Lotus LearningSpace R5.01 Deployment Guide

70 Lotus LearningSpace R5.01 Deployment Guide

sure you “spec” your hardware accordingly. You may wish to implement a

separate content and/or multimedia server depending on your needs.

Cost

The final consideration is cost. Hardware, software, and resources for your

deployment can be very expensive. It is important to remember that you are

implementing LearningSpace as your distance learning solution to save you

money. Be sure to weigh out the costs and benefits before making your decision.

Underestimating your hardware needs can provide an unsatisfactory end-user

experience and end your deployment quickly. However, do not overdo it; overkill

can destroy an implementation as well.

6.2.3 Users

User population, deployment schedule, and peak usage times are important

considerations in right sizing.

The higher the number of users in the system, the greater need for a more

“bulky” server. More importantly, however, is the issue of simultaneous users. In

simple terms, one hundred simultaneous users will consume more system

resources than twenty will.

You may notice spikes in your system use. The peak usage times can be on a

particular day or time of the day. Peak usage can commonly occur at the end of a

work day and just before an assignment is due. These spikes in system use have

a negative impact on performance. It can be a difficult task to plan for peak usage

times, because in essence you are trying to determine how your user population

will think. However, it is possible to deploy your courses in such a way that peak

usage times can be limited.

6.3 Load balancing

LearningSpace is an enterprise e-Learning solution, so it supports extending the

architecture. Additional courses, content, and population growth all increase

resource utilization. Load balancing your servers allows your system to keep up

with the growth.

Hints and tips:

If you have a large population, break up your users into profiles and deploy the

course to different profiles at different times. A smaller population is easier for

both the system and the system administrator to manage.

Chapter 6. Architecture considerations 71

6.3.1 Core servers

The LearningSpace Core server can be set up for redundancy using a load

balancing device (such as a Cisco Local Director). Successfully load balancing

your Core servers involves the following:

1. Set up a DNS name and associate the name with an IP address at the Load

Balancing device.

2. Set the local director to balance the load across your Core servers. Be sure to

set your load-balancing device to “Round Robin style” and “sticky”.

3. Set up your first Core server, Core1 (see Chapter 8, “Setting up Core servers”

on page 105).

4. Set up your second Core server, Core2. During the installation, point the DNS

to the existing LS 5.01 database server used by Core1.

5. Verify that you can authenticate to each Core server from the Web.

6. In the Core administration interface, set the tracking server host name to be

the fully qualified name of the DNS at the local director.

Assessments

LearningSpace assessments use an automated FTP process to transfer

assessment content to the server. It is impossible to include this process in a

redundant architecture without causing a maintenance nightmare. You would

normally use your stand-alone Core server as your FTP server for assessments.

Load-balanced Core servers add complexity to this scenario, as the assessment

content can only be transferred to one Core server, not both.

One work-around for this issue is to point your Core server settings to one Core

server only. Set the FTP and HTTP in your Core server settings for your

assessments to use the fully qualified name of Core1 or Core2. Using the fully

qualified name at the local director will not work properly.

Another suggestion for this issue is to separate your assessments from your

Core server. If you are going to be using a separate stand-alone content server,

we suggest that you use this server as the FTP server for your assessments.

Using your content server will keep your Core servers symmetrical.