Running CFML atop J2EE

							 Deploying CFML on .NET:
Opportunities & Challenges
                           Charlie Arehart, CTO
                   New Atlanta Communications
                       charlie@newatlanta.com
                                                          Overview

     Industry trend: the move to standard architectures
     Protecting your CFML investment
     The only way to deploy CFML on .NET: BlueDragon
     How easy it is
     The benefits of deploying CFML on .NET
     “Cost” of deploying CFML on .NET
     Resources for learning more




March 12, 2012          New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                           About Your Speaker

     CTO of New Atlanta Communications since April ‘03
            Company based in Alpharetta, GA (30 miles north of Atlanta)
     7 yrs CF experience (21 yrs in Enterprise IT)
     Co-author, ColdFusion MX Bible (Wiley)
     Frequent contributor to ColdFusion Dev Journal
     Past accomplishments of note
            Tech Editor, CFDJ
            Allaire/Macromedia Certified Adv CF Developer (4, 5, MX)
            Allaire/Macromedia Certified Instructor
            Team Macromedia Member & Customer Advisory Board Member
            Contributor to Macromedia Devnet, Dev Exchange
     Frequent speaker to user groups, conferences worldwide
     Also pursuing Masters at Dallas Theological Seminary
            part-time via Atlanta extension campus



March 12, 2012                      New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                                    Industry Trends

     The technology platform “highway” has split, and
      most organizations today are faced with choosing
      directions between Sun's J2EE and Microsoft's .NET




     What if you’re org is moving to .NET?
            Management being persuaded by “standard architectures”
            Architectural committees often prefer .NET, see CF as proprietary
            Vendors focus on ASP.NET as the only tool for .NET web apps


March 12, 2012                    New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                            ASP.NET Not the Only Answer

     .NET folks think ASP.NET is the only way to go
            And that converting CFML apps to that is only alternative
     Conversion to ASP.NET is no trivial undertaking
            For all but simplest applications, is not a simple matter
            Can be very expensive
            Retraining folks in ASP.NET, .NET framework, tools, design
             patterns, etc is not trivial
     And during that conversion, what about the existing
      apps?
            Spending time rewriting when you could be enhancing




March 12, 2012                    New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                    Protecting Your CFML Investment

     What if you could move the CFML to
      .NET and keep it running?
            Could just park it there, on new platform
                    No need for CF Server (nor BD server)
            Can start integrating with .NET, if you’d
             like
            Or start converting CFML to ASP.NET at
             your own pace
     You can!
            BlueDragon offer the only means to run
             CFML on .NET
                    BlueDragon also can run CFML on J2EE


     Don’t throw away your CFML
      investment!



March 12, 2012                            New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                  BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework


     BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework runs
      CFML on .NET
            Uses standard .NET features to enable this
                    Runs as an “http handler” (in .NET parlance)
            Does NOT rely on ColdFusion at all
                    No ColdFusion Server
                    Not even a BlueDragon Server
     Your CFML becomes just a .NET web application
            IIS is configured to hand requests for .CFM files to .NET
            .NET looks for a file describing how to handle CFM files
                    We edit server-wide machine.config to describe this by default
                    Optionally can configure on a virtual directory or site basis
            Config file XML entry points to BlueDragon.dll
                    This is the BlueDragon CFML engine
                    Same engine as our BlueDragon Server and J2EE editions
                    Deployed as a .NET managed assembly
                    Stored in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) by default

March 12, 2012                          New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                               Quick Overview: What is .NET?

     Some argue that .NET is Microsoft’s answer to J2EE
            Enterprise-class web application development capabilities
            Integrated into the operating system
     Can be added to Windows 2000, XP, 2003, and more
            On one level, is tantamount to an alternative to Java
                    Similar libraries providing similar functionality
                    Sometimes improving on things Java left out or did differently
            Can call upon .NET library APIs and components just as we can
             using CFOBJECT to call Java libraries and components
     While ASP.NET is the de facto standard way to create
      web apps in .NET, it’s not the only way
            .NET defines a specification to support other “http handlers”
     While Visual Studio is the de facto standard way to
      edit ASP.NET web apps, CFML folks need not bother
            You can continue to edit your CFML with favorite editors

March 12, 2012                           New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                                    How Easy It Is

     Let’s walk through deploying CFML as a .NET web
      app
            Show CFML code running “normally” on CF Server
            Show steps of running installer to configure BlueDragon for the
             Microsoft .NET Framework
            Show the CFML code running via BD/.NET
            Edit the CFML code, show that it detects changes like normal


