SeeFusion CFML Monitoring and Troubleshooting for BlueDragon

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SeeFusionCFML Monitoring and Troubleshooting
for BlueDragon ColdFusion

• Charlie Arehart

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Topics

• Monitoring/troubleshooting Challenges
• Problems Solved by SeeFusion, demo
• Reporting Mechanisms
• Installation and Configuration
• Whats New in Release 3
• Learning More and Getting Started

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About Your Speaker

• CTO, New Atlanta Communications
• Makers of BlueDragon, an alternative to
  ColdFusion
• Company HQ in Alpharetta, GA, outside Atlanta
• 8 yrs CF experience (22 yrs Enterprise IT)
• Macromedia Certified Adv CF Developer (4/5/MX)
• Former Macromedia Certified Instructor
• Past CFDJ Tech Editor, frequent contributor
• Co-author of ColdFusion MX Bible
• Frequent speaker user groups/conferences worldwide

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Introduction

• Im guessing youre in one of 3 camps
• Never heard of SeeFusion
• Know of SeeFusion from past, wanted more
• Know and like SeeFusion, but not seen latest
  release
• Hope to show you in 15-30 minutes why you should
  be impressed with SeeFusion
• SeeFusion is a product of WebApper Services, LLC
• Former Macromedia consultants
• Webapper.com
• Easy installation (more on that later)
• Available free developer edition
• Seefusion.com

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Monitoring/Troubleshooting Challenges

• Traditionally must juggle several resources
• CF logs, CFSTAT/perfmon statistics, etc.
• Tying of metrics to a given request is
  challenging
• Can be challenging to terminate one long-running
  request
• CFML-based reporting tools are brittle
• Wont respond when the server is down

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Problems Solved by SeeFusion

• Web interface to monitor requests, on several
  levels
• Application server analytics
• Real-time insight into server processing
• Request processing, database activity, server
  outages, memory use, etc.
• Option to terminate (kill) a single request
• Perhaps most useful when server down/not
  responding
• Monitors via alternative web port
• Implemented as servlet filter and JDBC wrapper
• All with virtually undetectable overhead
• Typical request URL http//mywebserver8999/
• Lets see a demo

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Request Reporting

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Database Reporting

• Database processing
• Detailed info on database interaction
• Setup
• change your datasource to point to a SeeFusion
  wrapper driver
• Then code run against that datasource will report
  DB interactions
• Lets see a screenshot

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Multi-server Reporting

• Enterprise edition adds dashboard
• Permits viewing of several servers from a single
  view
• Typical URL http//mywebserver8999/dashboard
• Other configurable dashboard options
• Refreshes, every 10 seconds by default
• Can limit which servers are to be monitored
• Can also permit drill down to standard display
  for given server

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Other Features

• Available XML-based reporting of stats
• http//mywebserver8999/xml
• Could be useful to output result to a Flash/Ajax
  interface
• Available trace mechanism
• Use a Trace method (enabled as a java method)
• ltcfset seefusion createObject("java",
  "com.seefusion.SeeFusion")gt
• ltcsfet seefusion.trace(some data)gt
• Writes output of your choice to completed
  column
• Only shown in running requests (not
  recent/history)
• Could be used to track details about current page
  processing being monitored
• More granular mechanism, can mark use of
  specific tags, etc.
• Could also use multiple traces to determine delay
  within a request

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Installation

• Available in two editions
• Standard
• Enterprise (adds some extra features)
• 2-step installation
• Place seefusion.jar in appropriate location for
  CF/BD jar files
• CFMX std-alone driveletter\cfusionmx\wwwroot\WE
  B-INF\lib
• CFMX/BD J2EE j2ee webapp \WEB-INF\lib
• Add servlet filter configuration to
  WEB-INF\web.xml file
• In parent of directory discussed above
• See SeeFusion docs for details
• Optional configuration steps can follow

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Configuration

• Configurable SeeFusion options
• IP address to listen on (port to use to request
  reports)
• Number of recent requests to track
• Number of slow pages to track, how many seconds
  is slow
• IP addresses/blocks of clients allowed to see
  reports
• Password to view reports, and another to permit
  kill command
• Optional database logging of SeeFusion metric
  info (Enterprise)
• Configure the database to hold the info
• Can indicate a different slow page threshold for
  this logging

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Whats New in Release 3

• SeeFusion 3 came out in Oct 2005
• SeeFusion config options no longer within web.xml
• Instead stored in seefusion.properties file
• Better still, less need to hand-edit that file.
  New /config interface
• SeeFusion picks up config changes automatically,
  every 10 seconds
• Improved page cancellation mechanism
• Much better support for Fusebox and other
  frameworks
• For requests where file is always index.cfm and
  querystring changes
• Easier database configuration
• SeeFusion debug output
• View SeeFusion-created debugging output for
  requests monitored
• Can view in a special /debug URL, for all
  requests monitored
• Also adds this SeeFusion debug output to each
  request
• Especially useful if CF debugging not enabled
  (also more efficient)
• New Flash interface under development
• so whats all this cost? ?

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Learning More and Getting Started

• Very low cost
• Standard edition 99/instance of CF/BD
• Enterprise edition 199/instance
• Offers dashboard feature to monitor multiple
  servers
• Offers persistence of logging info to database
• 3.0 version prices will raise by 50
• Can download from seefusion.com
• Trial edition runs for 2 hours
• Support available, free and paid
• WebApper also available for consulting to tune,
  troubleshoot
• Coming later in 2005
• SeeJava and SeeDotNET
• Effectively the same as SeeFusion, targeted to
  those audiences

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Summary of SeeFusion

• Effective monitoring of CFML applications
• On both ColdFusion MX and BlueDragon (J2EE)
• Maximizes investment in CFML applications
• Yielding better application performance
• Faster troubleshooting
• Greatly enhanced server up-time
• Better monitoring of server up-time in
  cluster/farm
• Monitors both CFML requests and database
  processing
• Highly configurable
• Very low cost, and low overhead
• Go get it today! ?

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Contact Information

• Charlie Arehart
• CTO, New Atlanta Communications
• charlie_at_newatlanta.com
• newatlanta.com/bluedragon/
• [phone]