiep
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reggiep

reggiep

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Our moodle has taken off at last after about three years of promotion. The problem is that it is only running on a dual core workstation with 2Gb of RAM.

I have never specifically gone out to buy a server to run linux on as I have always just reused a workstation.

Can anyone help out?

 

Thanks

localzuk

localzuk

Posted
Posted
Our moodle has taken off at last after about three years of promotion. The problem is that it is only running on a dual core workstation with 2Gb of RAM.

I have never specifically gone out to buy a server to run linux on as I have always just reused a workstation.

Can anyone help out?

 

Thanks

 

Things like number of users, usual number of concurrent users etc... would help here I think.

Michael

Michael

Posted
Posted
It's not so much raw processing power when it comes to mail servers. Available bandwidth, disk space and most importantly memory. Mail servers use up a lot of RAM.
bossman

bossman

Posted
Posted

@reggiep:

 

You could virtualise it using the conversion tools for whichever system you wanted to use i.e. Xenserver, VMware etc

 

We did and now have 2 running alongside each other 1.9 and 2.0.1 (for staff testing) soon to be 3 when we get our webanywhere project up and running.

 

Just a thought. :)

SHimmer45

SHimmer45

Posted
Posted

Taken from moodles site:

 

Hardware

 

Disk space: 160MB free (min). You will require more free space to store your teaching materials.

Memory: 256MB (min), 1GB (recommended). The general rule of thumb is that Moodle can support 50 concurrent users for every 1GB of RAM, but this will vary depending on your specific hardware and software combination.

This includes hosting limits of PHP or MySQL on a hosting service.

The capacity can limit the number of users your Moodle site can handle. See User site capacities

 

i would say you need fast disk access as well so a good RAID setup would be beneficial

 

link to full requirements Installing Moodle - MoodleDocs

 

ours is running on an older style Xeon with 4GB RAM on a RAID5 U320 setup and this suffers if 120 kids all do a survey or log in, however day to day stuff it is fine it is a Windows 2003 box with easy php which we are going to be looking at migrating to a linux base possibly on lighty..

localzuk

localzuk

Posted
Posted
It's not so much raw processing power when it comes to mail servers. Available bandwidth, disk space and most importantly memory. Mail servers use up a lot of RAM.

 

Moodle, not mail :)

jamesfed

jamesfed

Posted
Posted
It's not so much raw processing power when it comes to mail servers. Available bandwidth, disk space and most importantly memory. Mail servers use up a lot of RAM.

 

Moodle not Mail :)

 

All the same its a database intensive application so HDDs/RAM will be your best friend.

 

Also what is the processor usage like at the moment for you throughout the day?

pete

pete

Posted
Posted

Posting some performance and usage info would get you better recommendations.

 

A standard HP/Dell/Reputable vendor server would fulfill your requirements. We've run Moodle on R310s, PE1950s and PE860s for example.

 

Provided you've got sufficient RAM and using Proper Server Hardware, much of "how well does it perform" is based on how much attention you pay to configuring Apache, PHP, SQL and Moodle (and understanding and testing the implications of what you change).

 

Mediocre hardware can perform like lightning if it's properly configured.

reggiep

reggiep

Posted
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I'm not sure what usage info I can provide?

I'd say we have 850 users on the moodle server with a maximum of about 70 on at once.

Although it is installed on ubuntu I would never profess to being a linux master. I can do the basics but no more!

SHimmer45

SHimmer45

Posted
Posted

i would be looking at a hardware RAID system myself as a software RAID is going to put additional load on the CPU etc of the server. Using seperate disk or array for your OS and moodle?

although 70 users on at one time isnt going to need a massively powerful server to achieve good results, id look at a PHP accelerator which will improve performance.

featured_spectre

featured_spectre

Posted
Posted

I found that the moodle baseline specs are not really adequate

 

Should be roughly 2GB for every 50 users (in my experience)

2TB HDD to hold all of the applications, files etc

Dual Quad Core Xeon CPU

 

Something based on that will see you through for atleast 5 years, if not more.

john

john

Posted
Posted

We have a beast of a HP server for our, and our feeder schools Moodles (we host for 6 at present, that will go up to 9 after Christmas and hopefully by this time next year 12 of us will be on it) as well as our new Website and some other things in the pipeline hopefully.

 

That box is a 12 Core Xeon

48 GB Ram

has 15K SAS-2 Drives in a Mirror for the OS and then a RAID5 with hot swap spare (if i remember right) for the datas

 

and all I can say is it flys! You click and of it goes.

 

We estimate once we have completed this project (IE got all the schools on-board) we will have 1000+ users using it during the school day so needed to ensure we got it right from day one.

 

We have worked with The Cutter Project on the Moodle work and they set it up for us and it has been excellent and support for them has been second to none. I certainly would recommend them :)

glennda

glennda

Posted
Posted

That box is a 12 Core Xeon

48 GB Ram

has 15K SAS-2 Drives in a Mirror for the OS and then a RAID5 with hot swap spare (if i remember right) for the datas

 

that makes me feel that my box is not over specced! it current hosts our moodle along with internal web apps and is also a proxy server and is dual quad xeon with 6gb ram and 10k sas drives. (it got removed from being the old sims server when i went virtual and being 2 years old i reused.

john

john

Posted
Posted
that makes me feel that my box is not over specced! it current hosts our moodle along with internal web apps and is also a proxy server and is dual quad xeon with 6gb ram and 10k sas drives. (it got removed from being the old sims server when i went virtual and being 2 years old i reused.

Oh this one is tbh, but we had to factor in the fact that IF we hammer it like the SLT want to and our primarys do the same we could have 1000 users on it, and as it has our website on it, and we do get a bit of the white stuff up here suddenly we can be bombarded by OMG are they open hits so hoping that it can hold up to that (question is CAN our LA's WAN).

 

The box actually was VERY good value, got amazing pricing from HP and Insight as ever, HP really do look after us with Insight as we have a long standing relationship with both and HP special pricing made a major difference, especially on those SAS2 Drives, they were nearly half price after the bid!

glennda

glennda

Posted
Posted

Fair enough - i'm hoping to get some good pricing out of them next year when creating my new VM cluster for the file servers.

 

I bet the wan link is what fails first! that is the reason i'm going for an externally hosted website as i don't want our wan link to die on snow days so no staff can access the website/moodle installation.

 

hope your not using IIS on it as that would just be cruel...

john

john

Posted
Posted
Fair enough - i'm hoping to get some good pricing out of them next year when creating my new VM cluster for the file servers.

 

I bet the wan link is what fails first! that is the reason i'm going for an externally hosted website as i don't want our wan link to die on snow days so no staff can access the website/moodle installation.

 

hope your not using IIS on it as that would just be cruel...

 

Nah its Linux based, the man @kmount is the guru on that lot I am sure he can tell you more as he did the work for us :) Well worth talking to him about it as they have lots of Moodle Skills and experience :)

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