Moodle System Requirements for 500 Active Concurrent User

Moodle System Requirements for 500 Active Concurrent User

by Daoud El Gharib -
Number of replies: 6

Hello,

I came to write this post since the idea of specifying the system specs of Moodle 3.6 for a number of concurrent users is not summarized at any other forums and posts. We have clients/projects and we need critically to be able to identify this. 

Accordingly, three main questions came to my mind:

  1. What is the real definition of concurrent users in Moodle? and as we know that there are 2 descriptions out there: a) users working on the system at the same time. b) user clicking/requesting same function/action at the same time with time buffer up to 5sec.
  2. How much hardware resources (RAM, CPU, Bandwidth) we need for 50 concurrent user on Moodle 3.6, taking into consideration there are 24 courses, 100 SCORM packages and 400 other activities (quizzes, assignments, attendance, wiki, ...)?
  3. Is it correct to multiply the quantity of resources required for 50 concurrent user by 10, in order to get the quantity required for 500 concurrent user?


We all know that every system goes under stress testing, benchmarking, and performance measuring by the development team. We also know that this testing occurs under high loaded environment and minimal environment. Based on this tests, the developers identify the minimum and recommended requirements for a system. Why this is not the case for Moodle, noting that it is one of the first LMSs used in the world?


We hope to get some straight forward responses, and thanks for reading out all this stuff thinking.

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Daoud El Gharib

Re: Moodle System Requirements for 500 Active Concurrent User

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

  1. What is the real definition of concurrent users in Moodle? and as we know that there are 2 descriptions out there: a) users working on the system at the same time. b) user clicking/requesting same function/action at the same time with time buffer up to 5sec.

It's the amount of web server processes in memory at the same time. Consider that you can constrain this in the server settings. 

  1. How much hardware resources (RAM, CPU, Bandwidth) we need for 50 concurrent user on Moodle 3.6, taking into consideration there are 24 courses, 100 SCORM packages and 400 other activities (quizzes, assignments, attendance, wiki, ...)?

Don't know because all configurations are different. I would advise you to run a smaller pilot and see what happens. If you *genuinely* have 500 concurrent users then you are looking at a big system and you really don't want to get that wrong. 

  1. Is it correct to multiply the quantity of resources required for 50 concurrent user by 10, in order to get the quantity required for 500 concurrent user?

Pretty much, yes. Moodle generally scales quite happily by adding hardware. 

Moodle is a large, complex system comprising many elements that have very different requirements. This is why this common question is so difficult. 


Average of ratings: Useful (1)
In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Moodle System Requirements for 500 Active Concurrent User

by Daoud El Gharib -

Thanks Howard for the thorough response.


In other words, the question is mainly related to hardware resources and  bandwidth required for average performance of Moodle standard configuration. If this is piloted and bench-marked by any developer/ third-party, then this might be the first step-based to move forward. 

In all projects, Clients always asks for hardware requirements and connection bandwidth on the server side for specific number of users. Accordingly, we are seeking an algorithm, method, or standard to conclude this question, noting that this is the case in all software development field.

It may be so hard to get straight forward answer, as you said. However, there must be a calculation sheet to use for finding out the numbers, just like any other software!!




Average of ratings: -
In reply to Daoud El Gharib

Re: Moodle System Requirements for 500 Active Concurrent User

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

Must there be.... wink

Average of ratings: -
In reply to Howard Miller

Re: Moodle System Requirements for 500 Active Concurrent User

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

It would be nice wouldn't it! smile

As Howard mentions - this isn't as simple as you are making it out to be. There are a lot of different factors that define what your hardware requirements are going to be to support this number of users.

DR/RTO/RPO objectives, where your learners are located, what your learners are doing, what sort of proxies/caching/other architecture is in place/what sort of O/S is installed, what disk storage options do you have available (nfs/nvme/ssd)

Dealing with this number of users on a single Moodle platform is not something you can just set up using some form of calculation sheet - but it is something that Moodle Partners can help with a lot - I'd highly recommend that you find a local Moodle Partner that is experienced in running Moodle with a large user base and ask them for help to set up your architecture.

The requirements of a site that predominantly uses Moodle for viewing static content is quite different from a site that has 200 learners in the same room doing exactly the same test at the same time, or a site that predominantly uses SCORM packages - and one site using SCORM could be completely different from another site using SCORM due to the way their SCORM packages were authored.

Average of ratings: Useful (5)
In reply to Dan Marsden

Re: Moodle System Requirements for 500 Active Concurrent User

by Dan Marsden -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators

to give you a practical example.


Course 1 - mostly static content, forums/assignment drop-boxes/small videos.


Course 2 - relatively "noisy" scorm packages that post a lot of data back to Moodle

50 Users in both courses at the same time. Course 2 has the potential to result in 90% more traffic on the webserver than Course 1 - even though exactly the same number of users are actively using both courses.

Moodle Partners with experience in both scenarios will be able to implement various things to improve this - decreasing the load that is caused by SCORM etc.

Average of ratings: Useful (2)