DougHughes.net

High Availability – Clustering ColdFusion

I have added several blog postings here before on the theories of High-Availability (HA) and Clustering. In this series of blog postings I will be attempting to create dedicated postings for the following scenarios.Please keep in mind that there will be alternative ways to do these things and what I am showing here is drawn from my experiences from either creating clusters for clients or working on existing clusters

Here are the scenarios I will be posting on…

Setting up a two instance cluster from a fresh install of ColdFusion

• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Round Robin algorithm
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (6.0) using the Round Robin algorithm
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (5.0) using the Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions with Session Replication
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (5.0) using the Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions with Session Replication
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Weighted Round Robin algorithm
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (6.0) using the Weighted Round Robin algorithm
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Weighted Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (5.0) using the Weighted Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Weighted Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions with Session Replication
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (5.0) using the Weighted Round Robin algorithm and Sticky Sessions with Session Replication
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Random Weighted algorithm
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (6.0) using the Random Weighted algorithm
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Random Weighted algorithm and Sticky Sessions
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (5.0) using the Random Weighted algorithm and Sticky Sessions
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.6 (6.0) using the Random Weighted algorithm and Sticky Sessions with Session Replication
• Load testing a two instance cluster on Java 1.5 (5.0) using the Random Weighted algorithm and Sticky Sessions with Session Replication

I will also attempt to do all of these with a single JVM (single jvm.config file) and multiple JVM’s (multiple jvm.config files)

I hope to start these detailed postings tomorrow.

The Great Plague – UnFrameworked Frameworks

I blogged some time ago about in-house Frameworks and how I regard them as “The Black Death“. This comes from years traveling the world troubleshooting and fixing ColdFusion and JRun applications.

Recently I have been working on two projects which were “supposedly” FuseBox frameworked. One was FuseBox 5 the other FuseBox 3. My opinion about Frameworks is if you use them do not fiddle with the core files and do not do things outside the Framework that should be done inside. If you are going to do either of these two things or even worse, both; do not use a Framework at all.

In one of these projects the application went to outer Mongolia and back before even getting to the Framework. In the other there were fbx_switch files with no switch-case blocks at all.

If anyone can convince me that there is good cause to use Frameworks and then usurp them; please let me know why?

Testing Contribute CS3 For Blogging

Recently I had a crash of my main work-tool; my trusted 18 month old note book, a Dell Inspiron E1705. This had been a great system and I still don’t know what happened to it and sent it back to Dell for repair. They told me the system board, keyboard and CD-DVD reader-writer needed replacing, oh and before I returned it they asked me to remove the hard-drive.

After paying the requested $500.00 for replacement parts and shipping/handling I eagerly awaited it’s return. I should mention, by the way, that I had to go out and purchase a replacement immediately, a Fujitsu Lifebook, chosen because it had Windows XP installed (I avoid Vista like the plague). So my trusted Dell Inspiron arrived and I eagerly put back the hard-drive and what did I get – nothing. So whatever happened fried everything. The good news is I back up everything nightly but even then there are so many nice utilities etc that I had not missed till they are not there any more.

Sorry this is a somewhat non-informative blog post but I wanted to create it as it, marks the first post I have created using Adobe Contribute CS3.Here at Alagad we have our own blog based on FarCry. I am about to publish so if this works OK I have yo say I am very impressed with the ease of setting up Contribute.

Easy Rich Internet Applications With ColdFusion 8

SitePoint recently published an article of mine about developing Rich Internet Applications with ColdFusion 8.

SitePoint is a repository of tons of tech-related articles. From what I understand, they will be releasing more ColdFusion related articles in the future.

What are you waitng for? Go check it out.

New Community Chronicles at Fusion Authority

I’ve been waiting for Michael to get the comment functionality online at Fusion Authority before I blog about this.I had an opportunity for a second talk with Bruce Chizen, this time about ColdFusion’s place in the Adobe family. I think you’ll really like what you see… I was amazed and pleased, anyway. I think the resulting article is the place to send anyone who wants to tell you that ColdFusion is dying.

The article is here.

Laterz!

Debug or Not Debug?

We spent some time last week trying to troublshoot an issue where one user was unable to use a Flex application we developed. It was quite maddeing actaully, I was able to use the application from 4 different computers in my house using 4 different browser versions (IE 6, IE 7, FF 2 and Safari for Windows). Other people at Alagad were also able to use the application as well. The user who was unable to use the application was even able to use it when he tried from different computers in his office, but not from his normal workstation.

The culprit, as was discovered, was ColdFusion debugging. For some reason, ColdFusion debugging was interfering with one, not all, just one of the remoting calls. The odd thing is that after being alerted to this, I enabled ColdFusion debugging and I was able to use that application without issue. The user who was having problems was able to use the application after turning off debugging, and it continued to work after debugging was turned on again.

I used to keep debugging turned on all the time on my development machine, but, when I staretd doing a fair amount of Model-Glue, and other framework, development, the page load times were sometimes unbearably long and turning off debugging reduced those times drastically. Now, I only turn on debugging when I need it, and even then, its mostly to view queries that were run (or should have been run).

So, this got me thinking, is what I am doing more the norm or do most people keep dubuging enabled all the time in development?