Server Hardware - look OK?

Server Hardware - look OK?

by Rob Boris -
Number of replies: 6

Hi all,

I have an Ubuntu server sitting on Hyper-v (on a raid-10)

four 2.66ghz xeons

6gb ram

This server is for intranet use only - no access from internet.

Users should be 30-50 at the the most - simultaneously.

Does this look up to spec?

thanks,

Rob

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In reply to Rob Boris

Re: Server Hardware - look OK?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

If you mean 30-50 *logged in* users then it should be fine. 

Ultimately it depends on what they are actually doing.

In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Server Hardware - look OK?

by Rob Boris -

Thanks for the prompt reply.

In this case, moodle will be used for trainings - a user will take a course, then be quizzed at the end. 

Should I put in more RAM? 

 

Rob

In reply to Rob Boris

Re: Server Hardware - look OK?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

You should *always* put in more ram wink

However, Apache and MySQL will need to be tuned to use it. Plenty of information around on that subject 

In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Server Hardware - look OK?

by Rob Boris -

I looked around and found this http://docs.moodle.org/26/en/Performance_recommendations

However I have no idea which tweaks to use and which ones not to.  Any guidance on this?

Rob

In reply to Rob Boris

Re: Server Hardware - look OK?

by Howard Miller -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers

Generally speaking, all that apply to you. 

What is important, is that you are doing something to measure your site performance and can get an idea if changes are making a difference. To oversimplify, there are really two outcomes. Firstly, the basic page load time (i.e. with no-one else logged in how quickly do a variety of pages load for a particular user). Secondly, how is overall server load affected (and how much resource is consumed). I generally recommend running something like 'munin' to monitor system resources and to see if you are reaching limits. 

Performance tweaking can get quite obsessive but the thing to avoid is just changing random settings and hoping for the best (do as I say, not as I do!!)

If you are looking for a place to start....

1. Check your hardware is genuinely up to the job. If it isn't you'll never fix it with tweaking. 
2. Run a suitable accelerator and consider running a memory cache for the MUC.
3. Configure Apache and MySQL's settings to reflect the amount of RAM you have available. Apache usually comes configured for simple web pages and will eat all your RAM very quickly running Moodle. MySQL usually comes very conservatively configured to use hardly any RAM at all. Giving it some space for its caches can make a big difference. 

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In reply to Rob Boris

Re: Server Hardware - look OK?

by arani dezima -

Minimum required hardware for 30-50 users will be something in the range of this ;) Well, on a more serious note, that really sounds more than enough to handle 30-50 users max.