Cold Fusion High Availability

Taking It To The Next Level

Presenter: Jason Baker, Digital North

Date: 01.07.2004
About the Presenter:
7 years of Cold Fusion development
experience
Participated in the development of 100+ Cold
Fusion websites
10 years of Webhosting/ ISP/
Telecommunications experience
Co-Founder and Director of Operations for
Digital North
Email: jbaker@digitalnorth.net
About Digital North:
Business Class Hosting Provider since 2001
Shared and Dedicated Hosting, Colocation,
Managed Services
3 Data Centers: Agiliti, Inflow, Visi
Windows, Linux, IIS, Apache, MS SQL, Load
Balancing, Firewalls, Cold Fusion 4.5-6.1,
Flash Remoting
We serve over 1,000 business customers
www.digitalnorth.net
What is High Availability?
High Availability (HA) web
applications provide maximum
uptime while minimizing risks
associated with service failures.
We need to think about the
Datacenter, Network, Server, OS,
Application, People
Risks: Architecture changes,
Business process changes, Cost
Rewards: Better uptime, faster
websites, happy customers
HA Infrastructure Requirements
Environment Is Everything
Physical service location
Climate control
Physical security protection from yourself
Power backup and redundancy
Multiple upstream providers
Local network redundancy
Fire suppression
HA Webserver Requirements
Server-class machine
Redundant power supplies
Redundant Array of Independent Disks
(RAID)
Network storage
Redundant network access
Latest Firmware updates
HA OS & Application Requirements
Hardened OS: Windows, Linux, Sun
Security and performance tweaks
Virus Protection
Firewall Protection
Intrusion Detection
Data Backup Onsite and Offsite
Service Monitoring
Cold Fusion Security Best Practices
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/server_archive/articles/prioritizing_network_server_security.html
Macromedia Security Zone: http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/security/security_zone/
What is Load Balancing?
Load Balancing is using multiple webservers
to maximize service performance and
minimize service failures.
2+ servers can handle more requests or
handle current requests faster
2+ servers minimize risks associated with
hardware failure, OS failure, Cold Fusion
failure
Load Balancing Techniques
DNS Round-Robin: El Cheapo Method
Software Load Balancing: The Heartbeat
Cold Fusion MX for J2EE: Multiple Instances
Application Isolation
ColdFusion Development Center: http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/coldfusion/clustering.html

Cold Fusion Distributed Mode

Hardware Load Balancing
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/server_archive/articles/choosing_hardware_lbdevice.html
Hardware Load Balancing
Network Architecture
Server failover: one
server takes the load of INTERNET
two servers
Load balancing LoadBalancingSwitch
algorithms: Round
Robin, Least Used, Webserver#1 Webserver#2
Fastest Response
Sticky sessions
Service monitoring
agents
Active Content
Verification
Cold Fusion Development Issues
Best case scenario: Cold Fusion installation is
identical on multiple servers
Store Cold Fusion session information in a
database!! (Common problem)
Beware of local databases (MS Access)
Beware of writing to local disk (uploads),
memory, or registry
Use replication to deploy application
Create a clustered development environment
to properly test
Additional Design Issues
Load balanced applications could share
similar failure points
Recognize issues related to applications
sharing a common database
SSL requirements: same key on each server
or SSL proxy on hardware
Logfile analysis tools need to handle multiple
logs
Stress test your applications in a load
balanced environment
Hardware Load Balancing Costs
Costs for an entry-level solution (2 servers, < 1000
simultaneous connections, 5-10 Mb/s bandwidth)
Hardware:
2 Dell/HP/IBM Servers $6,000
1 Load Balancing Switch $5,000
Software:
2 MS Windows 2000 $1,500
2 Cold Fusion MX $2,500
1 File Replication $1,000
Labor: 8 hours $1,000
Total: $17,000
 Questions?
Thank you!

jbaker@digitalnorth.net