Optimizing the performance of your LMS

Patrick Roth, Abderrahim Oulmi, Laurent Opprecht, Olivier Jeannin

Optimizing the performance of your LMS: example with Chamilo

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Institutional context

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The University of Geneva

• # Students: 17500• # Teachers: 2250 • # faculties: 8

Institutional context

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eLearning tools at University of Geneva

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Information and training– Website: elearning.unige.ch– Blog: ciel.unige.ch, twitter (@cielge)– Workshops (Chamilo, Mahara, RCFE, etc.)– Techno-pedagogical advice– Copyright Expertise– Events (BarCamp, webinars, workshops, etc.)

Institutional context

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Dokeos@unige.ch

– # Users: 18059• # Teachers: 1571 • # Students: 16488

– # Active courses: 2068

Institutional context

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Dokeos@unige.ch

# Acti

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Dokeos@unige.ch

2 million visits per academic

year

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Dokeos@unige.ch

Sep-12

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Dokeos@unige.ch

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Dokeos@unige.ch

1-Oct-12 2-Oct-12 3-Oct-12 4-Oct-12 5-Oct-12 6-Oct-12 7-Oct-120

2,000

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Dokeos@unige.ch

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Dokeos@unige.ch Dokeos response time > 2 minutes

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Dokeos@unige.ch

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Solution

Optimizing the performance of Chamilo

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Solution

How ?

Plan

Do

Check

Act

• Plan– Goal to reach

• Do– Setup your simulation environment

• Check– Measure

• Act– Find the right optimization

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Solution

Goal to reach• Obtain the best performance

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Solution

Goal to reach• Psychology of web performance

“How web page response time affect user psychology and behavior”

Plan

Do

Check

Act

(WebSiteOptimization, 2008)

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Solution

Goal to reach• Psychology of web performance

Plan

Do

Check

Act

Load times

8 to 10 seconds

“lower perceived credibility”(Fogg et al. 2001)

“lower perceived quality”(Bouch et al. 2000)

“increase user frustration”(King 2003)

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Solution

Goal to reach• Psychology of web performance

Plan

Do

Check

Act

Load times

8 to 10 seconds

“perceived more interesting”(Ramsay et al. 1998)

“perceived more attractive”(Skadberg and Kimmel)

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Solution

Goal to reach

Web page response time < 10 seconds

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Solution

Setup your simulation environment• Tool: Apache JMeter

– Test plan• Scenario• Thread Group• Measure

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Solution

Setup your simulation environment• JMeter Test Plan: scenario

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Solution

Setup your simulation environment• JMeter Test Plan: thread group

Plan

Do

Check

Act

2 secondsdelay

2 secondsdelay . . .

500 users

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Solution

Setup your simulation environment• JMeter Test Plan: measure

– Average web page response time (in ms)

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Solution

Measure• Hardware

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Solution

Measure• Software

– Average web page response time – Logs (apache, MySQL, etc.)

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Solution

Find the right optimization• Hardware configuration (CPU, RAM, disk, network, etc.)• Operating System (Linux, Unix, Windows, etc.)• Web server performance

– PHP performance (PHP accelerator, settings, etc.)– Apache performance (settings, modules, etc.)

• Database performance (settings, engine, queries, etc.)

Plan

Do

Check

Act

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Results

Our findings1. Use real server instead of VM

2. Choose the right DB engine for each table (InnoDB vs MyISAM)

3. Add the right PHP accelerator

4. Update your LAMP components (Apache, PHP, MySQL)

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Results

Find the right optimization• Hardware configuration (CPU, RAM, disk, network,

etc.)• Operating System (Linux, Unix, Windows, etc.)• Web server performance

– PHP performance (PHP accelerator, settings, etc.)– Apache performance (settings, modules, etc.)

• Database performance (settings, engine, queries, etc.)

Use real server instead of VM

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Results

Find the right optimization• Hardware configuration (CPU, RAM, disk, network,

etc.)• Operating System (Linux, Unix, Windows, etc.)• Web server performance

– PHP performance (PHP accelerator, settings, etc.)– Apache performance (settings, modules, etc.)

• Database performance (settings, engine, queries, etc.)

Choose the right DB engine

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Results

Find the right optimization• Hardware configuration (CPU, RAM, disk, network,

etc.)• Operating System (Linux, Unix, Windows, etc.)• Web server performance

– PHP performance (PHP accelerator, settings, etc.)– Apache performance (settings, modules, etc.)

• Database performance (settings, engine, queries, etc.)

Add the right PHP accelerator

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Results

Our findings

(Opcode Cache Benchmarks, 2013)

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Results

Find the right optimization• Hardware configuration (CPU, RAM, disk, network,

etc.)• Operating System (Linux, Unix, Windows, etc.)• Web server performance

– PHP performance (PHP accelerator, settings, etc.)– Apache performance (settings, modules, etc.)

• Database performance (settings, engine, queries, etc.)

Update your LAMP components

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Results

Our findings

Component Before Updated

Apache 2.2.22 2.4.6

PHP 5.3 5.5.3

Update your LAMP components

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Results

Our findings• Detect slow queries and optimize them

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Results

Our findings• Detect slow queries and optimize them

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In summary

5 tips for optimizing your Chamilo 1. Use a real server

2. Choose the right DB engine for each table

3. Update your LAMP components

4. Add the Zend Optimizer+ accelerator

5. Detect slow queries and optimize them

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Current situation

Measure this week with Chamilo 1.9.x

# of users Chamilo response time [ms]

425 560

507 493

532 600

725 460

750 483

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Current situation

Measure this week

Chamilo response time < 1 second

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Thank you