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Problem creating Derby DSN? It's a bug in CF8 Standard

Note: This blog post is from 2009. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Here's some important news I've not seen shared elsewhere. We occasionally hear of people having problems creating Derby datasources in the CF Admin. They report that they get taken to the "other" datasource page by mistake. I've done some digging and can report the root cause: it's a bug in CF 8 Standard. You don't see the problem if you run the Developer or Enterprise edition, whether running standalone or multiserver (or "multi-instance"). It only happens on Standard (which only supports a standalone/server deployment.)

I think this is why it's been so confusing to resolve. Instead, I've seen all kinds of guesses as to the root cause. The challenge is that if you don't have a Standard license, you can't see how things work in Standard. Fortunately, I have one and just ran a test and can confirm this.

How I've demonstrated the problem

I started out on Enterprise (same on Developer), and in the CF Admin chose to create a new datasource, choosing "Apache Derby Embedded" in the "select a valid driver type", and it took me to a page asking just for the "Database folder" where the Derby DB would live, and it offered the optional "create database" checkbox. That and a description field were it. This is indeed what one SHOULD see for a Derby Embedded DSN.

But when I switched my CF license (clicking the blue "i" icon at the top right for the System Information page) to use a Standard license key, and repeated the steps above, I was taken instead to the "other" driver page, where one is prompted to enter a JDBC URL, driver class and name, and many other things that would clearly confuse someone trying to use Derby. What a shame.

Does NOT affect those adding a Derby Client DSN

I'll add that this does NOT happen when choosing the "Apache Derby Client" driver option, even in Standard, which is odd. (And again, it doesn't affect those using Enterprise or Developer edition, even if they're using the Server/Standalone mode that's closest in implementation to Standard.)

What's this Derby thing anyway?

If you're not familiar with the difference between Derby Embedded and Client, or indeed don't know much about Derby at all (the Apache database embedded in CF 8) and may wonder why one may bother to try to use it, you can check out various Derby resources I have offered on my site, including most recently a talk I gave at Max 2008, the recording of which is available here.

Bug report filed

This problem of redirecting to the wrong page seems, then, to be clearly just a bug in CF 8 Standard. I've just filed a bug report on the CF wish form, which I discuss more here for those not familiar with it. Let's hope that perhaps this is addressed in the Centaur release.

"Using Apache Derby", watch my Max presentation

Note: This blog post is from 2009. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Did you know that CF8 (Enterprise, Standard, and Developer) has an embedded Apache database called Derby? Have you wondered what it's about? Why you might consider it? How to use it, and how to use it with other tools? Well now you can watch/listen to my Max presentation, "Using Apache Derby: the Open Source DB Embedded in CF 8", which is one of many Max NA 2008 videos which Adobe has released at tv.adobe.com. You can find a description of the talk here.

I actually did 2 Max talks (in addition to my Unconference talks), and I mentioned the other in a previous entry.

I'll note as well that I list this and all presentations I do, with links to PDFs or recordings, at the presentations section of my site.

Finding other CF Videos at tv.adobe.com

Finally, note that you can find other CF videos by selecting the "all product" category and choosing CF. Of course, you can also use the search field as well to find specific speakers or topics.

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