Define your Moodle environment in code using AWS CloudFormation to enable consistent and repeatable provisioning and updates. Automate the deployment process with AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, and CodeDeploy to ensure changes are deployed efficiently and reliably, reducing the potential for human error. These services help you implement best practices around change management, deployment, and monitoring, improving the reliability, availability, and maintainability of your Moodle environment.
Overview
This Guidance demonstrates how you to operate Moodle, a learning management system (LMS), on AWS to help you adapt to demand. It showcases Moodle as a robust, secure, and integrated LMS designed to create personalized learning environments and cater to the evolving needs of students, educators, and administrators. This Guidance shows how to leverage Moodle to deliver remote and personalized learning experiences at scale, connecting all stakeholders with learning content, resources, assignments, and progress indicators.
How it works
This architecture diagram shows how to deploy the Moodle LMS on AWS.
Step 1
Amazon Route 53 offers a scalable cloud DNS web service. It directs students to the closest Amazon CloudFront location to access the Moodle web application content while reducing latency.
Step 2
CloudFront provides access to the Moodle web application server, which sits behind Application Load Balancer (ALB), providing low latency access to content while serving cached content from edge locations spread across the globe.
Step 3
AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) manages SSL certificates for secure, encrypted communication with public and private resources. It provides free SSL certificates that integrate with CloudFront or ALB with automated certificate rotation.
Step 4
ALB automatically distributes incoming traffic to Moodle web application servers. The internet gateway provides an entry point to virtual private cloud (VPC) resources inside the public subnet, providing access to ALB.
Step 5
Network address translation (NAT) gateway allows outbound traffic for resources within a private subnet, such as the Moodle app server, that requires internet access.
Step 6
The Moodle app server is deployed horizontally using auto scaling groups with multiple Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances across multiple Availability Zones (AZs), which are deployed in a separate private subnet for additional security. An AWS Systems Manager Agent (SSM Agent) can be configured on the instances to provide SSH access without exposing an SSH port.
Step 7
Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) can be used to store moodledata and other content, providing consistent performance, high availability, and durability.
Step 8
Amazon ElastiCache with Redis OSS Compatibility or Amazon ElastiCache for Memcached stores Moodle sessions and application caches in managed clusters with replicas across AZs.
Step 9
Amazon Aurora offers both MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible global scale database clusters. It provides on-demand scale of replica instances within minutes to handle workload spikes during peak periods.
Step 10
Git repository hosts Moodle's PHP codebase and continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD) configuration files. AWS CodeBuild compiles source code, runs tests, and produces software packages ready to deploy onto the Moodle app server. AWS CodeDeploy manages the complexity of updating applications. It can deploy into Moodle with zero downtime using blue-green deployment methodologies. AWS CodePipeline automates the build, test, and deploy phases for code changes.
Step 11
AWS Secrets Manager protects Moodle application secrets and rotates secrets automatically to match lifecycle requirements.
Step 12
Parameter Store, a capability of Systems Manager, manages Moodle's configuration parameters, including shared storage endpoints, databases, and cache configuration. This avoids the security risk associated with hard-coding configuration within the codebase or environment.
Well-Architected Pillars
The architecture diagram above is an example of a Solution created with Well-Architected best practices in mind. To be fully Well-Architected, you should follow as many Well-Architected best practices as possible.
Operational Excellence
Security
CloudFront provides traffic encryption and access controls and integrates with AWS Shield Standard to defend against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks at no additional charge. Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to scope down permissions to the minimum required for each service, limiting unauthorized access to resources. Together, these services help you improve the overall security posture of your Moodle environment.
Reliability
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC)provides a secure, isolated network environment for the Moodle deployment. Auto Scalingautomatically adjusts the number of EC2 instances based on load, ensuring your application can handle changing demand. ALB provides high availability by distributing traffic across multiple AZs and instances. Aurora, a highly available and reliable database service, and Amazon EFS, a scalable and durable file system, help create a fault-tolerant Moodle environment.
Performance Efficiency
Aurora, a highly scalable and performant relational database service, handles the database workloads of your Moodle deployment. ElastiCache provides in-memory data stores for caching application data and user sessions, significantly improving response times. CloudFront reduces latency by delivering Moodle web content form edge locations closer to users.
Cost Optimization
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling allows you to automatically adjust the number of EC2 instances based on actual usage, so that you only pay for the resources you need. Using managed services, such as ElastiCache, reduces the overhead of managing these components yourself. Additionally, CloudFront caches content at edge locations, minimizing data transfer costs from the origin servers. This helps ensure your Moodle environment is cost-effective by providing the right level of resources at the right time, without over-provisioning or waste.
Sustainability
You can automatically adjust the number of EC2 instances based on actual usage with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, avoiding overprovisioning and minimizing waste. Managed services such as Amazon Aurora and Amazon EFS scale seamlessly, reducing the need to over-provision storage capacity. This auto-scaling and managed services approach helps reduce the overall energy consumption and environmental impact of your Moodle environment.