Charlie Arehart, CTO charlienewatlanta'com

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BlueDragon A New Platform for Fusebox 4

• Charlie Arehart, CTOcharlie_at_newatlanta.com

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About Your Speaker

• 6 yrs CF, 20 yrs enterprise IT experience
• Past accomplishments of note
• Team Macromedia Member
• Allaire/Macromedia Certified Instructor
• Allaire/Macromedia Certified Adv CF Developer (4,
  5, MX)
• Macromedia Customer Advisory Board Member
• Contributor to Macromedia Devnet
• Tech editor, ColdFusion Dev Journal magazine
• Co-authored recent ColdFusion MX Bible
• With Hal Helms and Adam Churvis
• Frequent writer for CFDJ (3rd most behind Hal and
  Ben Forta)
• Frequent speaker to user groups, conferences
  worldwide
• Named CTO of New Atlanta in April 2003
• Goal, as always in my contributions
• spread the word about valuable features in tools
  we can use every day

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Any Challenges For You?

• Are you an ISV selling your Fusebox app to
  multiple clients?
• Problem perhaps high cost of CF 5/MX compared to
  your product
• What if you could serve your CFML app for less
  than your apps cost?
• Or even on a royalty basis?
• Are you a contractor/system integrator building a
  FB app for a client?
• Problem clients are reluctant to pay for CFMX
  (asp/jsp/php are free)
• What if you could offer them a way to run the app
  for free
• Are you a hosting provider supporting multiple
  clients/apps on each CF server?
• Problem clients can conflict with each other
  (poor coding, varying needs)
• What if you could make apps independent of each
  other on the one server?
• Each with own admin, settings segregated from
  each others impact
• What if the CFML runtime overhead for that was
  just 2MB per server?
• Do any of these apply to you even if not an ISV,
  SI, or hosting?

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How Can It Be?

• Am I peddling crack (a favorite analogy of
  Hals)?
• Is there a black market for CF licenses?
• Have I cornered a market on EBay?
• Many of you know Im talking about BlueDragon
• The alternative CFML runtime environment from New
  Atlanta Communications
• What is it? Why should you care?
• Will get to that, and more benefits

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So Why Am I Here?

• So why am I here?
• Besides introducing you to BlueDragon
• I know that people dont like sales pitches
• But is this really any different from my typical
  articles or talks?
• Sharing something with you that you may not have
  seen
• That you can use in your everyday CFML coding
  practices
• Will show you what BlueDragon is about
  momentarily
• Want to first talk to those already familiar with
  it

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BlueDragon and Fusebox

• First, want to say that Fuseboxers are already
  using BlueDragon
• You can run fusebox apps on BlueDragon
• Indeed, we have a Fortune 50 customer about to
  release a FB app
• We have vendors partnering to deploy commercial
  FB apps
• Second, want to announce something very relevant
  to FuseBox
• Indeed, specific to our support of Fusebox 4
• Youre hearing it here first
• Not even announced on our discussion list

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The Key to Fusebox 4

• Question Whats been BlueDragons biggest
  knock?
• Answer Full compatibility with CF
• Lack of CFMX features, like XML, web services,
  CFCs
• What is the key CFMX feature used in Fusebox 4?
• Answer XML tags and functions
• And our announcement

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BlueDragon 3.1 to Support XML

• Our next release, 3.1, will support XML
• Due out in October
• Will support CFXML, XmlParse, XMLSearch, etc.
• Lets see it in action
• 3.1 will have still other MX features
• Note we already have some now in 3
• java integration, j2ee sessions,
  UrlSessionFormat, forward, and more
• See my blog http//bluedragon.blog-city.com/read/
  136203.htm
• Will add more MX features in 3.1
• Then the rest in 4 (goal full MX 6.1
  compatibility)
• Will include CFCs, including 6.1 enhancements
• Perhaps some other enhancements, some requested
  by FB community

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3.1 Preview Available Now

• We have released a preview of 3.1
• Supports many improvements over 3
• Has been made available to current customers
• Adds debugging output, whitespace suppression
  options, and more
• Not yet supporting XML (will come out with beta
  in October)
• But you saw it is working in our internal builds
• Also, be aware of our CFDEBUGGER tag
• Traces lines of code executing CFML tags
• Lets see it
• Documented in my blog
• http//bluedragon.blog-city.com/read/188000.htm

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So What Is BlueDragon?

