Oncourse Status Report Fall 2009

Transcription

1 Oncourse Status Report Fall 2009 Executive Summary Despite a proactive review and evaluation of the Oncourse infrastructure and application code prior to the beginning of the fall semester, Oncourse experienced three application issues that adversely impacted usage during the Fall 2009 semester. The first was characterized by intermittent outages and slow response times for faculty, students and staff at peak times once IUPUI and BL campuses were back in session. Record number of Oncourse users in response to the record enrollments on many of our campuses, may have contributed to performance issues. The Oncourse team conducted a thorough analysis of the application code, database and Apache/Tomcat application server configurations, options for improving performance were identified, rigorously tested and implemented on 9/30/09. During November, some faculty and students started experiencing frequent errors in the gradebook. This issue was traced back to sites that were leveraging the original Test & Survey tool in conjunction with the gradebook. Changes were made to reduce database deadlocks that were occurring between the original Oncourse and Oncourse CL systems. Lastly, there were a number of network related problems that prevented the IUB data center housed Oncourse CL application to communicate with the ICTC data center housed original Oncourse database. This caused intermittent outages and significant slowdowns in response times. Co-locating the systems is under analysis at this time. Despite these challenges, the scheduled availability 1 of the system was still quite high. August 99.79%; 1 outage September 99.6%; 2 outages, one slowdown October -100%; 0 outages November 100%; 0 outages December 99.1%; 3 outages *The outage count corresponds to the number of IT Notices that were posted The Fall 2009 semester user support contacts increased dramatically at the start of the semester and then dropped back to normal levels as they have historically done. Of all courses in the course management system for the Fall 2009 semesters, 51% were active 2. A revised methodology for collecting statistics was used and thus, artificially increases the percentage difference when compared to previous semesters. As the average hits per day and the average page views per day graphs also demonstrate Oncourse CL usage is on the rise. The application saw a fairly balanced number of active course sites on each campus, with the Columbus and South Bend campuses having the highest percentages of active course sites. 1 Calculation based off 23 hours a day, 7 days a week with no scheduled monthly maintenance window. 2 A revised methodology for determining theses statistics was used for FA09.The change to the methodology slightly inflates the percentage difference when compared to previous semesters. 1

2 There were noticeable increases in the usage of the original Test & Survey, Site Info Groups, Forums and Assignments tools from the previous year. During the past year 162,134 users logged into Oncourse CL, a 5.6% increase from Fall

3 Oncourse CL Profile During the past year 162,134 users have logged into Oncourse CL, a 5.6% increase from Fall The average hits per day and the average page views per day graphs also demonstrate Oncourse CL usage is on the rise. 30,000,000 Oncourse CL Avg Hits /Day 25,000,000 20,000,000 15,000,000 10,000,000 5,000,000 0 Dec-08 Jan-09 Feb-09 Mar-09 Apr-09 May-09 Jun-09 Jul-09 Aug-09 Sep-09 Oct-09 Nov-09 Dec ,000 Oncourse CL Avg Page Views/Day 220, , ,000 70,000 20,000 Dec- 08 Jan- 09 Feb- 09 Mar- 09 Apr- 09 May- 09 Jun- 09 Jul- 09 Aug- 09 Sep- 09 Oct- 09 Nov- 09 Dec- 09 Further application server metrics can be found at: (application code onc) Database performance metrics such as memory usage, CPU usage, and response time can be found at 3

4 Oncourse User Support Contacts In June 2009 Oncourse support contact tracking moved to Numara s Footprints system. Due to the differences in the way that user initiated contacts are tracked in Footprints vs. the retired Falcon system, there is not an optimal way to compare the previous year s data. As this comes available, this will be provided in future reports. Looking solely at the Fall 2009 semester data, the contacts increase at the start of the semester and then remain lower as they have historically done. The requests in the following chart are a mixture of routine/administrative tasks and system problem reports Support Center Request Totals IUB & IUPUI SC's, ACES Team, and Tier2 Support Request Counts Jun- 13 Jul- 13 Aug- 13 Sep- 13 Oct- 13 Nov- 13 Dec- 13 Support Requests 4

