good posts Steven! Being in charge of supporting our CF servers here in my company I know first hand some of these difficulties introduced with CFMX. CFMX introduced the whole J2EE platform stuffs to a large crowd of non J2EE folks. Not being a JAR head I found this to be a big jump in managing the servers and I'm far from complete on this jump for sure. I recently ran into this with Flex. The beginners install docs are quite lean on the J2EE info for installing it, expecting everyone trying it out to be well versed in J2EE installs of wars, something probably quite uncommon in the Flash community, eh? I guess this can be summed up as growing pains, eh?
keep on keeping on.... Doug On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:59:06 -0500, Steven Erat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Micha, > > I reiterate; I don't believe that casting a broad net for specious reports, > incomplete data, and hyperbole will serve to solve whatever particular > difficulty ails a given server. I think most every case is rather unique, > although where common threads are drawn they get turned around into Technote > advisories, documentation, or possibly bug reports. I think each case needs > to be founded in contextual information. In other words... Show me the data! > > Customer applications really do vary widely, and we in Macromedia Support > have the opportunity to see the full breadth of ingenious applications that > emerge from the developer community. Realize that out of the box, the > ColdFusion and underlying JRun server are tuned as best possible to meet the > general needs of such a diverse audience, where their servers may run on any > possibly configuration within a broad spectrum of configurations limited > only (but not always) by the published System Requirements. This > encompasses the range of internet protocols, operating system quirks, other > third party software integration. Further, it is assumed that there is some > basic knowledge of best practices for tuning the CF and JRun servers, and it > is expected that each application will undergo testing to determine the best > server settings configuration for that specific app. Through Macromedia > Devnet, Livedocs, and Technotes, Macromedia strives to help customer > understand the performance options available. > > Even so, it is expected that customers understand their applications and > their context. Does a public shopping cart app need a SQL statement that is > 10 to perhaps 50 lines long, composed of numerous WHEREs, LIKEs, INs, and > subselects? > > Let me illustrate through anecdote some common themes resulting from reports > of server stablility or performance problems: > > Mistake > Q: "I was reviewing your server settings, and I was wondering why general > timeout wasn't enabled?" > R: "Oh, really? I thought I had set that. I know I set it appropriately on > the other server" > > Misunderstanding > Q: "Why is that your Simultaneous Request setting is set at 300?" > R: "Well when the server seemed to hang we thought it would help to just > bump that up" > > Not knowing the application > Q: "So I found that after you enabled the Log Slow Page setting that > somepage.cfm is chronically reported to run 180-225 seconds. Can you > account for what in that page is taking up the bulk of that time?" > R: "Oh, I really don't know. We inherited this application when the > developer quit. How do we find that out?" > > Unexpected > Q: "I've reviewed the thread dumps and found that all web threads are stuck > on the same line of code a specific CFC" > R: "We load tested the application in development but didn't see this CPU > spiking behavior. It's odd that under more load that this should happen, but > at least we know where to look now" > > Unsupported > Q: "So your server is down and you have this HotSpot crash log. I found the > crash was in this function call, and all Google hits for that function call > point to Java on Debian... Oh, you are running on Debian?" > > ColdFusion/JRun bug > Q: "Your site is just fine under load all day, but at night it's completely > idle until 4am when your other server spiders it... I found that the thread > dumps contain absolutely no jrpp threads. That looks like a recent bug just > discovered, and its good that you have a very reproducible case because > we've been lacking that." > > Sun bug > Q: "You found a HotSpot crash log with error code 4F530E43505002EF. Yes, > we've found this on Sun's bug parade. Its a known issue in the JVM. You > can turn off the HotSpot optimizer with -Xint, but that trades stability for > performance" > > My point here is that when you dig down into the server configuration, the > application, and other raw data, we can most often attribute the problem to > something very specific. Sometimes that turns out to be a bug, and that gets > logged and helps improve the product, and most often a workaround or hotfix > is provided. Sometimes it turns out to be configuration or code dependent. > > Argumentum ad Misericordiam. Argumentum ad Populum. Aggregating all > reports of server instability under one heading is not only futile, but > fallacious. Be diligent during development and staging, and be thorough in > production. This will usually keep that $5000 consulting fee in your > pocket, although a manicure may still be in order :) > > -Steve > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Gold Sponsor - CFHosting.net http://www.cfhosting.net Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:185325 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
