Usman Asar

Hello Curt,

using two cache extensions sometimes bring issues, and you mentioned using APC already and setting up Varnish can be disastrous for sure for I have once tested turning on WinCache and OpCache and though site was running, was log-ins were having issues.

Have you tried turning off APC and only using Varnish?

As far performance goes, I though have seen good output with Varnish if properly setup, but with recent testing done, I have found opcache worked brilliantly for Moodle.

Curt, page rules only applies where you want to skip the content passing through CF's servers, as sometimes cached content may end up in trouble with final output so they have given the option of Page rules (what to cache and what to not).

RailGun wont be available on free accounts, but Business only, you may have tested rocket loader, as both are different products, thought rocket loader is still in Beta and is as well available on free accounts, but does effects the loading speed to much extent.

As for Varnish, I dont know where you have read that it doesnt works with Moodle, as I have one installation on Varnish, where you want performance boost, then do use zend opcache instead as that is fully supported by Moodle and I have seen a lot of performance improvement in Moodle also PHP developers responsible to maintain the opcache extension have been working around moodle as well for extension support, whereas memcache though is another way of getting performance, but a server with 2G ram, I am assuming you have a small-mid size moodle installation.

Curt, CF's servers will not cache everything  on your site, but only images, office/pdf files and few others (you can find list of files on CF's website), if it is showing 10% fewer servers needed, means the content that can be cached is not much, but it again depends on how many hits you are getting per day.

Have you tried checking the HTML/CSS & JS options in "Speed" section? if you still havent as these come unchecked by default, then turn them on one by one and see the difference it makes by doing webpage speed tests (giving 5 min interval in between), also in same section you'll find "Rocket Loader", which though does not cache anything, but will load javascript with a slight delay, turning that on and doing webpage speed tests nearly reaches 100% performance and reducing page load times significantly, in reality you may feel that your page render is slow.

also, depending upon what package you are on, you'll find the option of railgun, if you have added your moodle independently then I think it comes with Business package, else if you are hosted on partner then just $20 a month investment will give you Business package and you will be able to make use of railgun, I personally haven't tested rail gun myself, but have heard that it really boosts performance.

If you want to, you can as well give a try to a competitor website (Incapsula), they have a free package as well, those who tested both in comparison says if you are after security, then Incapsula, but if you are after performance and  speed then CF.

Khalid, I wonder where  you have been asking questions and reading answers to be recommended a LB solution for this many users. If you expecting thousand plus concurrent, then a load balanced scenario can be thought of, but with 200-300 concurrent you definitely don't need a load balancer.

for your requirements, a VPS with a hosting provider will as well suffice, but as you mentioned putting all together in house, then an E3 class XEON, 12GB RAM (minimum), and if your data isn't much, then put all together on SSD, else at least put database on a separate drive and nothing could be better than SSD for database as its database I/O's that hammers moodle installation hard.

Luis,

these videos may be of any help to you, they cover installation and upgrading moodle.

Video 1: http://www.screencast.com/t/7di1TIv9NH

2: http://www.screencast.com/t/isCbx6rnVd

3: http://www.screencast.com/t/QfsROwJCz

4: http://www.screencast.com/t/p59D8pnX8h

5: http://www.screencast.com/t/BKK0rRLd1

6: http://www.screencast.com/t/ZtdiUTSrItGX

and

http://www.screencast.com/t/aLYYluO8qs