Slow LMS/Long LMS pages load times

This a scenario that arrises when the LMS continues to grow over time. Multiple factors are at play here and we will cover the most common factors.

Among them are:

The Instance spec (specification) is small

High usage/concurrent users on the LMS

Server relient PHP version requires an upgrade

Increasing the Instance specs

The instance will demand increase in resources the more users are logged on to the LMS. To ensure that we cover such scenarios, the responsible Super admin needs to check the instance regularly. Google Cloud Platform offers insights on Instance usage and will often recommend changes when it notices the Instance/VM is underutilised or over utilised.

The specs to increase on an instance are:

The vCPU

The RAM

For good measure, if we have an instance whose specs are: 1vCPU and 3.75GB RAM and is being overutlised, checnge the spec to something like 2 vCPUs and 8GB RAM. This will significantly raise the capacity of the Instance to provide a stable LMS for increasing usage demands.

Two things to note are:

You need to check regularly on the GCP account to see if the Changes you have effected are working accordingly (Did not ‘over increase’ resources).

With every increase of the resources (Computing power of the Instance), the billing changes to account for the increase in service. Please document these changes and inform the responsible parties of incoming additional increase in budgeting for the Instance

Now, to increase the spec of the instance:

Go to the instance

console⁠

on GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and switch to the Google account which hosts the Virtual machine.

On the top left, click the menu icon to pull out the menu items. Navigate to Compute Engine > VM Instances

Click on the VM that hosts the LMS (if there are multiple VMs).

On the top bar, look for a 3-dot button, which will show several menu items. Our focus is on the Stop menu item. Clicking this prompts us to stop the instance. Ensure the instance has stopped to proceed to the next steps.

Click on Edit, to edit the instance.

Scroll down to Machine configuration and change to a slightly bigger value. Click on machine type and selects the next available upper limit standard e.g. 2 vCPU and 7.5GB memory

⁠

7. When you’re done, scroll to the bottom and click Save.

8. Finally Start the Virtual Machine.

Note is the LMS hasn’t yet come back online, enter the following command on your SSH Client (putty)

sudo systemctl start apache2

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