Note: This blog post is from 2010. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

"CF911: Stack Tracing CFML Requests to Solve Problems"

Regardless of what CFML server monitoring tool(s) you have, or even if none, did you know that you can use a feature called "stack traces" to be able to pinpoint the exact line of code that a CFML request is running at any time? Did you know how to use that information to troubleshoot performance/stability problems? Do you know how to obtain that information either manually or automatically (such as during a crash while you're not watching)? Do you know how to obtain that information in any of the CFML Server Monitors (FusionReactor, SeeFusion, the CF8/9 Enterprise Server Monitor), or with free command line tools? And how to do this for any CFML engine (CF, Railo, BlueDragon, etc.)? Do you know how to interpret the information once you get it?

In this session, veteran CF troubleshooter Charlie Arehart will help remove the mystery from using stack traces. It really is amazingly simple with the right tools, and it can be incredibly useful to solve otherwise thorny problems, once you understand how to interpret the information.

Of course, I'm thrilled to be heading back to Minneapolis. I spoke there previously in 2008 and 2007 but couldn't attend in 2009. It'll be great to see all the fine folks who run and attend this unique conference.

BTW, I just saw also that CFUnited announced another round of topics accepted today and I see a topic whose title if very similar, "How to Read a Stack Trace", by the inimitable Daryl Banttari. It's hard to tell from his brief description how similar these will be, but Daryl is awesome so I'm sure I'll learn much from his. (I was literally just about to offer mine as another CFUnited submission but now won't of course. :-) Hopefully another of my submissions will be accepted, so I can keep my streak of having spoken at every CFUnited since they started.)

Anyway, the good news is that whichever conference you go to, this important (and often misunderstood) topic will be covered! :-)

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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

Well, there are several ways you can watch them, as this entry will discuss, and some may be better suited to the job than others. It can be very interesting to discover what's going on, especially if you're having any suspected performance problems which you think may be related to ORM processing (or just if you wonder what all it does for you).

As for spying on the SQL, of course ORM support is just a different way that the CFML engine (through the ORM framework) sends SQL to a database via a regular DSN, just like any other request, so there's nothing really "tricky" about this. It's just about realizing that while you don't write the SQL yourself, it's still generated by the CFML engine/ORM framework, and you may not realize/consider the available tools which can spy on it, just like any other DB processing from within CF. Indeed, some people may not even realize how many options exist to spy on JDBC interactions from their CFML engine to the database engine.

The good news is that there are several approaches, some included in CF (some depending on the edition), and some available separately which would work in any edition of CF or the other CFML engines (Open BlueDragon, Railo, etc.), and with any of the ORM frameworks. And again, some may be better than others for certain challenges.

(FWIW, besides the aforementioned Transfer and Reactor, there are still other ORM solutions for CFML, which I mention in my CF411 list as CFML ORM Frameworks. Indeed, note that you can run Hibernate on CF prior to CF9, if you want to. This is a recovery of a blog entry that no longer exists, recovered via archive.org.)

Built-in ORM Logging Option

First, note that for those using CF9+ ORM, there is indeed a built-in option in the CF ORM setup where one can enable logging, settable in the application.cfc: see the this.ormsettings option and its available key/value pair, logSQL="true".

There are several resources where you can learn more on that (and a related log4j property file approach to logging this). Besides the CF9 docs page on the ORM settings, there is also a blog entry by Adobe engineer Rupesh Kumar.

The default is to log this information to the console, but you can manipulate those log4j settings to tell it to use a file (see the links above). Even so, this will result in quite a lot of data being logged, which you will then need to connect back to your specific requests. The following approaches may be preferable.

Using FusionReactor or SeeFusion

Users of any CF edition (6+) or any CFML engine (Railo, OpenBD, or BD 7+) can use tools like SeeFusion and FusionReactor, which have always had the ability to monitor database interactions by "wrapping" the datasource to be monitored. FusionReactor engineer John Hawksley has posted a recent article specifically on monitoring CF9's ORM interaction, in the FR Devnet site, Using FusionReactor's JDBC Driver Wrapper With ColdFusion 9 ORM. Its concepts would apply to any ORM, of course.

Similarly, I've written generically about FusionReactor's database monitoring feature in What is the FusionReactor datasource monitoring feature? Why would I use it? Powerful stuff. As I point out in that article, the concepts discussed apply as well to SeeFusion's ability to monitor queries by wrapping datasources.