• By now should be clear what BlueDragon really is
• At simplest just an alternative way to run your
  CFML apps
• Built atop Java server platform, just as is CFMX
• Can integrate with Java (CFOBJECT, CFX Java
  custom tags, JSPs)
• Substantially compatible with CF 4, 5
• Lacks only a handful of tags and functions
  (documented at our site)
• Many of these, and remaining MX tags, being
  addressed
• Can even do Flash integration
• Did talk 2 weeks ago at FlashKit conference on
  the many ways to integrate Flash with any web app
  server
• OpenAMF project even brings remoting to Java
  servers

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Available in Three Editions

• Mentioned free edition BlueDragon Server
• Really is free, for deployment, not just testing
• ALL editions are available free for testing and
  development
• Free Server edition is not at all crippled like
  CF Express 4.5 was
• See my blog entry for more
• http//bluedragon.blog-city.com/read/124577.htm
• Hosting or redistribution require separate OEM
  license
• Again, for such partnerships, we will work to
  grow your business
• See August 8 message Growing a Business with
  BlueDragon on our BlueDragon Interest mailing
  list (archive at self-help section of our site)
• Next step up BlueDragon Server JX (549)
• Like Server, a standalone server
• Adds features not in free Server edition
• Including CFEXECUTE, CFSCHEDULE, and the few
  others held back
• Java CFXs, JSP/servlets integration, and more
• Lets discuss JSP integration more

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Sidebar JSP Integration

• Any CFML developer may be interested in
  integration with JSPs and Servlets
• BlueDragon Server JX supports this
• Allows you to run JSP pages alongside your CFML
• Can share session, application, and request vars
  between CFML and JSP/servlets
• Can transfer control from one to the other,
  include one from other
• In CFMX 6/6.1, is only possible with Enterprise
• BlueDragon Server JX offers it at 549
• Can also do this, and lots more, in J2EE edition

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BlueDragon/J2EE Edition

• Have not yet mentioned perhaps most important
  edition BlueDragon/J2EE
• Other editions are standalone servers
• Running atop our ServletExec java server, like MX
  runs atop Jrun
• What if you already have another J2EE server
• Such as WebLogic, Websphere, Sun One, Jrun,
  TomCat, JBoss, etc.
• May not want to install a CF (or BlueDragon)
  Server
• May not want its other embedded Java server
• Question is anyone coding on a J2EE server?
• What is the standard means to deploy your code?
• Answer a J2EE Web Application (or WAR or EAR
  file)
• Our J2EE Edition IS a Web App
• Can add in your CFML code and deploy it on any
  J2EE server
• Lets see it

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Benefits of BlueDragon/J2EE

• Can run your CFML wherever a J2EE server is
  supported
• Mac, Linux, Unix, Mainframe, Windows, etc.
• Also exposes your CFML app to all the features
  and benefits of that J2EE server
• Multiple independent instances on a single server
• Clustering on multiple servers
• EJBs, JMS, etc
• Weblogic Portals, Page Flows, etc.
• The aforementioned integration of JSPs, servlets
• As mentioned, overhead is just 2MB per web app
• If being told to move to J2EE, dont have to get
  rid of CFML
• Can move to J2EE server and run CFML as is
• Can choose to integrate with or eventually
  migrate to JSP/servlets

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Finally

• What if youre a .NET shop?
• .NET framework is very similar to Java framework
  and JVM
• CFMX and BlueDragon run natively atop Java
• Question would it be interesting to run atop
  .NET?
• Leverage .NET framework libraries, components?
• Native COM integration?
• Answer BlueDragon/.NET coming out soon
• In Alpha testing

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Getting Started

• Can download any of our versions
• www.newatlanta.com/bluedragon/
• Can run it alongside CF 4, 5 or MX
• Doesnt conflict with them at all, other than
  sharing web server
• Includes its own web server (like CFMX)
• Or can integrate with IIS, Apache, Iplanet, NES,
  and more
• Bonus My September 2003 CFDJ article on running
  CF and MX alongside each other, with both
  accessible via a single IIS (accessing same CFML)
• Join our free BlueDragon Interest discussion list
• Email list, staffed by our engineers and
  customers
• Friendly, very supportive and responsive low
  volume
• Sign up at web site, in self help area
• Feel free to email me at charlie_at_newatlanta.com