> 1.) do server clusters typically employ a special hardware > request dispatcher/router that manages traffic to the cluster?
Hardware-based clustering solutions do. You can use software-based clustering (ClusterCATS + round-robin DNS), but in my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, hardware-based solutions work better. There are several vendors who provide hardware solutions for this, such as Cisco and Foundry. One of the neat things about these solutions is that they can also act as SSL managers and accelerators, and can be configured so that they handle SSL themselves, and use regular HTTP to talk to the individual server clusters, so that you don't have to install the SSL cert on each box, and you generally get better performance - and if necessary, you can use "sticky" sessions in this way. > 2.) if the cluster is intended to distribute the cf > application processing load, but not the webserver load > for asset requests (like gifs and jpegs) - are there easy > ways to manage the difference by file type? by folder? In most configurations I've seen, there's no differentiation between the two - all assets are loaded on each server, and each request is load-balanced whether it's a CF request or a simple file request. However, you might configure servers for just these assets, and write your code to fetch files from these servers instead of your CF application servers. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ voice: (202) 797-5496 fax: (202) 797-5444 ______________________________________________________________________ Macromedia ColdFusion 5 Training from the Source Step by Step ColdFusion http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201758474/houseoffusion ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe' in the body or visit the list page at www.houseoffusion.com