That said, it's worth noting that FusionReactor does have a couple of advantages, in that it provides for the display of all queries for a given request (while viewing the details of that request), whereas SeeFusion only lets you see the slowest query in a given request. FusionReactor also provides a separately available display of all the slowest queries (across all requests). It also logs every query (connecting it to a given request as well), while SeeFusion (Enterprise, at least) can also log the slowest queries to a database.

And note that both of these track any requests coming out of CF, not just those associated with a given request. So if there is ORM SQL that is associated with the startup of CF, that's tracked too. (And for those aware of issues with CF's Client Variables, such DB activity is also tracked, even that done by the hourly purge, which takes place on a background, non-jrpp thread.)

CF Enterprise Server Monitor

Those running CF 8 or 9 (Enterprise only) will find that its available Server Monitor does offer built-in monitoring of the SQL executed against CF datasources, at least, as long as you enable "Start Profiling" (which also enables other features, and overhead, as well). In this way, the Enterprise Server Monitor can monitor database interactivity, including ORM interactions.

Unlike FusionReactor (and like SeeFusion), it focuses only on showing queries that exceed certain limits, and at that it shows them only in a "Slowest Queries" interface, tracking the slowest queries among all requests. The CF Enterprise Server Monitor also has no logging ability at all.

Being able to see every single DB interaction for a given request (or across all requests) may be all the more interesting for discovering/observing what's happening with ORM interactivity.

Another alternative CF feature

Still another little-known feature for spying on JDBC interactions in CF is by way of the JDBC "spy" feature, which does in fact allow logging of all JDBC interactions mde from within CF. This feature was first enabled by way of the DataDirect 3.5 driver update which was made available (as an optional upgrade for 6 and 7) in the CF 7.02 timeframe. I wrote about the Spy feature back back in Aug 2006.

Since then, CF 8 (and now 9) offer it instead as a new "log activity" option in the "advanced settings" for a datasource definition in the CF Admin (which is disabled by default). I pointed this out in another entry from 2007 as one of many easily missed changes for the CF 8 Admin.

This "log activity" output is not as easy to interpret as FusionReactor's logs, and can indeed be voluminous (moreso than FR's), so be careful. Anyway, it's one of the several ways you can monitor JDBC interactions between CFML and your DB engine. Again, any of these may be useful for monitoring any of your CFML/database interactions.

Generic DB Monitoring tools

Indeed, it's worth noting finally that while the focus here has been watching the DB interaction from CF (and the ORM framework) to the database (by watching the JDBC traffic going out of CF and returning), you could just as well watch the DB interactivity from the DB's perspective instead (watching it coming and and being returned).

There are many tools that can monitor database processing, available for each of the major databases (free and commercial). I list several such tools in one of my CF411 section, Database/SQL Monitoring Tools.

Hope all that's helpful, whether you use ORM or not.

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.

(If you're not familiar with the value of thread dumps or stack traces, read on. The resources I point to get help you to appreciate their usefulness.)

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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.

Enabling multiple user access to the ColdFusion Administrator and RDS

If you're using CF 8 Enterprise or Developer edition, you should at least be aware of this feature. Even if it doesn't sound like something you'd need or want to use, check out at least the introductory section.

Besides explaining the features, and showing how to set them up and use them for practical solutions. It also addresses many gotchas and cautions to note, some of which may be surprises.

It shows using the multi-user admin feature for spreading out who can work on different parts of the admin (and shows enabling it even only for access to the CF 8 Server Monitor.)

And for the multi-user RDS feature, it shows leveraging it specifically within Eclipse and Dreamweaver (and points to resources for more on each and on using it with HomeSite+/CF Studio.)

I welcome comments or questions about the article here.

PS If you want to comment asking why one would use RDS due to security concerns, please read the article first. This addresses one significant concern and also points readers to additional resources to consider other concerns.

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.

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Note: This blog post is from 2008. 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 a screenshot of what you may see:

Note that this is not an error related to logging in. You do need to fill in a username to log into the Server Monitor, even if CF is set to only ask for a password when logging into the Admin. Just use "admin". This and other facets about the CF8 Server Monitor are covered in a 4-part series of articles I did in the Adobe Dev Center, starting here.

Confirming this is the cause of your Monitor challenge

From my observation, this error is related to a problem with the Flex client being able to talk to the server using a URL it needs to use, and the problem is web server related.

