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New and Improved ColdFusion Environment
Restructuring Georgetown's Web Application Development Space
Mary Pickering
Over the past three years, more and more of Georgetown's Web developers have used ColdFusion to create and run Web applications that draw information from a database. Have you ever filled out a form on the Georgetown Web site that automatically supplied your name and contact information after you logged in with your NetID? You were using a ColdFusion Web application
All ColdFusion Web applications developed at Georgetown are housed on one of two servers, cfdev.georgetown.edu or data.georgetown.edu. As ColdFusion development has grown, the load on cfdev and data has increased exponentially, with traffic doubling in 2003. Slowdowns and timeouts have sometimes been the result (predictably enough, at times of high demand such as the beginning of classes in fall, the middle of the day, and so forth). At other times, errors in the ColdFusion applications themselves have caused the servers to crash.
To accommodate increased traffic from ColdFusion applications, University Information Services Web architects and network engineers will replace Georgetown's entire Web server environment in 2004. HTML and ColdFusion content will be consolidated onto a single environment that will be custom-built for Georgetown's Web needs and will accommodate most peaks in demand. The most obvious improvement in the new environment will be a true division between development and production environments, which will further keep the servers stable and operating most efficiently.
In conjunction with a new environment, new ColdFusion development standards will be implemented to protect the entire server against errors in individual applications The standards, formulated by UIS Web architects in conjunction with many of Georgetown's ColdFusion developers, can be found online. Standards were based on the Fusebox methodology for development, a methodology that has the advantages of modularity and rapid development and repair.
Adherence to the standards will be required for applications produced in the new environment; applications housed on data.georgetown.edu are required to meet the standards by May 1, 2004. In the meantime, ColdFusion developers may test that their applications comply with the new standards by using the scanning tool at http://data.georgetown.edu/uis/web/coldfusion/scan/index.cfm. Developers may also attend training sessions on the new standards this spring. Register at http://uis.georgetown.edu/training/.
The new server environment is currently in the testing and design stages, as UIS determines what structure the new environment should take and on which software platform it should be built. Once the new server environment is launched, additional changes are likely to be made to the processes for publishing and accessing the servers. Launching the new environment and migrating all of Georgetown's Web sites from the old servers will be a long and intense task, but it is one that UIS looks forward to tackling.
Mary Pickering is manager of the Internet Development Group for UIS. |
