Architecting for Scalability from cfObjective() 2011

1. How to make bullet proof applications

2.  BBA in ISYS & Mgmt, Minor CS UND
 ImageTrend, Inc. 4+ years
◦ Currently: Lead Developer
 cf.Objective() attendee 5 years
 MAX 2008 (San Francisco) Attendee
 Contact:
◦ twitter: tedsteinmann
◦ tedsteinmann@gmail.com

3.  BS Computer Science, University of
Minnesota, 2005
 ImageTrend, 5+ years
◦ Currently: Application Architect
 cf.Objective() attendee 4 years
 Contact:
◦ twitter: timlmeyer
◦ tim.l.meyer@gmail.com

5.  Framework Sale
 Buy my blog
 Group Think
 Miracle Drug

6.  Explanations
 Solutions
 Suggestions
 Demos

7.  The Big Idea
 Concerns
 Considerations
 Challenges
 Solutions
 Additional Considerations

8.  We want to make a website…
 We’re going to call it Spacebook…
 We’re going to be millionaires…*
* If we don’t get sued by these guys

9.  Performance
 Uptime
 Availability
 Failover
◦ Accidents
◦ Maintenance
◦ Uncontrollable events
s##t happens

10. “Okay, let me tell you the
difference between
Facebook and everyone
else, we don't crash EVER!
 Scalability if those servers are down
for even a day, our entire
◦ Popularity problems: reputation is irreversibly
destroyed! “
 Increased traffic/load
 Hardware limitations
 Complexity

11.  Things we know
◦ Redundancy
◦ Routing
◦ Replication

12.  Proven methods/approaches
◦ Server Clustering
◦ Request Routing
◦ Replication/Mirroring
◦ Process Delegation
◦ Memory Management

14.  Clustering
◦ High-availability
 Failover
 Redundancy
◦ Load Balancing

15.  Request Routing
◦ Routing Rules
◦ Server Farms
◦ Load Balancing
◦ Programmatic failover
◦ Asset Caching

16.  Clustering & Routing

17.  Replication/Mirroring

18.  Process Delegation
◦ Asynchronous task completion
◦ Work queues

19.  Memory
◦ Scale Out
 Many small CF instances
◦ Scale Up
 Fewer large instances/servers

22.  Persistence of State
 Persistence of Data
 Configuration

23. ◦ Persistence of State
◦ Session Management
 Browser Session & Server session
 Session/logged in
 Replication / Sticky Sessions
 Client vs. Session

24.  Persistence of Data
◦ Variables
◦ File system
◦ Database

25.  Persistence of Data - Variables
◦ CGI scope
 Cannot rely on web servers or proxy servers to
set them consistently
 Cannot set CGI variables
◦ Session scope
◦ Client scope

26.  Persistence of Data – File System
◦ Multiple copies of your application code
 Code promotion / Release
◦ Management of user generated content

27.  Persistence of Data - Database
◦ Identifiers
 Identities/auto incremented primary keys
◦ Release
 New data structure
 Structure change/removal

28.  Configuration
◦ Will need to take place in/on:
 Every location
 Every server
 Every environment
 Dev, alpha, beta, testing, prod, etc.

30. Challenge: Persistence of State
 Make it Easier to Change - Session Façade
session.cfc:
usage:

31. Challenge: Persistence of State
 Session/Client Data Management
◦ Database
◦ Client Scope as Session Scope
◦ Caching Servers
 Session/Client Persistence
◦ Cookies
◦ URL Token Based

32. Challenge: Persistence of Data - Variables
Don’t be a dope
 Use Façades …wrap you scopes!
◦ CGI
◦ Session
◦ Client

33. Challenge: Persistence of Data – File system
 File System Design Strategies
◦ Database files
◦ Network shared file system
◦ Automatic replication of files
 Automate code deployments
◦ ANT, .bat, etc.

34. Challenge: Persistence of Data – Database
 Database Design Strategies
◦ Identifiers
 GUIDS
 Ranges
 Clustered primary keys
 Server name/location/identifier
 Roll your own
◦ Release
 Backwards compatibility
 Location specific updates

35. Challenge: Configuration
 Centralized Automatic configuration
◦ CFAdmin API
◦ XML config files
◦ Dynamic file paths
◦ Datasource configuration

36.  Globalization
◦ Time zones
◦ Multiple Languages
 Caching
◦ Distributed cache stores (ehcache, memcached)
 Database Role Segmentation
◦ One or many databases for reads / one for writes
at each location

37.  Verification - Will my application really scale?
◦ Load Testing
◦ Failover Testing
◦ Can I seamlessly add to the hardware?
 Roll your own clustering/deployment
◦ JBOSS
◦ Tomcat

38.  ColdFusion:
◦ Administrator API
◦ Environment Configuration
◦ CF design patterns (sessions)
◦ Managing the client state
◦ Configuring and using session variables:
◦ JVM Memory Management
◦ JRUN Configuring Individual JVM Settings
◦ JRUN Clustering
◦ ColdFusion 9 on JBOSS
◦ ColdFusion Clustering
◦ Enabling clustering for load balancing and failover
◦ House of Fusion
◦ Database Your Files (Tim’s Presentation from TCCFUG)

39.  ARR:
◦ IIS Application Request Routing
◦ Using the Application Request Routing Module
◦ ARR without sea leg (setting up ARR to work locally)
 SQL
◦ Replication
◦ Mirroring
◦ SQL Mirroring in CF
 Scalability
◦ HighScalability.com
 Other:
◦ The Social Network
◦ CFSelenium
◦ MXUnit