Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Thomas Hanley -
Number of replies: 12

Hi,

I would like to know what kind of hosting company it would be best to use for a network of Moodle sites. There will be several Moodle instances on one server which will need to be networked.

Inevitably I would think there will be issues / errors / glitches as part of the networking process.

One hosting company we currently have a link with has stated that the do not officially support the Moodle application and that support would be on a best effort basis.

I believe there are Moodle partners who are hosting companies with in depth expertise in hosting Moodle.

Would the level of support/expertise offered by a Moodle partner or by a company which officially supports Moodle be *significantly better* than that offered by a non-specialist hosting company?

Any thoughts / advice would be much appreciated.

~thomas

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Thomas Hanley

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Michael Penney -
I believe there are Moodle Partners who are hosting companies with in depth expertise in hosting Moodle.

Yes, there are many - the partner program is regional - intended to provide local expertise (in your language, knowledge of your local institutions, business climate, etc). The recommended practice is to go to moodle.com and choose one or several of the partners in your region. If your project is not something they can handle, they'll forward your request to Moodle.com for a recommendation.

Would the level of support/expertise offered by a Moodle Partner or by a company which officially supports Moodle be *significantly better* than that offered by a non-specialist hosting company?

Absolutely, a requirement for partnership is having worked extensively with Moodle for several years, having contributed significantly to it's development, documentation, & support, etc. This means that a partners programmers, support staff, sysadmins, and management have significant Moodle knowledge. A partner also likely has knowledge of clients running Moodle implementations of a similar size/scale to your own, and thus taking their advice can save invaluable time. A partner can afford to hire, train, and keep staff with Moodle specific expertise, something you are very unlikely to find in a general purpose hosting company. Moodle is a feature rich, powerful application suite, so running it does require expertise and ongoing study/training to maintain that expertise as new versions of Moodle interact with a changing computing environment (AJAX, Cloud computing, handhelds,'Web 2.0', Chrome, etc.)

Finally, all official Moodle partners contribute 10% of their revenue back to the Moodle core team - this is a big part of what keeps Moodle going. So by working with a partner, you are contributing to the improvements, ongoing security checks/fixes, etc. that keep Moodle a viable solution for your online learning effort.

Best
Michael

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Ron Meske -
I completely agree that using a Moodle Partner makes sense if your hosting company does not know Moodle and you do not have the necessary skills in-house to support it.

Selecting the right Moodle Partner for your needs is an important decision that has to be made. What we have found is that there is no way of evaluating a Moodle Partner without trying them. It would be great if there was a forum specifically for users to rate Moodle Partners and /or give testimonials. That would help significantly in both selecting a Moodle Partner and in Moodle Partners improving thier own skills and hosting capabilities.
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Ron Meske

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Mary Cooch -
Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
That's a good idea smile
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Ron Meske

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Michael Penney -
Well, a baseline criteria for becoming a partner is having participated in the Moodle.org forums. So one way to evaluate a partner is to click on the partner's icon, and look at their forum posts tabwink.

Basically, Moodle is about people, and a Moodle Partner is a a group of people who are working on providing Moodle services to their partners/customers/clients. So learning who the people are is a key step in evaluating a Moodle partner. It's also common and perfectly acceptable to ask for biography's and relevant experience of the staff you would be working with if you signed on with a partner.

Of course, Martin D. does an exhaustive evaluation of company's skillset and long range commitment to Moodle before granting partner status, so the quality is quite high to begin withsmile.

As with any business relationship, providing information about your requirements, long-range goals, budget, and timeline, helps both parties get started on the right foot and keep things going smoothly -for any large scale deployment, a domain model is extremely helpful, as are requirements documents for custom development or system integrations (another good way to evaluate partners is to ask for RDs from previous projectssmile).
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
Well, a baseline criteria for becoming a partner is having participated in the Moodle.org forums. So one way to evaluate a partner is to click on the partner's icon, and look at their forum posts tab

Now *that's* a good idea..... thoughtful
Average of ratings:Useful (1)
In reply to Michael Penney

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Ron Meske -
I am sure the process is quite exhaustive to become a partner. However, once a partner is in, is there any follow-up to make sure they are providing the services they offer at a quality level consistent with the baseline criteria to begin with? And, is there any follow-up to determine if they are still actively participating?