You can confirm if what I'm about to describe is your issue by trying to access the URL that the server monitor tries to use to access the Flex Gateway for CF, such as:

http://localhost/flex2gateway/

Actually, you should use whatever domain name/port you're using to access your CF Admin, which is then used when you ask it to open the CF8 monitor, which may be a URL like this:

http://yourserver/CFIDE/administrator/monitor/launch-monitor.cfm

Anyway, if that test attempt to open the /flex2gateway/ url comes back with a "file not found" (or 404) error, as opposed to a blank page, then you likely have the problem I'm describing, whereby your web server is mistakenly looking to verify that a file exists for the path you're specifying. You have 2 solutions.

First, let me note that this flex2gateway URL is not a file, nor a directory. It's a value intercepted by a servlet filter defined within CF. You need to tell your web server not to check for any existing file (it's trying to use one of the "default documents" that are used when only a path to the web server is provided.) Before launching into how to fix your web server, you may want to consider one other possibly simpler alternative.

Changing to use the Internal Web Server

Some will note that I've used no port above in the URL. That's why I point out for you to try whatever URL is used to access your Admin. In the case above (and the people who have reported this problem so far that I've seen, they've been trying to access the CF admin using their external web server, IIS.

If instead you were to use the CF internal web server to access the CF Admin, you'd have a port in the URL, like this:

http://yourserver:8500/CFIDE/administrator/monitor/launch-monitor.cfm

(or it could be 8300, or 8301: whatever is the port for accessing the built-in web server for CF, if you chose to implement that when CF was installed, and you are accessing the Admin that way.)

Well, I'd propose that if you DO use the internal web server, you probably won't get this error at all. The problem seems related to using IIS to access the Admin (and the CF 8 Server Monitor).

That said, I'll suggest that one quick solution folks can try is to see if indeed they can access their CF Admin (and monitor) using the internal web server. (If you can't or won't use it, I have the solution for getting it to work with IIS, in a moment.)

You just need to know what port to use to access the internal web server, if it's enabled.

First, you may find that if (on Windows) you use Start>Programs>Adobe>ColdFusion 8>Administrator that it will open using the built-in web server. If it does, see if using that gets you around this whole problem.

If that opens it with external web server (doesn't use a port like those above), or if you aren't on Windows and have no Start menu, you can also get the web server port (and indeed enabled it, if disabled) by way of the jrun.xml file. Rather than detail it here, I'll point you to a couple of resources:

Configuring the Macromedia ColdFusion MX built-in web server is an old technote, but the info still applies. Where it talks about disabling the internal web server, you'd want to reverse that, of course. There can be more subtleties and challenges to running the CF admin on the internal web server, if you don't configure it that way at the start, such as where are the /CFIDE files? Are they in the [cf]/wwwroot? or in your web server doc root, like inetpub/wwwroot? The built-in web server will look for them in the [cf]/wwwroot, so you may need to copy the CFIDE into this directory, or add a mapping to the built-in web server to point to the path as being located externally.

Making the change in IIS

Or you could just fix IIS to let you access the server monitor via IIS. The problem may be due to a setting in IIS (verify that files exist) that you may have caused to be set. (I don't know if it's set by default when CF is configured to integrate with a site, but I wouldn't think it was, so maybe this affects those who add new sites or configure things manually.)

And since this problem may affect other Flash/Flex apps trying to talk to CF, it may be worth doing for all such users. But this does come with a caveat to be aware of, if you might be using NTLM security to control access to files requested via IIS. More in a moment.

I offer the solution for IIS 6 and 7. I don't know if the same problem can affect Apache. If so, and anyone can offer the solution for there, please do comment.

Making the change in IIS 6

For IIS 6, launch the IIS Manager and select the web site which has the CF Admin you're trying to use. (It may be that you've also configured IIS so that ALL web sites are configured for CF, in which case this setting would be not at the site-level but at the root server-level, so you'd select the server name instead in the left IIS pane.)

From there, right-click and choose properties, and then select the "home directory" tab, then in the "application settings" area click the "configuration" button, and in the "wildcard mappings" section you should see something like "C:\ColdFusion8\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll" (which will be different, of course, for the JRun4-based Multiserver deployment).

This value is implemented here during the install of CF if you tell it to integrate with IIS, or by your running the CF Web Server Configuration tool after the fact.

Select it, and choose Edit, and if the "Verify that file exists" option is checked, un-check it. This setting can be confusing: you may think it means "verify that the named executable exists", but it doesn't. It refers to whether files requested and passed through this handler should be checked to confirm if THEY exist. Here's a depiction of the setting and how to get there.