5 System Downtime During the Fall 2009 semester there were a number of times there system experienced trouble widespread enough to initiate the posting of an IT Notices. On December 27, 2009 the Oncourse application was successfully moved to the new Bloomington Data Center. The move required a 12-hour outage (5:00 AM to 5:00 PM). The move went smoothly without additional disruptions in service. The system downtime statistics will include any effect from this move. Despite these challenges the scheduled availability of the system was still quite high: August 99.79%; 1 outages September 99.6%; 2 outages, one slowdown & one T&S problem (4 total notices) October -100%; 0 outages November 100%; 0 outages December 99.1%; 3 outages *The outage count corresponds to the number of IT Notices that were posted End User Support There were two application issues that adversely impacted user s experience with Oncourse during the Fall 2009 semester. The first was characterized by intermittent outages and slow response times that faculty, students and staff experienced at peak times during the start of the Fall 2009 semester. The Oncourse development team worked with Enterprise Infrastructure (EI) groups and engaged consulting resources with performance tuning expertise. After conducting a thorough analysis of the application code, database and Apache/Tomcat application server configurations, options for improving performance were identified and rigorously tested. The most promising improvements proved to be changes in the application server layer related to connection pooling and Java garbage collection. The Oncourse team applied these configuration changes to production application servers and closely monitored performance and error rates. The newly configured servers demonstrated improved performance throughout with no errors. These changes were finalized in production 9/30/09. During November, some faculty and students started experiencing frequent errors in the gradebook. This issue was traced back to site that were leveraging the original Test & Survey tool in conjunction with the gradebook. Changes were made to reduce database deadlocks that were occurring between the original Oncourse and Oncourse CL systems. Lastly, there were a number of network related problems that prevented the IUB data center housed Oncourse CL application to communication with the ICTC data center housed original Oncourse database. During the semester errors are written out to the application server logs and monitored. As the chart below illustrates, there were two major spikes in errors. These spikes can be attributed to the performance issues experienced in September and the deadlock issue in November. The errors with other areas of the application are on par with previous counts. 5

6 An exception occurs when the user attempts to access the Oncourse system (or to perform a function within the system) and the user receives a system error. Upon this happening, Tier 2 is notified of time and specific incident in which this occurred ExcepIon Count Jan- 13 Feb- 13 Mar- 13 Apr- 13 May- 13 Jun- 13 Jul- 13 Aug- 13 Sep- 13 Oct- 13 Nov- 13 Dec- 13 ExcepIons Changes & Maintenance Throughout the semester, changes are made to the production system to resolve existing problems and to provide standard system maintenance. In addition major application upgrades occur in-between semesters to provide needed functionality to the user base. During Fall 2009 the following maintenance occurred: Application Patch Application Upgrade Maintenance August 3 n/a n/a September 4 n/a 2 October 3 n/a 3 November 2 n/a 2 December 2 n/a 1 "A detailed list of all changes and maintenance can be found in the Oncourse Changes wiki at During the Fall 2009 semester, there were a number of changes and updates to Oncourse CL that were applied consisting of updates in Assignments, Assignments Beta, Gradebook, Archive, eportfolio, Forums, and other changes to the system. 6

7 Active Courses Of all courses in the course management system for the Fall 2009 semesters, 51% were active. A revised methodology for determining these statistics was developed because: All course sites, registrar based and ad hoc requests are included in the calculations because there are some campuses that request practice course sites for course work. The previous report identified total active course sites in a flawed manner that might have underreported usage. The change to the methodology slightly inflates the percentage difference when compared to previous semesters. Below is a campus breakdown of total courses loaded & number of active courses, and also a graph showing the active course sites by campus. Fall 2009 Campus Usage Breakdown BL CO EA IN KO NW SB SE Total Courses Loaded Number Course Active % Active 49% 71% 63% 61% 56% 60% 65% 57% AcIve Oncourse CL Course Sites by Campus 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% BL CO EA IN KO NW SB SE *All courses are loaded into Oncourse CL at the section level and the course site count includes lecture, lab, and discussion 7

8 Course Site Tool Usage The graph below breaks down the tool usage for courses by semester. Wiki Test & Survey (original) Syllabus Site Info Groups Resources Post 'Em Podcasts Messages Forums Gradebook E- Mail Archive Drop Boxes Chat Calendar Assignment Announcement Tool Usage for Courses by Semester FA09 FA08 FA07 Tool Usage by Semester for All Course Sites FA07 FA08 FA09 Announcement Assignment Calendar Chat Drop Boxes Archive Gradebook Forums Messages Podcasts Post 'Em Resources Site Info Groups Syllabus Test & Survey (original) Wiki

9 From Fall 2008 to Fall 2009 we ve seen a decrease in the usage the Archive and Post Em tools. We ve also seen noticeable increases in the Original Test & Survey, Podcasts and Chat tools. Course Tool Usage Change Fall Fall 2009 E- Mail Archive Post 'Em Wiki Test & Survey (original) Syllabus Site Info Groups Resources Messages Forums Gradebook Podcasts Drop Boxes Calendar Assignment Announcement Chat - 20% - 15% - 10% - 5% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 9

10 Project Site Usage Project sites continue to exhibit strong usage of tools for collaboration such as Announcements, Archive, Message Center, Calendar and Resources. 3% 0% 3% 19% Tool Usage for All Project Sites 19% 15% 4% 8% 2% 2% 7% 2% 1% 0% 1% 6% 8% Announcement Assignment Calendar Chat Discussion Drop Boxes E- Mail Archive Gradebook Messages Forums Podcasts Post 'Em Resources Site Info Groups Syllabus Test & Surveys Project Site Tool Usage Announcement 1932 Assignment 456 Calendar 1058 Chat 199 Discussion 208 Drop Boxes 80 Archive 942 Gradebook 248 Messages 1020 Forums 741 Podcasts 131 Post 'Em 43 Resources 2420 Site Info Groups 419 Syllabus 374 Test & Surveys 0 Wiki