Moodle in English: My Own Server

My Own Server

by Jim Eyster - Tuesday, December 7, 2004, 3:59 AM

To anyone inclined to inform,

I am really asking out of ignorance as I currently "administrate" a Blackboard server, but am clueless as to what level of technical expertise would be necessary to admin a Moodle server. The server I am running on is a beefy Dell, capable of handling 3000 students based upon Bb requirements. Running SQL and Apache on Windows NT 4.0, SP5. I have a Raid configuration but no back-up except an external CD plug-in.

I haven't needed to do anything other than updates, create courses, or create and enroll users for more than 2 years. I am trying to wrap my mind around what will be needed if, as a college, we walk away from Bb and opt for Moodle.

Any insights, suggestions, or blunt facts would be greatly appreciated. P.S. Administrating the Bb server is not my main responsibility and I have no other IT support. I have had no formal IT training.

Re: My Own Server

by Michael Penney - Tuesday, December 7, 2004, 4:45 AM

Hi Jim, running Moodle once it's set up doesn't seem to be any more time consuming than BB Basic (less as you can automate many more things).

When you got BB, who set up the server for you? You may want to contract for set up with one of the Moodle Partners if you had BB or a consultant set up the initial BB install.

I'd recommend installing Red Hat Enterprise on your existing hardware, myself, but you could run it on your existing WinNT server. In either event, if you didn't set up WinNT server, Apache, Tomacat, MS SQL, etc. yourself for BB, you may want to contract for someone to set up MySQL/PHP and Moodle as well (if you did the BB Basic install from scratch you could probably do the MySQL/PHP/Moodle also).

In any event, once it is set up, running Moodle is all done through the web gui, like BB and (in our experience running both BB basic and Moodle for ~6500 students and 500 or so faculty) Moodle takes about the same to less time to admin as BB Basic.

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Re: My Own Server

by Jim Eyster - Wednesday, December 8, 2004, 12:27 AM

Hi, Michael,

Thanks for replying. Am I correct in understanding that the database needed for functional interface to Moodle would be found in the Red Hat software? Then also, would there be the necessity to fully recreate that database as it currently exists over into the new operating system?

How would someone go about doing that? The key issue, of course, is monetary. When we purchased our original server we had the installation performed by our hosting company. Is it possible for them to migrate the existing student list into a new database, even on the same server?

I've got lotsa questions, and little time to supply answers to the powers that be.

Regards,

Jim

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Re: My Own Server

by Bob Boufford - Wednesday, December 8, 2004, 1:20 AM

Jim,

I assume your Blackboard system is using SQL Server for the database. Moodle typically uses the mySQL database. So it would be like dealing with Word and WordPerfect.

Your biggest challenge when going between course management systems, regardless of the CMSs, is getting the content out of one CMS and into another CMS. Import/export following the IMS Content specifications between different CMS systems just ain't there yet, even when a company has two similar CMSs but different database backends with utilities to migrate content. You will find it to be a fairly time consuming part of the project.

I will have to differ with Michael on the operating system from my experiences supporting administrators of another CMS with the neverending Windows vs UNIX/Linux debate. If you are already running Windows, you and others are comfortable administering Windows and there are no other Linux/UNIX installations at your institution, stay with Windows. If you can, my suggestion would be to upgrade to Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 Server. But if you or someone on your IT staff have good experience with Linux or Solaris, then Red Hat Linux Enterprise is a very good option.

However, be aware that during the migration, if you go with RH Linux, you will need to have two boxes, your current BB-Windows box to get the data out and a new box with RH Linux-Moodle to move the data in. But if you stay with Windows, you might be able to install Moodle on the same box using your current Apache web server along with PHP and mySQL.

One thing really going for Moodle is that you can install it on just about anything that supports Apache/mySQL/PHP such as XAMPP. So you can even set up a test system on a workstation to do some initial evaluation.

Hope this helps...

Cheers,

Bob

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Re: My Own Server

by Jim Eyster - Saturday, December 11, 2004, 1:15 AM

THNX, Bob,

I will hash over your comments with the local IT guru. We have a strange arrangement in that IT doesn't want to have anything to do with Distance Learning equipment, and no one is forcing the issue. Thus, I administer Bb by learning from my mistakes. So far, so good. Switching over to a "free" platform, however, needs some serious investigation as to whether or not I can pull this thing off solo. Technically, I don't know squat about databases or any other server software. I just fumble my way thru, learning as I go along.

Jim

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Re: My Own Server

by Michael Penney - Wednesday, December 8, 2004, 7:44 AM

Hi Jim, RedHat should come with MySQL and PHP, if you get Enterprise you get some free support with it, so they should get you started.

As Bob points out, if you have local windows experts, you might be better sticking with Windows server, you'll have to get MySQL and PHP installed, but that is pretty simple.

Overall, I would recommend using some of your savings from the BB license to get a Moodle Partner to start you off right (note that I am not a Moodle partner nor do I even know one personally

, in the long run you're school will be saving alot going with Moodle and getting a better product, so it might be a good idea to get everything set up quickly and smoothly at the get go. I have no doubt you could get it all going yourself, but it sounds like you might have other things to do

.

Migrating student lists, if they know how to use MSSQL, they should have no problem exporting a student list in the moodle import format.

Are you using BB 5.x or 6? There are some tools for automatically converting BB 5.5 courses over to Moodle, but for 6 you may have to do some of the work manually (that shouldn't be a show stopper, as we had to do alot of the work manually when converting BB 5.5 courses to BB6 also

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Re: My Own Server

by Dave Bethany - Wednesday, December 22, 2004, 9:27 PM

With MySQL, go to their site and you will find some wonderful utilities that make administration a breeze.

http://www.mysql.org

The suggestion on using XAMPP is an excellent one. I have used both Xampp and Foxserv for quick setup of a complete system and both work ok. Xampp has the more updated files needed for Moodle and seems to be a bit more user friendly.

You can find these programs and many more on Sourceforge

http://sourceforge.net

I am running multiple instances of Moodle on both a Win2k box and a RH9 Linux box. I'm testing each against the other. While W2k is more friendly, Linux is more efficient-but much tougher to work with.

Dave

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Re: My Own Server

by Marcus Green - Thursday, December 23, 2004, 3:33 PM

To emphasie Daves comments, running on Moodle Linux is MUCH more effecient of resources . The reasons behind this are

MySQL requires fewer resources than the databases that Bb uses (arguably because MySQL offers fewer features)
Moodle uses PHP whereas Bb appears to depend on JavaServer Pages. Anything to do with Java requires the emulation of a virtual CPU, which adds another layer of abstraction, thus impacting raw performance.

You can shut down the GUI on Linux (X Windows and your "desktop" such as KDE), which again frees up very significant resources, by contrast with the need to constantly give up CPU cycles to support the Windows GUI even if you do not needed it a particular moment.

However to slightly contradict Daves comment, The complexity of Administering Linux and Windows depends on your background. If you have a strong Windows background Linux could be a mystery. But if your background is Linux, the ways of Windows would feel obscure.

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Hardware and performance

My Own Server