Now try the URL above, and it should no longer give a 404. Then try again to login into the Admin. (Actually, you may find that you can just click the "cancel" button and it will login, even if the values for username and password are blank. I find this helpful when the CF server is temporarily unresponsive too, and the Monitor login screen pops up.) Hopefully the server monitor now works for you.

Note that this was NOT about changing the handler mapping for .cfm files, which also offers an option to control the "verify that file exists".

A caveat about access via IIS to NTLM secured files, and another alternative

Thanks to Mike Gillespie for the following notice and clarification. If you use NTLM security (windows integrated authentication in IIS) to secure files accessed via IIS, then you DO NOT WANT TO make the above change for your IIS site. I share below what he offered to me.

But I'd point out again that even with that issue, you could still use the built-in web server is a solution. Or, sticking with IIS, you could also create a new IIS site just for accessing the CF admin and monitor, and make the change above for that site only.

Anyway, if you do use NTLM security to control access to sites requested via IIS, consider the following:

The check that file exists option is required if you want to use NTLM perms to secure .cfm files. http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_18516 (Steps 1-4)

If you have a secure folder on your webserver put a .htm file and a .cfm file in it. Do not give your ID access to that folder. In IIS turn on clear text and NTLM auth.

With the "check that File Exists" option unchecked, try this test.

Try to access the .htm file in the browser - access denied

Try to access the .cfm file in the folder, - access GRANTED - so much for NTLM perms

Now check the box and try again (you will need to recycle cf and IIS)

Try to access the .htm file in the browser - access denied

Try to access the .cfm file in the folder, - access denied as it should be - but flash forms and server monitor are dead.

So "fixing" the Server Monitor problem on an authenticated server just broke the security of the server for the sake of monitoring... [frown>]

In a nutshell.

If you implement this so that CF pages can be authenticated against Windows Security http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_18516, then Flash forms break (and the server monitor too). So to get flash forms (and the server monitor) working, you have to implement this, which fixes flash forms (though every user gets their own personal file on disk on the server that has to be cleaned up) but it does not fix the server monitor.

It is the "check that file exists" selection that breaks the Server Monitor (and flash forms).

On a cf webserver that grants anonymous access there is no reason to check the "check that file exists" box. However, on a server that does authenticate users for NTLM file access, that box should be checked.

This section above was added after the entry was first posted.

The change for IIS 7. None needed?

For IIS 7, it's a little different. I actually run IIS 7 (Vista) and am not sure how/where the wildcard mapping equivalent got created (I may have fudged it manually), but it's now listed as a "Handler Mapping" (in the properties for a web site). In my case, it's labeled "AboMapperCustom-32635", but just look at those listed as handling "*" meaning all requests. It's listed with a value of IsapiModule in the Handler column. (If you're looking at a specific site, and the "Entry type" column says "Inherited", then there is another mapping at the server level, so select your server name in the left IIS panel, and repeat.)

Even so, I see no option to control "verify that file exists", so maybe this problem can't happen in IIS 7. I will say, FWIW, that there is indeed a an equivalent to that "verify that file exists" option, at least for specific extension handler mappings. Look a the one for .cfm, for instance. Double-click it to see its properties, and note a new button called "request restrictions". It has an option, "Invoke handler only if request is mapped to", and an option of "file". Again, though, this does not affect requests to non-cfm requests like that for the /flex2gateway/ URL.

About other Flex/Flash apps

As I said, it may be that the info above will help other Flex apps having trouble talking to CF (the CF8 monitor is a Flex app), but I'll note that this problem doesn't affect all Flex apps: only those that connect to CF via IIS.

For instance, on this same server where this problem occurred, there was never any problem using FusionReactor (which is also a Flex app). It was working fine the whole time. But then its default behavior is also to use its own Built-in web server, so requests weren't going through IIS. If I did try to use IIS to access FusionReactor, then it too failed (with a file not found), and the fix above solved that.

Note: This blog post is from 2008. 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.

Ok, that's a bit of a tease. I'm referring to my 4-part series of articles on the Monitor available in the Adobe Dev Center. While I did them several months ago, I still often see people ask questions that are answered there, so I wanted to take a moment to remind folks of its existence. I realize that everyone may not keep up on the articles posted in the DevCenter (but I'll note that I offered an entry recently on how to keep up on new postings there and elsewhere.)

My CF8 Server Monitor article series was divided into 4 parts, which I've listed below. I also show here each articles's sections. (Note that the "table of contents" offered on the left of the online articles doesn't always list each section heading: it's more for breaking up the articles into managable sized online pages, which is too bad if one uses them as a gauge of the article's sections.) I've also broken down the sections into subsections.

