Cold Fusion High Availability

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Cold Fusion High Availability Taking It To The
Next Level Presenter Jason Baker, Digital
North Date 01.07.2004
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About the Presenter

• 7 years of Cold Fusion development experience
• Participated in the development of 100 Cold
  Fusion websites
• 10 years of Webhosting/ ISP/ Telecommunications
  experience
• Co-Founder and Director of Operations for Digital
  North
• Email jbaker_at_digitalnorth.net

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About Digital North

• Business Class Hosting Provider since 2001
• Shared and Dedicated Hosting, Colocation, Managed
  Services
• 3 Data Centers Agiliti, Inflow, Visi
• Windows, Linux, IIS, Apache, MS SQL, Load
  Balancing, Firewalls, Cold Fusion 4.5-6.1, Flash
  Remoting
• We serve over 1,000 business customers
• www.digitalnorth.net

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What is High Availability?

• High Availability (HA) web applications provide
  maximum uptime while minimizing risks associated
  with service failures.
• We need to think about the Datacenter, Network,
  Server, OS, Application, People
• Risks Architecture changes, Business process
  changes, Cost
• Rewards Better uptime, faster websites, happy
  customers ?

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HA Infrastructure Requirements

• Environment Is Everything
• Physical service location
• Climate control
• Physical security protection from yourself
• Power backup and redundancy
• Multiple upstream providers
• Local network redundancy
• Fire suppression

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HA Webserver Requirements

• Server-class machine
• Redundant power supplies
• Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)
• Network storage
• Redundant network access
• Latest Firmware updates

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HA OS Application Requirements

• Hardened OS Windows, Linux, Sun
• Security and performance tweaks
• Virus Protection
• Firewall Protection
• Intrusion Detection
• Data Backup Onsite and Offsite
• Service Monitoring
• Cold Fusion Security Best Practices http//www.ma
  cromedia.com/devnet/server_archive/articles/priori
  tizing_network_server_security.html
• Macromedia Security Zone http//www.macromedia.
  com/devnet/security/security_zone/

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What is Load Balancing?

• Load Balancing is using multiple webservers to
  maximize service performance and minimize service
  failures.
• 2 servers can handle more requests or handle
  current requests faster
• 2 servers minimize risks associated with
  hardware failure, OS failure, Cold Fusion failure

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Load Balancing Techniques

• DNS Round-Robin El Cheapo Method
• Software Load Balancing The Heartbeat
• Cold Fusion MX for J2EE Multiple Instances
• Application Isolation
• ColdFusion Development Center
  http//www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/coldfusion/clu
  stering.html
• Cold Fusion Distributed Mode
• Hardware Load Balancing
• http//www.macromedia.com/devnet/server_archive/a
  rticles/choosing_hardware_lbdevice.html

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Hardware Load Balancing

• Network Architecture
• Server failover one server takes the load of two
  servers
• Load balancing algorithms Round Robin, Least
  Used, Fastest Response
• Sticky sessions
• Service monitoring agents
• Active Content Verification

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Cold Fusion Development Issues

• Best case scenario Cold Fusion installation is
  identical on multiple servers
• Store Cold Fusion session information in a
  database!! (Common problem)
• Beware of local databases (MS Access)
• Beware of writing to local disk (uploads),
  memory, or registry
• Use replication to deploy application
• Create a clustered development environment to
  properly test

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Additional Design Issues

• Load balanced applications could share similar
  failure points
• Recognize issues related to applications sharing
  a common database
• SSL requirements same key on each server or SSL
  proxy on hardware
• Logfile analysis tools need to handle multiple
  logs
• Stress test your applications in a load balanced
  environment

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Hardware Load Balancing Costs

• Costs for an entry-level solution (2 servers, lt
  1000 simultaneous connections, 5-10 Mb/s
  bandwidth)
• Hardware
• 2 Dell/HP/IBM Servers 6,000
• 1 Load Balancing Switch 5,000
• Software
• 2 MS Windows 2000 1,500
• 2 Cold Fusion MX 2,500
• 1 File Replication 1,000
• Labor 8 hours 1,000
• Total 17,000

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Questions?Thank you!jbaker_at_digitalnorth.net