Hello, I'm hoping some of the experts here will have some advice. We are in our first year of using moodle, and have had some bad experiences with our nice cheap host (bluehost) as we often exceeded bandwith if we did anything at all fun. So, we want a new host. We looked at ET webhosting, but they don't provide enough space. Here are our usage stats at this point:
Site size: 1.6 gigs, with a full site backup taking 2.2 gigs (not sure how that works)
Peak bandwith use: 12 gigs per month
We expect both of these to go up in the future. We found that things often crash when only 5 people are in the chat room. We also want to be able to host video and mp3 on our domain.
Also, we're doing this on a non-profit basis, so we can't afford a dedicated server. Any recommendations? It's a huge pain to move our site, and we don't want to take chances here. Thank you! Oh, and we have 30 days left on our bluehost account. Thanks!
Hi Jackie,
Blue host say they offer 3000gb transfer per month
http://www.bluehost.com/tell_me_more.html
but you say you only use 12gb per month????
I use http://hostgator.com/shared.shtml
and think they are pretty good, you would have to check with them about video / mp3.
Also, If I were you I would look for hosting that allowed a private SSL certificate (to secure your logins) and possibly SSH command line access.
Jez
Blue host say they offer 3000gb transfer per month
http://www.bluehost.com/tell_me_more.html
but you say you only use 12gb per month????
I use http://hostgator.com/shared.shtml
and think they are pretty good, you would have to check with them about video / mp3.
Also, If I were you I would look for hosting that allowed a private SSL certificate (to secure your logins) and possibly SSH command line access.
Jez
The problem isn't how much they claim to offer, but how much they actually let you use. These budget hosts limit your usage severely so that any actual load on the server shuts down your site. They're cpu load is so ridiculous that it crashes the site with only a few people chatting, whether using moodle chat or a java chat.
That's why I'm asking for some expert advice, those who understand the issues that come with cheap hosts and how they claim to offer something that they can't and won't deliver. If this hasn't been a problem for you, then I would bet you aren't doing anything with moodle that doesn't involve any real cpu load. Try throwing 5 or 6 people in the chat room and see if it crashes within a few minutes.
That's why I'm asking for some expert advice, those who understand the issues that come with cheap hosts and how they claim to offer something that they can't and won't deliver. If this hasn't been a problem for you, then I would bet you aren't doing anything with moodle that doesn't involve any real cpu load. Try throwing 5 or 6 people in the chat room and see if it crashes within a few minutes.
Hi Jackie,
Sorry I mis read your post somewhat.... also my second reply was not meant to contradict you, I thought you were asking whether it was a pain to move your site.... I see it is actually a statement.... I should have taken more time reading your original post
I use that hosting for other sites, the Moodle instances I work with are on dedicatedservers and on those CPU usages has been an issue... but a lot depends on how many users you have.....
Sorry I mis read your post somewhat.... also my second reply was not meant to contradict you, I thought you were asking whether it was a pain to move your site.... I see it is actually a statement.... I should have taken more time reading your original post
I use that hosting for other sites, the Moodle instances I work with are on dedicatedservers and on those CPU usages has been an issue... but a lot depends on how many users you have.....
> These budget hosts limit your usage severely so that any actual load on the server shuts down your site.
I have the luxury of dedicated servers and Unix command line, so can't talk about mass hosters. During the limited encounters I had, what I hated most was to go through their jungles of configuration tools rather than the Unix CLI. Your experience, a server simply shuttung down, is a humilation
Talking about hosting, these are the options you have: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=64918#p293139
Now how much an individual site consumes in terms of RAM, CPU, network the administrator should know. The quiz module and specially chat are notorious for heavy consumption. You seem to use chat a lot. IMHO to chat over web is a huge wastage, HTTP was not meant for that. There is a whole deparment for IRC.
> That's why I'm asking for some expert advice, those who understand the issues that come with cheap hosts and how they claim to offer something that they can't and won't deliver.
What do you expect? A list of all hosters and their performance figures?
