Moodle 2.6 release notes/Performance tests

The comparison tests are between a 2.5.2+ (2013051402) using database sessions and the same site upgraded to 2.6beta (2013110600, e355217 to be more specific) using file sessions as recommended from 2.6.

These are indicative results from our own test servers, your results may (and probably will) be different depending on settings, and your hardware and software environment.

Site info

• A single web server (Apache 2) that also stores moodledata and a database server (Postgres) in the same server
• All of Moodle's advanced features enabled but web services
• Debug level set to NONE
• Default cache stores
• The frontpage settings are:
  • Without being logged: List of courses
  • Being logged: Enroled courses (same behaviour than 'List of courses' in 2.4, showing only the ones where the user is enroled)
• Site numbers:
  • 102 total users
  • 13 courses
  • 408 role assignments

Test results

	Database reads	Database writes	Time used	Files included	KiloBytes	Session size
Moodle 2.5.2+ (2013051402)	689.42	22.93	8.39	1794.99	921.85	101.22
Moodle 2.6beta (2013110600)	605.26	17.12	8.18	1867.07	980.41	102.12

Test plan

To compare the performance of both releases we simulate a site and we log in as a user performing the following steps:

• View the front page without being logged
• Login
• View the front page logged
• View course
• View a page activity
• View course again
• View a forum activity
• Browse the course again
• Fill a form to reply a forum discussion
• Send the forum discussion reply
• Return to the forum
• View course once more
• View course participants
• Logout

This test plan runs using:

• JMeter 2.3.4
• 30 threads (using a CSV file with the users login data) and 5 loops
• 6 ramp up period
• 120 throughput