ColdFusion Developer’s Guide - Part I

There are three editions of ColdFusion, which allows businesses to select the platform best suited to their needs. For large businesses that require complicated Internet applications and increased scalability, there is the Enterprise edition. On the other hand, the Professional edition is ideal for smaller companies that require less advanced applications. Finally, small companies that need simple but dynamic Web applications can use the Express edition, which is essentially bare-bones ColdFusion. ColdFusion contains several components. Perhaps the most important of these is the ColdFusion Server. This is the part of the platform that processes application pages, and returns HTML pages to clients. It also takes care of the administrative aspects of the application once it has been designed, using a Web application named the Administrator.

To simplify the task of the human administrator, ColdFusion is automatically set to begin operation upon the system startup. This means that many of the ColdFusion services will begin to run immediately. Some of them may have to be shut down during periods of maintenance, but, for the most part, they run in the background, silently ensuring that the server is operating properly.

Quick Steps for Setting Up a ColdFusion Solution

Check the hardware compatibility and the site licenses prior to installation. This will save you a lot of time and effort in case something goes wrong. Install ColdFusion. Make certain that you have the correct edition for your designing needs (for example, if you are building Enterprise-scale applications, you’ll need ColdFusion Enterprise Server). If you have Netscape or Apache running on a Solaris system, configure your Web server to run with ColdFusion.

Add, configure, and verify the ColdFusion data sources for your applications. Make certain you keep track of where they are, in order to save time. One good rule of thumb with all IT work is to document EVERYTHING. Configure the Administrator e-mail address and define the default mail server host name. This is necessary for error pages, which list the administrator’s e-mail address. Configure the Log File options. These are required so that the administrator can monitor server activity, and catch any errors as they occur. Start writing the application.

Another vital part of the package is ColdFusion Studio, which is tightly integrated with Server; Studio provides all of the developer’s programming tools. The advanced editor is compatible with Java, HTML, WML, XML and CFML, and the visual database tools allow integration with Oracle and SQL databases. Studio handles advanced project management, allowing developers to deliver their product to several servers at the same time via HTTP or FTP, and also allows developers to remotely access other projects via HTTP.