• Part 1: Using the Server Monitor in development
  • Unlocking the "black box"
  • Starting and using the Monitor
  • What it means to "Start Monitoring" (or not)
  • Useful monitoring for development
    • Tracking shared scope memory utilization
    • Track slowest tags or function calls
    • Tracking largest variables in a request
    • Tracking JVM Memory Usage
    • Tracking cached queries
    • Tracking large, slow, and frequent queries
• Part 2: Using the Server Monitor in production
  • Challenges in managing a production ColdFusion 8 server
  • More zero-overhead reports
    • Template Cache status tracking
    • Session tracking revisited: active sessions over time
    • Tracking ColdFusion errors
  • Reports enabled with monitoring, profiling, or memory tracking
    • Avg Response Time and Requests Per Second
    • Active Requests
    • Queued/running requests over time
    • Finding heavy hitters
    • Active Queries
  • Aborting unresponsive or troublesome requests
• Part 3: Automated monitoring and request management with Alerts and Snapshots
  • Automated monitoring and request management with Alerts
    • Toward 24x7 operations
    • Configuring Alerts
    • Available actions (overview)
    • Types of alerts
    • Viewing Alerts data
    • Available alert actions (details)
  • Substantial diagnostic details with Snapshots
    • The Snapshots page
    • Viewing snapshots
    • Stack traces within the Snapshot
    • Accessing past snapshot data
• Part 4: Multiserver Monitor, Admin API monitoring, and more
  • An enterprise dashboard with the Multiserver Monitor
    • Opening the Multiserver Monitor
    • Adding new monitors
    • Observing the status of a monitored server
  • Some possible challenges using the Multiserver monitor
    • Securing the monitoring of your server
    • Be careful with browser caching and the cross-domain file
    • Multiserver Monitor configuration is stored per the domain used to open it
  • Programmatic Monitoring with the Admin API
  • Tweaking the Monitor in the Settings section
    • The General settings tab
    • The Filter Settings tab
    • The Profiling Filter tab
    • The Aliasing tab
    • The Refresh, Reset All Statistics buttons
  • Miscellaneous aspects of the Monitor
    • Flash Remoting must be enabled
    • Start settings remain enabled
    • Monitoring even when the server is becoming unresponsive

I hope you'll see from the above that there could be much more to the CF monitor than you may have realized. Each of the subsections often has lots of useful tips, tricks, and traps that I've observed over a year of use in both development and production.

And though I make the point in the articles, I'll repeat that some of the features come with zero overhead. I've blogged about that before. Don't let people tell you never to use it because it will harm your server's performance. As I say in each of the above, it's only the "Start memory tracking" button (one of 3 at the top) that could be trouble (and maybe "start profiling", but to a much less worrisome extend). But you don't even need to use the 3rd (and least obtrusive button) "start monitoring" to get a lot of great value from it. I stress more about this in parts 1 and 2 of the series.

What about FusionReactor and SeeFusion?

Of course, my support for the CF Server Monitor doesn't diminish my enthusiasm for alternatives like FusionReactor and SeeFusion, nor do I see one replacing the other as I've written about before. Each does something the other may not do, and I see value in each of them (and even have recommended running more than one at a time to solve certain problems).

See my corresponding blog categories on these, at the right, to find more entries on FR and SF, as well as the CF8 Server Monitor.

I just want to help people make the most of whatever monitor they use.

Available for Consulting Help as well

I'll throw in, as well, that if you need help using any of these tools, or doing any CF server troubleshooting, I'm available for consulting help, whether online or on-site, for as little time as is needed to help solve the problem. See my consulting page for more information. I've helped many organizations, large and small, resolve nagging problems, using either (or none) of these monitoring tools.

Feel free to contact me any time to pose a problem related to performance, stability, or similar errors or problems, and I'll let you know if it's something I can help with.

Averse to reading 45 pages online? you don't need to

For those who don't fancy the prospect of reading 45 pages of content online, note that I'm referring to the page count as it would be if you printed the available "printable version" (offered on all DevCenter articles). You can use that feature yourself to obtain a single long HTML page for each article, and then if you want you could print that out. (And if you use features in your printer to print multiple pages to a side and 2-sided, as I discuss here, you can fit it all in just a few pieces of paper!) (Update: tipicalcharlie domain is no more, but page recovered using Archive.org.)

I'll add that for those who prefer watching over reading, I've also given presentations about the monitor at several conferences and user groups (some available as online recordings), which you can find at my presentations page.

Note: This blog post is from 2008. 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.