I have the luxury of dedicated servers and Unix command line, so can't talk about mass hosters. During the limited encounters I had, what I hated most was to go through their jungles of configuration tools rather than the Unix CLI. Your experience, a server simply shuttung down, is a humilation
Talking about hosting, these are the options you have: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=64918#p293139
Now how much an individual site consumes in terms of RAM, CPU, network the administrator should know. The quiz module and specially chat are notorious for heavy consumption. You seem to use chat a lot. IMHO to chat over web is a huge wastage, HTTP was not meant for that. There is a whole deparment for IRC.
> That's why I'm asking for some expert advice, those who understand the issues that come with cheap hosts and how they claim to offer something that they can't and won't deliver.
What do you expect? A list of all hosters and their performance figures?
Well, considering that I have yet to find a host that would work for a decent price, it's not a huge list. ET Webhosting is often recommended, but they don't provide much space. Then, people have recommended other budget services, which I would expect have the same problem. But, since the people who recommend them aren't running chat, they wouldn't know about the issue. And the other thing people recommend are moodle partners which is way beyond our price range.
It's ok if you don't actually know of a host that does this. But I'm not an expert on this. There are people who know a lot more about hosting, as I've read in a lot of threads before I posted this request. But the options given aren't viable for us. And we have our own reasons for running a chat program. On our site we have a separate SMF forum and chat program to reduce the load on the moodle database, which continues to cause cpu overloads. At this point, at least the site stays up unless we're running a site backup or we get too many people in chat. Perhaps if we were linked to a university we could get funding, but we're just a group of people providing online community and training. Therefore, we're self funded and need to minimize this cost.
You don't need to get snippy about me asking a question. I'm not asking people to do a bunch of research, just if they happen to know something that might work better than bluehost.
It's ok if you don't actually know of a host that does this. But I'm not an expert on this. There are people who know a lot more about hosting, as I've read in a lot of threads before I posted this request. But the options given aren't viable for us. And we have our own reasons for running a chat program. On our site we have a separate SMF forum and chat program to reduce the load on the moodle database, which continues to cause cpu overloads. At this point, at least the site stays up unless we're running a site backup or we get too many people in chat. Perhaps if we were linked to a university we could get funding, but we're just a group of people providing online community and training. Therefore, we're self funded and need to minimize this cost.
You don't need to get snippy about me asking a question. I'm not asking people to do a bunch of research, just if they happen to know something that might work better than bluehost.
Moodle partners are the best bet, we know how to host Moodle best 
.
The really cheap webhosts are set up for static (pure HTML) web page hosting. Dynamic applications that use a database overload cheap hosts when more than a few users login, esp. with chat and quiz, which are heavy users of the database (lots of information to keep track of in those tools). They simply can't afford to provide sufficient server resources (RAM and CPU) resources for chat and quiz at the prices they charge.
You need well tuned hardware, with the right number of users (many cheap hosts put 100s-1000s of sites on a single server to break even), and specific expertise to scale a dynamic application properly. The least expensive ones I've seen that are set up for actually having 5+ users logged in at the same time are in the $600/year range, as much or more partner hosting.
Partners also contribute funds back to Martin to keep him working on the code.
Another option is to use Skype instead of the Moodle chat, and let their peer-to-peer network handle the load--the stuff that the Moodle chat does for you based on the course, participants, role, etc. is the stuff that makes it take up lots more server resources than cheap hosts can provide.
the issues that come with cheap hosts and how they claim to offer something that they can't and won't deliver.
The basic issue is that they are not set up to handle applications that put a high load on the server-- you are running into a physics/economics problem really, systems that scale well are not cheap to build and run, and mass hosting is a low margin business.
The really cheap webhosts are set up for static (pure HTML) web page hosting. Dynamic applications that use a database overload cheap hosts when more than a few users login, esp. with chat and quiz, which are heavy users of the database (lots of information to keep track of in those tools). They simply can't afford to provide sufficient server resources (RAM and CPU) resources for chat and quiz at the prices they charge.
You need well tuned hardware, with the right number of users (many cheap hosts put 100s-1000s of sites on a single server to break even), and specific expertise to scale a dynamic application properly. The least expensive ones I've seen that are set up for actually having 5+ users logged in at the same time are in the $600/year range, as much or more partner hosting.
