Selecting hardware setup

Selecting hardware setup

by Nitin Nimkar -
Number of replies: 4

Hi all,

I have seen the Performanace document on moodle. That is an excellent document, but the options available to us are many. And my problem is how to select the best.

I am presently doing successfully a pilot for a single course on moodle (1.9) for about 100 students (25 to 30 concurrent students) and I am using VPS with the following configuration:

1) CPU 1280 Mz

2) 1GB RAM

3) 40 GB Hard Disk

For the next year we are planning for 1000 students and I have a option for adding resources as follows :

1) CPU 2048 Mz

2) RAM Up to 8 GB

3) Disk space as needed up to 200 GB.

Now my questions are :

1) Will this be suitable for supporting 1000 students on single server setup? (Considering that I will be able to add 1 GB RAM per 50 concurrent Students )

2) How far this setup can go ?

3) When should I consider a dedicated server setup?

4) When should I consider a set of dedicated database server and webserver?

I will appreciate your any help.

Regards,

Nitin

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In reply to Nitin Nimkar

Re: Selecting hardware setup

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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> 1) Will this be suitable for supporting 1000 students on single server setup? (Considering that I will be able to add 1 GB RAM per 50 concurrent Students)

On a rough guess, since you can support 100 users on 1 GB RAM, 8 GB for 1000 users sound OK for me.

> 2) How far this setup can go ?
>
> 3) When should I consider a dedicated server setup?

Why don't monitor the VPS carefully to decide on that? Some have observed poor database performance in VMware (run a search in this forum). You don't mention the virtualzation technology you are using, nor the operating system.

> 4) When should I consider a set of dedicated database server and webserver?

Depends on how much concurreny you plan, and whether you conduct synchronous exams usiing quizzes.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Selecting hardware setup

by Nitin Nimkar -

Thank you very much Visvanath. I am using LAMP. Yes I am planning to monitor VPS carefully. They are using Virtuozzo for VPS management

So far we have not planned synchronous exams and I do not think they will come in immediate future at least.

I will search for VMware.

Thank you very much for your reply

Regards,

Nitin

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In reply to Nitin Nimkar

Re: Selecting hardware setup

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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Hi Nitin

> I am using LAMP.

That's good.

> Yes I am planning to monitor VPS carefully.

Take a monitoring tool which continuously track all the load parameters. Take a snapshot of everything during a load peak. You can also load the server artificially.

> They are using Virtuozzo for VPS management

Never used. According to http://www.parallels.com/eu/products/pvc46/ it is the former "Paralles". What is the host system BTW?

> So far we have not planned synchronous exams and I do not think they will come in immediate future at least.

Then you are definitely on the safe side.

> I will search for VMware.

I was referring to discussions like http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=172799 or http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=172401 or http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=170584 and many more.

If you are not already commited to VMware, you don't have to follow that line.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Selecting hardware setup

by Nitin Nimkar -

Dear Visvanath,

Thank you very much for your reply.

>Take a monitoring tool which continuously track all the load parameters. Take a snapshot of everything during a load peak. You can also load the server artificially.<

I did made a performance testing with the script http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=57028 before we started off on VPS, But I am not sure how far it is reliable. It informed me that I can manage 70 concurrent users with the setup I have. As regards, JMitter, I am not experienced to use it. If I get some tutorial I will try my hand next week, because perhaps we will be having a lull period on the server.

>http://www.parallels.com/eu/products/pvc46/ < I think Virtuozzo is their product.

Thank you very much,

Regards,

Nitin

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