Steven:
As I understand it, a Moodle ASP can cache your login info as a secondary
reference while your LDAP/AD authentication is down. Of courses, any changes
made after you come back up need to be refreshed. Check with a provider on
this.
Ken Paynter
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Dickenson, Steven
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2009 2:47 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: moodle questions
We also host our own Moodle server in house as a VM in our ESX cluster.
Usage is very light, and resource utilization stats on the VM bears that
out. However, based on my calculations, this VM can scale quite
effectively. To keep load reasonable, we use Lighttpd instead of Apache,
PHP running in Fast-CGI mode, and a PHP caching engine. Moodle 1.9 brought
along many, many code improvements as well, bringing overall script
execution time down.
My biggest concern with continuing to keep Moodle in-house is our power
situation. Key is in an older, residential community that frequently looses
power during major storms. Our battery backup system only runs us for an
additional 20 minutes before shutting systems down, so in the event of an
extended power outage that would shut down the school, our Moodle site would
also be shut down. I'm considering moving Moodle off-site to a hosted VM,
but I want to maintain LDAP authentication against AD for our logins. Of
course, if our power is out on campus our AD is down, so even though Moodle
is off-site no one could log in. So now I'm looking at two VMs, one for
Moodle and one for a read-only domain controller.
Anyway, the point of this post is that planning is everything, and uptime is
more than just about having your Moodle server up. If it depends on LDAP
authentication, your internal mail server for communication, etc, you need
to take those things into account.
S
---
Steven Dickenson <sdickenson@keyschool.org>
Computer Network Manager
The Key School, Annapolis Maryland
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A forum for independent school educators [mailto:ISED-
> L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Inman, Alex
> Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 8:02 PM
> To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject: Re: moodle questions
>
> Good points, Jim. Karen, I know you guys have a lot of bandwidth and a
> skilled tech in Justin who is not afraid of Linux. I host our Moodle
> server on a virtual Linux server on VMware. If you can do your own
> Linux server, you can scale the heck out of it. Plus all sorts of
> simple performance hacks can be found at Moodle.org.
>
> Alex Inman
> Whitfield
>
> Sent from my iPod
>
> On Jan 17, 2009, at 3:28 AM, "Jim Heynderickx" <jheynder@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi, Karen
> >
> > We also use Remote Learner for our consulting/support group, and they
> > have been good when we have needed them.
> >
> > We started with an in-house Moodle server, but the 1:1 program in the
> > Middle School swamped it most effectively. Basically, the teachers
> > wanted to use Moodle with all students in the classroom at the same
> > time, for materials, file exchange, and quizzes. If you read the fine
> > print, a basic Moodle installation on a Windows 2003 server is more
> > suitable for lighter, evening use. If you have more than one
> > classroom of students doing something significant on Moodle, like a
> > quiz, a slower box will blog down. (At least in our experience...)
> >
> > We upgraded (with Remote Learner's help) to two Linux servers,
> > optimized to run Moodle. One is the database, and the other is the
> > processing front end. Since this change,we have one of fastest Moodle
> > servers I've used, our usage is almost double what it was last year,
> > and there have been no complaints about access speed by classrooms
> > (except when our wireless network becomes bogged down by backups or
> > other such delights, another work in progress).
> >
> > After a review, we decided to do an in-house server cluster because
> > our students are moving so many files into and out of Moodle,
> > including podcasts, digital images, etc. I would have preferred a
> > hosted Moodle solution, but we were concerned about Internet bandwidth
> > and the cost of ramping up to a dedicated hosted server to meet
> > processing needs.
> >
> > In the near future, I hope to work on creating a single sign-on
> > feature in our school web portal, so that once students and teachers
> > log in there, they are also authenticated into the Moodle system
> > embedded in the school portal.
> >
> >
> > Jim Heynderickx
> > Director of Technology
> > American School in London
> >
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