I have used Limesurvey a number of times successfully before and love it. We are now trying to do a setup on Google App Engine, for PHP, and have a really hard time getting limesurvey to work. Our own PHP code moved over without trouble, but there is something in Limesurvey that is not playing nicely with GAE.

Has anyone been able to successfully install Limesurvey on Google App Engine?

What tweaks did you have to make in order for the install to work?

For more on Google App Engine, Platform As a Service, see here:
cloud.google.com/appengine/docs

Is anyone able to figure out why Limesurvey doesn't work on Google App Engine?

I would think with the increasing number of uses with Platform as a Service this would be a growing concern?

I don't think that many have tried to install Limesurvey on Google App Engine.

I didn't even know that it supported PHP now. As there are so many plattforms out there, I guess many go for other solutions, because from what I have heard and seen Google App Engine isn't the easiest one (not an expert though).

What did you try, do you have an error ?

Seems $_SESSION can be an issue : did you test db session (look at config.php)

Holch, yes, they do support PHP.

Hehehehe, yes, NOW I know.

Last time when I had looked into AppEngine it was somehow experimental or not available.

DenisChenu,

Unfortunately, google app engine was not creating an apparent error. The session would just be lost once it exceeded the 1 MB memcache limit. We tried the database implementation (which google cached with memcache split into multiple entries) but the performance was unacceptably slow and error prone.

To limit what is placed in the cache, we were considering modifying the session start and save to reduce the size of the saved data. Side note, it is a fairly large survey.

It seems that much of the data is the same for each survey's session. This includes information about the questions and answers for each survey.

We were thinking that each time the survey is modified and published, we could write a file to cache the static/consistent information saved in the session. Just before the session is saved, these session keys could be unset (or compared first and unset if they are the same). Before the session is started, the file would seed the session.

Suggestions?

Some LS core dev work on this problem : actually all EM is in $_SESSION, remove this system is a very good solution. But it take time and bug appear ....

Denis

I am unclear on what the next steps might be.

Are you suggesting that the next step is to wait for a core developer to help work on this?

Is there any other way to get LS working on Google App Engine?

Thanks!

DenisChenu wrote: Some LS core dev work on this problem : actually all EM is in $_SESSION, remove this system is a very good solution. But it take time and bug appear ....

What is the plan for LS 3.0? The current session files are 1 MB or more when a Limesurvey survey starts.
Another big issue is that Limesurvey is not recovering from a hit to browser backbutton. When you log on to shops like Amazon or ebay or other Surveysystem, they can recover from a backhit or a browsercrash. With limesurvey that isn't the case. Where is LS 3.0 discussed?

Bitnami is offering Limesurvey for Google Cloud Platform. Not sure if that is the same as AppEngine...
bitnami.com/stack/limesurvey/cloud/google

I have been checking out the Bitnami stuff.

It is really more of a work around. Google Cloud Engine and Google App Engine are interrelated, but not the same.

So you can install Limesurvey on Cloud Engine, but you are basically creating an entire separate virtual setup with its php server, web server, database. And then communicating to that from App Engine. Which means you are not leveraging the full power of App Engine and also paying for two separate services which should really be integrated.

Any thoughts on what it would take to have Limesurvey be compatible with a Platform as a Service like Google App Engine? PAAS are becoming more common and I would think we want limesurvey to fit this growing method of hosting.

Thoughts?

Sorry, no idea. You might have to talk to one of the developers.

Out of own curiosity: What are the advantages of hosting on App Engine specifically rather than a VPS or a dedicated server or other cloud servers like Amazon, etc.?

You save maintaining OS stuff and have an easier admin role. It's aimed at developer to make the apps more scalable and less depend from os parts. If you have a managed vps and don't have to scale to dimensions which a node hardware cannot handle, you won't need to switch that fast.

Take a look at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelastic for a vendor, which works with local providers to offer a AppEngine for PHP and other languages.
To see what Google App Engine means for a PHP script take a look at this:
entwickler.de/webandphp/working-with-php...platform-125769.html


I am not sure if the Limesurvey Team will modify the software to run on GoogleAppEngine soon.

There are restrictions and some kind of adapting would have to be done, to run on GoogleAppEngine.
cloud.google.com/appengine/docs/php/