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• How we planned for the move• Upgrade or fresh install?• Issues that needed an early decision• What technical problems we faced
• How we handled them
• Organisational planning • Involved curriculum teams
• Reflection
How we planned for the move
• Key things to consider:• Installed modules and services
• Are they still needed?• Are these available for Moodle 2?
• Type of usage and level of usage• Age/type of courses• Quality of courses
• Staff skills with Moodle• What are your objectives?
B&SD College
• Before the project:• Well established but unmanaged• Few plugins or modules being used• Mostly old courses
• Some not used at all• Others needed a restart
• Good usage in few areas• Confusion around student enrolment
• Windows Server• http://moodle2.bsdc.ac.uk/vle/
Sandwell College
• Before the project:• Well managed Moodle 1.9
• Courses maintained on an annual basis
• Fractured/Stagnated• Mostly file storage
• Considered difficult to use by some
• Good selection of plugins & modules installed
• SLES 10 Server• http://svc.sandwell.ac.uk/student/
Possible Objectives
• Simplified usage for all users• Improved integration w/ infrastructure• Relaunch, rejuvenation, reinvention• Preparation for future development• Encourage resource sharing• Make use of improved theming
• Ensure support from moodle.org
Upgrade or Fresh Install?
• Depends greatly on objectives• What content you have to bring across• A fresh start will be a more stable base
• But after 18 months this isn't such a problem• Moodle 2.1 and onwards can import individual
backups
• Also consider the spin for users• Do you want this to be a fresh start?
Issues needing an early decision
• How to host• Internal / External
• Operating System
• Hosting Software
• Database Options
• Whether to link to infrastructure• Information Systems
• Domains
• Staff engagement required
Hosting: Internal or External?
• Probably know this already if running Moodle 1.9
• Internal requires certain skills and will probably cost more
• But it also makes it easier to:• Integrate Moodle with other services• Customise Moodle to meet specific needs• Test and debug problems
Hosting: Operating System
• Windows Server• Skills are more widely available• Easier support for other MS systems• Can't handle large amounts of processes• Prefers threading work within one process
• Linux Server• Apache/PHP on Linux is native software• Support dependant on "flavour" of Linux
Hosting: Hosting Software
• HTTP Hosting:• Apache
• Best established, plenty of guides
• IIS (Windows Only)
• Microsoft support, about 10 to 20% slower
• Lighttp• Designed to handle modern web usage
• Really quick if well configured
• Little support online
Hosting: Hosting Software - PHP
• PHP 5.2 for Moodle 2.0, PHP 5.3 for 2.1
• For Windows Server download from here• What is VC6 and VC9?
• Compiler used, should match http host
• What about TS or NTS?• Use a NTS install with a FCGI connector
• For Linux depends on type used• Pre-compiled or Compile from source
• PHP Extensions• Moodle requirements are all common and easily
obtainable
Hosting: Database
• A few choices:• MySQL (5.0.25 or later)
• Standard, & best supported by Moodle
• MS-SQL (2005 or later)• Microsoft's, good software
• Should be fine but has had unique bugs in the past
• Oracle (10.2 or later)
• PostgreSQL (8.3)
Technical Problems we Faced
• Updating Moodle 1.9 to 2.X• Database differences• Developing plug-ins • Creating a new theme
• IE Compatibility
• Stress testing• Streamlining configurations
Updating from 1.9 to 2.X
• File storage completely changed• No folders on server per course id!
• Update essentially the same as usual• Backup everything! Moodle, Files & Database• Replace / Moodle contents• Log in as Admin to start process
• Lots of processing required• Modifying Databases• Restructure File Storage• Rebuild Questions/Quizzes
Database Differences
• For MySQL, Moodle uses InnoDB storage engine.• Should be more reliable
• Transaction safe, capable of row locking
• A little bit slower & uses more resources• Different operations available
• no repair, just check
• Issue w/ mdl_backup_controllers (MDL-29262)
• Gets massive when backing up and restoring.• Not important, so no need to backup
• Use --ignore-table option with mysqldump
Developing Plugins
• Many new types of plug-ins possible• Enrolment Methods, Repositories, Plagiarism
Detectors, Sub-Activities, Question-types
• Get around poor documentation• Dissected other plugins to understand them• Found Moodle XREF sites very useful• Comments found in lib & locallib files
• Such as lib/enrollib.php and enrol/locallib.php
• Familiarise yourself with Moodle coding guidelines if intend to publish
Creating a new theme
• Lots of guides and docs for this• Inherit as few themes as possible
• Fastest themes inherit from Base
• config.php holds a lot of functionality• Javascripts for header or footer
• Exclude inherited styles
• Apply custom renderer
• Check through other themes, • particularly "Afterburner" from 2.1 onwards
• Be aware of standard folders• Such as "pix_core" and "pix_plugins"
B&SD College Themes
Sandwell College Themes
IE Compatibility
• Targeting specific browsers with• Body classes (.ie .ie7)
• Check out CSS3PIE• IE6 woes? Two main choices:
• Eliminate IE6 and update to IE8• Try and make Moodle 2 support IE6
• Support will always be clonky for IE6• Can improve support with a few tweaks
to CSS.
Stress Testing
• Useful free tools like Apache JMeter• Allows you to "record" a test session• Includes logging in and out• Test can then be scaled up to include:
• Variable amount of test users• Variable time between user page loads.
• Also check intensive activities• Like language check-in/out for customisation• Course backups and importing• Bulk user avatar importing
Streamlining Configurations
• Be aware Apache/PHP has different settings/recommendations for Linux/Windows
• Caching• PHP - eAccelerator, APC• Database
• Bigger caches can reduce execution times• Giant caches misbehave, issues with recovery
Organisational Planning
• How will usage differ across the organisation?• Will you be able to meet these needs?
• Is there an opportunity for improvement?• New ways of working maybe?
• Are people aware of what will change?• Offer to attend meetings to discuss
these things
On Reflection - What we learnt
• Migration is an opportunity for change• Not just changes in Moodle itself • But also for organisations using it
• Some big changes have been made• But each of them for a good reason• Repositories sound scary but are important
• They're really just a source for getting files
• Keep an eye on what's ahead• A new version every 6 months
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