Server clusters: Will same code work?

[mike2277]

Hi,

I'm about to write an application using CF 7, Windows 2003 and SQL Server.

At first there won't be much traffic so I'll just have it on one server but I'm hoping that the application eventually gets used so heavily that I'll need to purchase the CF Enterprise edition (I'm using Standard now) and set up the app on server clusters.

I've never done this before so I'm wondering 3 things...

1. If my code works well on just one server should it in theory work just as well on a server cluster? I use both session and client variables in the app. I don't want to have to make any code changes later on.

2. Is there an affordable solution to testing the app on a clustered server environment? For me to test this myself it seems as if I would need to buy 2 servers, and 2 copies of Enterprise.

3. Also, when setting up a cluster I believe I would need to have CF Enterprise installed on each of the 2 servers then buy a 3rd server to run SQL Server on right? I heard somewhere you need to have your db on a separate server...

Thanks in advance!

Mike

 

[krisbrixon]

My last job had me working with a cluster of 10 ColdFusion servers and 1 MSSQL server. (Note: we had all the machines more because of a Java app in the pages than the pages themselves. CF will handle a lot before you need a cluster.)

You biggest problem is going to be the session. We solved that useing a load balancer that allowed sticky sessions.
We used F5 BigIP. This was mainly because no one thought about clusters in the early days.

Check it out. The scaling chapter for Advanced CFMX is online:
[URL unfurl="true"]http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=31089&seqNum=1[/url]



Kris Brixon

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.
- W. Allen