     It’s still just CFML—deployed on .NET
            No CF server, no BlueDragon server required




March 12, 2012                    New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                CFML Processing Configuration

     Now all CFM templates on on all web sites (or those
      selected) are processed by BlueDragon
            Unless overridden at web site or directory level
     Could have CF and even BlueDragon Server also
      installed at the same time
            Use virtual directory or site to control handing CFM files to either
                    Just by changing extension mappings in IIS
            See my November 2003 CFDJ article, “Configuring Your
             Development Server for CF5, CFMX, and BlueDragon”
                    Available at NewAtlanta web site, under “editorials”




March 12, 2012                           New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                       What Are the Benefits?

     But why bother with deployment on .NET?
            Most significant motivation is if it’s your only alternative because
             you must move to .NET
                    At least still CFML
            BlueDragon/.NET license also less than half the cost of CFMX
             Enterprise
                    Priced the same as our J2EE edition, another enterprise solution
     Several other benefits to enhance your CFML, even if
      you’re not being forced to move to .NET
     Have discussed similar benefits in April CFDJ article:
            “Making the Case for CFML on J2EE”
            Provided on the New Atlanta web site
             (newatlanta.com/bluedragon/)
            Most of the benefits described there apply to .NET as well
     Let’s look at a few of these, in brief…

March 12, 2012                             New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                 CFML: Super-charged!

     Can integrate CFML and ASP.NET
            Share session, application, request scopes with ASP.NET pages
            Call .NET objects/classes/libraries
     CFML becomes a standard .NET component
            Can do with it anything that you’d do with an ASP.NET template
            Can leverage .NET declarative security, session persistence
     Examples of each of these is (or will be) offered in
      the document, “Deploying CFML on the Microsoft
      .NET Framework”
            Available freely on our site or with download




March 12, 2012                    New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                                Enterprise Solutions

     Can also leverage enterprise benefits of IIS 6 on
      server editions of Windows
            Past CFDJ, MM articles have described how CFML on J2EE can
             leverage multiple independent instances
                    Same goes for CFML on IIS on Server editions of Windows
                    Can have multiple web sites on single server
            CFML runs as a process on IIS (not a separate server)
                    Can leverage features such as clustering, load balancing, fail-over,
                     session replication and persistence

     Even without Server editions of Windows,
      BlueDragon/.NET offers unique solutions for
      managing multiple applications…



March 12, 2012                           New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                               Multiple Web Apps/Admin Consoles

     In IIS/.NET, each site/virtual directory is its own web
      application
            Could have own web.config file to control configuration of that
             directory and below
                    One directory has security, session persistence, etc., others do not
            Indeed, .NET has an inheritance model, where web apps at one
             level inherit settings from higher level
     Again, CFML on .NET plays along, with unique
      benefits
            Each web app (web site/virtual directory) has its own BlueDragon
             Admin console
            Could configure debugging in one, not the other (or caching,
             datasources, etc.)
            Each web app could even have different versions of BlueDragon
             engine

March 12, 2012                           New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                            When Can I Get Started?

     BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework is in
      “tech preview” mode
            Freely available now on our web site
            Is based on our 6.1 release, just recently released to production
            Will expire in a few weeks, by which time we’ll have a beta
     Expecting final release in Q4, if not sooner
            Some are licensing it now to run production apps
            We welcome that and seek strategic testers to identify/resolve any
             key issues
                    Though again, anyone can now download and test




March 12, 2012                         New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                 “Cost” of Deployment on .NET

     Expected Cost
            BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework: $2499 per CPU
     Resource utilization cost
            BlueDragon engine is just 2MB in size!
                    Other dependent libraries total just 10MB in J2EE edition
                    Reasonable to expect similar footprint on .NET




March 12, 2012                           New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                             What About Mono?

     One last topic that some may ask about…

     Mono is an open-source implementation of the .NET
      framework (go-mono.org)
            Primarily oriented toward .NET on Linux and OS X
            Backed by Novell and others
     Does not implement all the features of .NET
            Has certain minimal goals in its current pre-release status
     So BlueDragon does not currently run on MONO
            We will be following its progress




March 12, 2012                     New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                                         Why BlueDragon?