For hosting services, one of the top criteria is longevity, especially with the current economic climate worldwide. Next would be the quality of the hosting service which really can only be rated by those using their service. I doubt a Partner will give references for any customer that has an issue with them, they will only choose to pick those customers that will give them rave reviews, even if they are not current.

I am bringing this up because of the number of requests I see about hosting or support in these forums. Imagine if a teacher gets advise to try a Moodle Partner and then has a bad experience. Does that not reflect on Moodle in general.


Average of ratings: -
In reply to Ron Meske

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
The main criteria for ongoing evaluation of Partners is direct feedback from customers to the moodle.com helpdesk (http://moodle.com/helpdesk). If you or anyone you know has a problem with a particular Moodle Partner please let us know and we'll look into the situation and do our best to sort it out.

I take this aspect very seriously, however I can see this is not so obvious on moodle.com and I'll make sure we fix that soon. Thanks for raising the issue!
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Louis Fleming -
I once presented at an educational conference over using Moodle in the classroom. I was interupted several times by someone who I think was working for the Moodle room seller in the exhibit hall. I think they were mad at me for trying to show the advantages of a hosted site with independent companies versus running it internally at a school or a Moodle provider.They told me the $800 for 1GB of storage was more than enough for a school.

My personal moodle at the time was at 680MB and my student count was down at the time.

Thankfully when I gave my workshop people a break, the rude one never came back.

There are some pushy sales people out there working for Moodle rooms.

Louis
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Louis Fleming

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Tom Murdock -
Hmmmm... Hi Louis,

Thanks for the post. I'm sorry that you had a negative experience with someone who might have been at my company. Our sales team members are all former classroom teachers and school IT pros -- all folks who are working with us because they see the company as another way to get Moodle into our classrooms. We, of course, expect people to be using Moodle in various ways: some self-hosting, others using independent companies, etc.. The diversity of options is a major part of the appeal of Moodle to us and to our clients.

I'm sorry that you had a bad experience and am glad that you recovered after the break. I know if I were giving a workshop and had a similar experience, I'd be very frustrated and probably not as graceful. While the fee structure/disk space that you mention and the rudeness doesn't seem to match our program or team members, I'll be sure to send this post through our group so that your experience can resonate with everyone. Feel free, also, to message me offline.

My first Moodle hosting was for several of my courses. I served them from my G4 Macintosh desktop hooked up to my cable modem at home. I loved hearing the machine click and whirl, because I knew my students were doing homework. Then I went to a low-cost shared host provider when I began adding the courses of my colleagues. Then I went to Martin D's own hosting when he still offered the service because I wanted to depend on application experience, as well as hosting. These days, there are numerous good options for Moodlers looking for a home.

best,
Tom

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Ron Meske -
Thank you for taking partnerships so seriously Martin. I did not realize that there was a feedback mechanisim in place already. That is good to know.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Ron Meske

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers
I think if you are about to bet your shirt on a company, Moodle Partner or no, it's sensible to do some checking. At the very least ask if you can talk to some of their existing customers.

You also have to remember that Moodle Partners cover a great range of skill sets, not just hosting, and you still need to make sure they can meet your requirements. Basic "bread and butter" hosting shouldn't be a big deal though (one would hope).
Average of ratings: -
In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Would it be best to have Moodle hosted with a company that officially supports Moodle?

by Thomas Hanley -

Hi,

Many thanks everyone for the really helpful responses which I will be using to state the case to use a Moodle partner for hosting our VLEs

My question was not exactly hypothetical as currently the 6 Moodle VLEs have been setup and are being hosted with a company who does not officially support Moodle.

I realise of course that migrating servers will be an issue. However, only 2 of the 6 sites have been developed in any significant way and I feel that it will be well worth any short-term pain in changing host given the clear long-term benefits in terms of expertise and support.

--Michael a great summary of the key points and good advice to speak to the Moodle partners and assess how easy it is to form a relationship with them.

--Ron, it turns out that no-one in my organisation has PHP skills, the environment is very much Microsoft-centric. There are 5 UK partners so it is not too daunting contacting all of them for a quote. Incidentally based on the info on one of their websites I believe that the cost of using a Moodle partner may turn out to be significantly lower.

A forum to rate Moodle partners does indeed sound useful. I guess though that this may not have happened due to the possibility of conflicts/ litigation occurring!

--Howard, good point also about more than hosting being involved as training up potential moodlers is one issue with regard to the work I am involved with.

~thomas

Average of ratings:Useful (1)