Product Features  
 
 

This release marks a significant milestone in the evolution of ColdFusion as a development system for building scalable Web applications that integrate browser, server, and database technologies.

The focus of our development work has been in four major areas: rapid development, scalable deployment, open integration, and total security. Each of these areas is highlighted below.

 
 
  Rapid Development  
 
 

ColdFusion 4.0 continues to enhance the speed of development and ease-of-use that have been the hallmark of the development system from its beginning. ColdFusion 4.0 increases development productivity by integrating ColdFusion Studio more closely with ColdFusion Server, extending the visual tools, and expanding the functionality of the tag-based server scripting language, CFML.

 
 
  New Feature Highlights  
 
  • Two-way Visual Programming - ColdFusion Studio 4.0 includes new, more powerful visual programming tools including a WYSIWYG design mode and enhanced visual database tools.
  • Dynamic State Simulation - The ColdFuson Studio IDE supports establishing state for pages so developers can preview the interactions between pages that rely on multiple variables.
  • Dynamic Page Quality Assurance - New tools support validating links, configuring dynamic page previewing and validating CFML grammar in pages.
  • One-step Deployment - New features extend the site- and page-management features to support flexible deployment of complex applications to multiple servers, making the process of moving from development to deployment simple and straightforward.
  • Site Visualization - ColdFusion Studio 4.0 supports the ability to visualize sites and see how pages are linked to each other across a system.
  • CFML Script - CFML has been extended to support traditional scripting syntax for complex data processing on the server using branching and looping.
 
 
  Scalable Deployment  
 
 

ColdFusion has already reached a point where it is being used to deliver very large volume sites and applications servicing tens of thousands of users. With the 4.0 release, ColdFusion provides powerful new features that significantly enhance scalability.

 
 
  New Feature Highlights  
 
  • Load Balancing - ColdFusion 4.0 supports native load balancing giving developers the ability to deploy large volume applications in high performance clusters that scale to meet any user demands. (Enterprise Edition only.)
  • High Availability - ColdFusion 4.0 supports the creation of multi-server clusters with automatic fail-over if any server goes down - providing the infrastructure for deploying large volume high-availability sites. (Enterprise Edition only.)
  • Open State Repository - State information can now be moved out of the registry into a pluggable external data source so servers can be easily configured for clustering and load balancing.
  • Advanced Thread Pooling - The Web application server offers sophisticated thread pooling using I/O completion ports and tight integration with web server APIs.
  • Integration with NT Performance Monitor - ColdFusion Server is fully integrated with the NT Performance Monitor for increased manageability and tuning.
 
 
  Open Integration  
 
 

ColdFusion offers better integration with server systems including mail, web servers and directories than any other IRAD system. With the 4.0 release, this integration has been extended to support Extensible Markup Language (XML) and enterprise technologies.

  • Automatic XML Parsing - ColdFusion Server supports automatic parsing of XML data into CFML variables and the translation of CFQUERY record sets into XML.
  • Native Database Drivers - ColdFusion 4.0 supports native database connectivity for Oracle and Sybase. (Enterprise Edition only.)
  • CORBA - ColdFusion 4.0 extends its integration with component standards by supporting Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and possibly Enterprise JavaBeans. (Enterprise Edition only.)
  • ColdFusion Extensions (CFX) - ColdFusion 4.0 supports the creation of more complex CFXs (formerly called "Custom Tags") making it possible to extend ColdFusion with components created with CFML, C/C++, COM, CORBA, JavaBeans, JavaScript and VBScript.
 
 
  Total Security  
 
 

ColdFusion 4.0 has extended previous security features to enable a much greater range of flexibility and control over security both for development and deployment.

  • Open Authentication System - Developers can leverage a wide range of different user authentication systems in their applications from within ColdFusion including Windows NT security, LDAP directories, and proprietary user and group databases.
  • Advanced Remote Development Security - The Remote Development Services (RDS) used by ColdFusion Studio allow for user and group security configuration for all resources including files and databases using a configurable backend authentication system that integrates with existing user and group databases.
  • Server Sandbox Deployment - With the server sandbox, server administrators can control what resources (files, databases and components) an application has access to when it is running on a server. This allows server administrators to deploy multiple applications on the same server without creating the risk that one application will access another application's resources.


 
 
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