     Main reason so far is just that it runs CFML on .NET
            Naturally, you’ll wonder what it supports
     Substantially similar feature set to ColdFusion
            BlueDragon 6.1 supports CFMX 6.1 functionality
                    CFCs, XML, web services, and more
                    And all the other things you’d expect in CFML
                          Including CFXs, CFOBJECT calls to Java, and lots more
            Currently lacks only a handful of tags
                    CF4/5: CFAPPLET, CFGRID, CFREPORT
                          And CFAUTHENTICATE, CFIMPERSONATE; obsoleted in CFMX
                    CF/MX: CFCHART, CFLOGIN, CFTRACE (planning to add soon)
            Does offer enterprise database drivers, web server integration
                    Database integration is based on ADO.NET in .NET edition

     What does it add?
            Besides the only way to run CFML on .NET?...

March 12, 2012                             New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                  Why BlueDragon? (cont.)

     Also several benefits over CFMX
            Available protection of CFML using precompiled or encrypted templates
                    Readable only by BlueDragon. Cannot be converted back to source code
            A few extra tags, including: CFASSERT, CFIMAGE, CFIMAP
            Web spidering via CFINDEX (as well as text file and query indexing)
            Extra runtime state information reported in BD Admin console
            Automatically populates datasources from existing ODBC ones (Windows)
            BlueDragon has many other advantages to consider
                    See http://bluedragon.blog-city.com/read/601768.htm

     And beyond .NET edition, again, have J2EE edition as well
            All same sort of benefits as .NET edition, but on J2EE server
     Also available standalone Server and Server JX editions
            Server edition is free (free for production!)
                    Lacks only a few features
     All available for download as free trial, dev editions


March 12, 2012                               New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                                Who is New Atlanta

     New Atlanta is an established business with 11,000
      paying customers in over 70 countries
            Been in the server-side Java business since 1997
            ServletExec is still a highly regarded JSP/servlet engine
                    It underlies BlueDragon Server/Server JX just like JRun underlies CFMX
            JTurbo is a highly regarded Type IV JDBC for SQL Server
     New Atlanta is known for strong support,
      responsiveness
     Got into BlueDragon to address critical needs of
      CFML developers not being served by CF
            Even so, Macromedia has had many positive things to say about
             BlueDragon




March 12, 2012                          New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                   What Does Macromedia Think?

     Macromedia Directory of Technology Sean Corfield
            Has frequently blogged positive comments about BlueDragon in his
             personal site, corfield.org, or on our mailing list
                    “Overall, it looks pretty good”
                    “They're nice shirts - I have one and wear it to work sometimes :)”

     Ben Forta, senior CF Evangelist
            “I personally wish them all the best in their endeavors…I give the
             NA folks credit for innovating where they have opted to do.”
                    http://www.buntel.com/blog/addcomment.cfm?id=114333E9-4E22-
                     1671-5B4EA519BCDD4F4C

     Tim Buntel, CF Product Manager
            “I'm sure that there's a way that we can not only serve the best
             interests of both Macromedia and New Atlanta, but of the
             community as a whole.”
            See buntel.com thread above

March 12, 2012                          New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                         Who’s Using BlueDragon?

     Hundreds of companies using the several versions
            Users of free Server edition don’t even need to tell us!
     Some key accounts
            American Airlines – crew reporting application
            LinuxWorld.com – yes, is CFML (served via .htm)
            Credit Suisse First Boston – complex security application
            Digital Insight - sells software to very large banks
            Fitz and Floyd – Retail store for collectibles
            Open Rental Desk – implements rental desk s/w in h/w stores
     Also, several hosting companies
            CF Dynamics
            Advanced Group.net
            Intent.net
            StreamingMedia
            Vivio Technologies
     More listed on our partner site

March 12, 2012                        New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                                                   Conclusion

     Deploying CFML on .NET is easy
            BlueDragon alone runs CFML as a native .NET web application
     It can bring many benefits, solve many problems
     Management, developers, vendors all need to be
      educated
            Understanding benefits of CFML deployed as a native .NET
             component
     Opens many doors for improvement of apps:
            Integration, performance, management, and more
     Allows CFML to live on as a valuable component in
      enterprise web application development
            CFML now the only language that runs on both J2EE and .NET



March 12, 2012                   New Atlanta Communications, LLC
                                             Contact Information

     Charlie Arehart
     CTO, New Atlanta Communications
     charlie@newatlanta.com
     newatlanta.com/bluedragon/
     (678) 256-5395




March 12, 2012         New Atlanta Communications, LLC