Partners also contribute funds back to Martin to keep him working on the code.
Another option is to use Skype instead of the Moodle chat, and let their peer-to-peer network handle the load--the stuff that the Moodle chat does for you based on the course, participants, role, etc. is the stuff that makes it take up lots more server resources than cheap hosts can provide.
the issues that come with cheap hosts and how they claim to offer something that they can't and won't deliver.
The basic issue is that they are not set up to handle applications that put a high load on the server-- you are running into a physics/economics problem really, systems that scale well are not cheap to build and run, and mass hosting is a low margin business.
Great answer, Michael.
A couple of observations:
1. It seems to me that we're not great at educating newcomers to Moodle (and similar apps like Drupal, Joomla, etc) about the nature of these apps - and the corresponding challenges (and costs!) of implementation and support.
Of course the hosting companies don't help here either. They're very quick to boast about stats that mean and cost very little (peak bandwidth, storage space) and keep silent on things that actually impact our applications (predominantly memory and processor availability).
2. Similarly, working in the K-12 space in Australia I frequently come across organisations that don't quite grasp the fluid nature of FOSS projects like Moodle - and the needs + benefits from continually merging with the upstream, etc.
Those of us working in larger scale implementations assume that users are familiar with SCM tools etc... but the majority of new Moodle installations are very small, and typically maintained by fairly non-technical users.
I know I'm not really offering any solutions here... just continuing discussion... but we do need to be always mindful of the range of different members of our ever-growing community - and perhaps thinking about how we educate users about working with open source... That way perhaps they can see the benefit of the hosting and management services provided by Moodle Partners and understand how unsuitable the mass hosting companies indeed are!
... and on a related note, I do think we need to perhaps continue efforts to keep the memory footprint small - the documented gains over the past couple of years (eg. Martin L's post here) have been understandable... but unfortunate.
Myles C.
A couple of observations:
1. It seems to me that we're not great at educating newcomers to Moodle (and similar apps like Drupal, Joomla, etc) about the nature of these apps - and the corresponding challenges (and costs!) of implementation and support.
Of course the hosting companies don't help here either. They're very quick to boast about stats that mean and cost very little (peak bandwidth, storage space) and keep silent on things that actually impact our applications (predominantly memory and processor availability).
2. Similarly, working in the K-12 space in Australia I frequently come across organisations that don't quite grasp the fluid nature of FOSS projects like Moodle - and the needs + benefits from continually merging with the upstream, etc.
Those of us working in larger scale implementations assume that users are familiar with SCM tools etc... but the majority of new Moodle installations are very small, and typically maintained by fairly non-technical users.
I know I'm not really offering any solutions here... just continuing discussion... but we do need to be always mindful of the range of different members of our ever-growing community - and perhaps thinking about how we educate users about working with open source... That way perhaps they can see the benefit of the hosting and management services provided by Moodle Partners and understand how unsuitable the mass hosting companies indeed are!
... and on a related note, I do think we need to perhaps continue efforts to keep the memory footprint small - the documented gains over the past couple of years (eg. Martin L's post here) have been understandable... but unfortunate.
Myles C.
Those are good points. We had no idea how intensive this program could be, especially for such a small setup. Right now we work around our host by doing manual backups and we don't really use the chat much or quizzes. But, in the future it would be nice. And since we funded by, well, the admin, that makes moodle partners out of our price range. Since it's looking like we don't have many options, we're going to spend more time researching our funding options. I like the idea of moodle partners, just not the cost (though I'm sure they earn it).
Thanks for the information.
Thanks for the information.
No it is not a huge pain to move your site, but you will have to take it down for a while, a rough guide would be to:
Keep additional backups of the zip and dump files used.
Jez
- Put your old site in maintenance mode.
- Dump your database, and compress all of your files.
- On your new host unzip files and import database dump.
- You will probably have to change config.php as on shared hosting the account name is a prefix to the database name and database user name.
- Take NEW site out of maintenance mode.
- Update your DNS to point at the new server. This takes some time to take effect. You could make the DNS transfer earlier on in the process, just make sure you can access your sites via the IP address first.
Keep additional backups of the zip and dump files used.
Jez