* Indicates new or enhanced feature in ColdFusion Server 5.
Intuitive, Tag-Based Scripting | Increase your productivity with a powerful Web application scripting language (CFML) that handles low-level programming tasks automatically. |
User-Defined Functions* | Increase productivity and maintainability by using CFScript to define custom functions that can be incorporated easily into any ColdFusion application. |
Automated Forms Handling* | Automatically generate client-side validation logic, quickly process incoming HTML forms, use rich Java form controls including an enhanced grid control. |
Query of Queries* | Easily integrate information from multiple data sources and increase query performance by querying result sets in memory. |
Structured Exception Handling | Ensure a more seamless experience by building applications that automatically trap and handle error messages. |
Custom Logging* | Debug applications more easily by writing messages to custom user logs or standard server logs at any point during page execution. |
Complete Database Integration* | Connect to databases with high-performance database connection pooling and support for ODBC, OLE-DB, Merant Wire-protocol drivers and native drivers. |
Dynamic Charting* | Generate professional quality charts and tabular reports from queried data using a highly intuitive tag-based interface to a powerful embedded charting engine. |
Full Text Searching* | Index and search all of your Web content, documents, and database content with the powerful full text searching capabilities of the integrated Verity K2 Search Engine. |
Extensible Component Architecture | Extend your applications and integrate with business logic through major component standards including COM, CORBA, and EJB, as well as support for the extensive and growing library of third-party ColdFusion Extensions (CFXs) written in C++ or Java. |
Crystal Reports Integration* | Create dynamic reports with a simple tag interface that passes data to the latest version of Crystal Reports. |
XML | Use Web Distributed Data Exchange (WDDX) for exchanging complex data structures between programming environments and servers with XML. |
File Servers | Access file systems and FTP servers from within applications for file uploading and management. |
Email Servers | Send and receive e-mail messages from within applications with full SMTP and POP3 support. |
Directory Servers | Integrate Web applications with LDAP directory servers. |
JIT Compilation and Caching | Automatically compile CFML templates and cache them in memory for increased performance. |
Page Output Caching | Cache periodically updated dynamic content automatically for increased performance. |
Persistent Queries | Persist database queries across multiple Web pages reducing database connections. |
Software Clustering | Increase performance and reliability by clustering multiple servers using dynamic load balancing and failover with native software clustering technology. |
Hardware Load Balancing Integration* | Integrate with industry-leading hardware load-balancing solutions to provide the highest levels of availability and performance in large-scale, multiserver clustered environments. |
Incremental Page Delivery* | Control how content is returned to the browser, and incrementally deliver partial pages as they are processed to improve the overall user experience. |
Highly Scalable Search Server Architecture* | Index distributed enterprise repositories and handle hundreds of concurrent queries and users using the high-performance Verity K2 Server. |
Browser-Based Administration | Easily administer application server settings and configuration through an intuitive, browser-based administrative console. |
Application Deployment Services* | Package all the configuration settings and assets, including files, graphics, custom tags, etc., into a single archive file that enables easy back-up and deployment of applications. |
Application Monitoring* | Configure custom probes to monitor server activity and respond to page or application-specific issues with automatic notifications or triggered responses. |
SNMP Support* | Easily integrate with popular enterprise management systems using the standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Management Information Base (MIB). |
Server Log Analysis* | View, filter, search, and manage server log files in order to pinpoint application problems. |
Server Reports* | Examine ColdFusion Server performance statistics over a period of time, track ColdFusion Server configuration changes as they occur, and identify all current configuration settings from one view. |
Web Server Security Integration | Use native Web server authentication and SSL encryption to secure applications. |
Database Security | Take advantage of native database security on a per datasource basis to ensure secure database interactions. |
Advanced Security | Implement advanced security regimes with integrated authentication and sophisticated access control settings. |
Server Sandbox Security | Use advanced security tools that integrate with your existing security infrastructure to authenticate users, set policies, and protect access to resources. |
System Service Architecture | Achieve optimal performance and reliability with the multithreaded service architecture at the core of ColdFusion Server. |
Faster Page Requests Under Load*§ | Process and deliver application pages more quickly than ever before - up to five times faster in some cases - particularly during periods of medium-to-heavy server load. |
Enhanced Symmetrical Multiprocessing Support* | Leverage enhanced Symmetrical MultiProcessing (SMP) support to increase server performance and scalability on all supported operating systems. |
Automatic Memory Footprint Reduction* | Increase available system memory in Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Linux, through the dynamic release of unused memory back to the operating system to minimize the process footprint. |
Efficient Memory Utilization* | Utilize system memory more efficiently with certain tags, such as cffile and cfhttp , due to tuning that reduces the amount of memory used in their operations. |
Feature |
Key Benefit |
Example |
---|---|---|
User Defined Functions |
Faster development through code re-use |
A developer could create a function to calculate currency conversions, and then use that function to internationalize the company's Web site. |
Query of Queries |
Join data from disparate datasources using SQL and increase performance |
Easily build an application that merges customer support e-mails with customer information from a database based on the e-mail address. |
Wire Protocol DB Drivers |
Increased database performance |
Deliver a faster database-driven financial reporting site with a very large back-end database. |
Dynamic Charting |
Dynamically generate professional charts within applications |
Quickly develop a sales reporting application that shows regional sales distribution using a pie chart, quarterly sales with a bar chart, and average selling price with a line chart. |
Verity K2 Server Search Engine |
Significantly faster searching of document collections in a scalable, distributed enterprise architecture |
Build a corporate portal that allows quick access to information in databases and enterprise-wide distributed documents created in popular formats, including word processing, desktop publishing, spreadsheets, and presentations. |
Crystal Reports 8 Integration |
High quality reports |
Easily incorporate existing inventory reports written for a client-server application with Crystal Reports into a new Web application. |
Hardware Load Balancer Integration |
Deliver large volume sites |
Create a massive consumer information site that can handle millions of visitors with an intelligent hardware load-balancing configuration. |
Incremental Page Delivery | Improve end-user perception of performance | Notify users who order in an online store that their credit card is being processed by showing a graphic while the page is processed. |
COM Enhancements |
More complete integration with COM components |
Create an online store with a multitier architecture that uses ColdFusion for the front-end interface and COM objects to manage business logic and connectivity to a legacy order processing system. |
Application Deployment Services |
Fast, reliable application deployment |
Take all of the pages, templates, graphics, components, and settings for a new partner extranet, package them into a single file, and then place the file on an FTP site where your ISP can automatically load the new site onto your dedicated servers. |
Application Monitoring |
Ensuring site reliability and responsiveness |
Establish a probe to monitor your newly deployed online store and receive automatic e-mail notification if the store stops working or if it starts responding slowly. |
SNMP Integration |
Increased enterprise manageability of your Web application servers |
Take advantage of your existing enterprise management system, such as BMC Patrol, to also manage your corporate intranet servers. |
Server Log Analysis |
Easier troubleshooting |
Analyze server logs to pinpoint application problems in a new site. |
Custom Logging |
Easier troubleshooting |
Debug applications more easily by writing messages to custom user logs or ColdFusion application logs at any point during page execution. |
Server Reports |
Server operations analysis |
Audit ColdFusion Server configuration changes to ensure consistent, controlled server management. Analyze performance characteristics of ColdFusion Server over time. |