If you've not taken a look at these, you may be missing out. There are some misconceptions about the monitor, and also I think most don't realize that it can do much more than they may suspect. There's precious little documentation (and discussion) about it, so you may find things here you won't find anywhere else.

• Part 1: Using the Server Monitor in development
• Part 2: Using the Server Monitor in production
• Part 3: Automated monitoring and request management with Alerts and Snapshots
• Part 4: Multiserver Monitor, Admin API monitoring, and more

The third and fourth parts, specifically, have the following sections:

Part 3

• Automated monitoring and request management with Alerts
• Substantial diagnostic details with Snapshots

Part 4

• An enterprise dashboard with the Multiserver Monitor
• Programmatic Monitoring with the Admin API
• Tweaking the Monitor in the Settings section
• Miscellaneous aspects of the Monitor

Sure, I've just written about FusionReactor yesterday, and will write still more about the new release. I don't see it incompatible to help people make the most of whatever tool they may use. I've written previously also about SeeFusion. Indeed, I've written previously that that each has their place, even in the face of CF8's server monitor.

I'd like to hear from readers

The DevCenter articles offer a feedback link, but so far I've not gotten any (and they say they will forward any they get). I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has read the articles. I really feel that they go way beyond what's available in the docs and help, to bring together information and concepts you might otherwise miss. Has it helped you at all?

Finally, do you ever wonder why some call this area of the Adobe site "DevNet", "DevCenter", and/or some the "Developer Connection"? Well, the URL has devnet in it, but the breadcrumb bar at the top of my articles shows "Home > Developer Connection > ColdFusion Developer Center". Go figure. :-)

Note: This blog post is from 2007. 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.

This follows up the part 1, which focused on uses of the monitor in development. There will be 4 parts ultimately, all listed in the Developer Center, with the 3rd part discussing the alerts and snapshots features, and part 4 discussing the Multiserver Monitor, Admin API monitoring features, and various miscellaneous observations.

The CF8 monitor offers a lot more than many would think, and insight into certain inner workings of CF that we've just never had before. I try to highlight things that you may have missed if you've only glanced at it or attended brief overviews at conferences or user groups. I will likely to my own presentation on it in the future..

No one should read from this that I'm any less supportive of 3rd party tools like FusionReactor and SeeFusion. As I've stated before, there's clearly a place for those tools for shops not yet on CF8, and even once on CF8 I believe there are differences among all the tools that could warrant having more than one at once.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. 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.

Well here's the thing: you can indeed get CF server monitoring, whether added to CF8 or made available in CF 6 or 7, and for far less than even double the cost of CF Standard. Some of you know where I'm going, but in case it needs to be said...

Check out FusionReactor and SeeFusion, both tools that I've written about before (see the "related entries" links at the bottom of this entry.)

Both these tools not only run on 8 (any edition), but they run on 7 and 6 as well, which CF 8's monitor does not. Further, FusionReactor can monitor not just CF but also any J2EE servers or app (including LiveCycle Data Services, for instance), and SeeFusion has a sister product, SeeJava, that can do this as well.

I've been a huge fan of both tools for a couple of years. No, they're not identical to CF8's monitor, and CF 8's monitor has access to a lot of information that those tools don't (for now, though they could be modified to access it as well, via the Admin API if running on CF8 Enterprise). But even until then there are features each of them has that CF's monitor doesn't, and vice versa.

I know some instead want Adobe to offer the monitor somehow to those on Standard, whether at some price or in some new edition. The chances of that seem seem pretty slim for now, though certainly interested folks should make their concern known. And certainly, it's worth noting that one can run the CF8 monitor on the Developer edition.

But some rightly point out that they want CF server monitoring in production and they can't use Adobe's on CF8 standard (or on 6 or 7). (And they're asking for more than just monitors to tell if the server's up or down, etc. Sure there are plenty of tools to tell that, but they want real insight into the processing of requests, threads, queries and more, which only these tools can do.)

I just want to make sure those folks know there are indeed good, professionally managed alternatives to get that on CF8 standard and earlier versions of CF, and those options are at low costs and come with free trials. (Same goes for step debugging. While the new debugger in CF8 works only with 8, FusionDebug, from the same company that makes FusionReactor, works in 6, 7, and 8.)

As I wrote before, I don't feel that the availability of the CF8 monitor (or debugger) diminishes the value of the third party tools for those on CF8. Keep an eye on the monitoring category here in my blog as I'll continue to write more about all 3 monitors in the future. They each have their strengths and their place.