Features

What's New in ColdFusion Server 5

* Indicates new or enhanced feature in ColdFusion Server 5.

Rapid Web Application Development

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.

Easy Application Assembly

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.

Increased Scalability and Reliability

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.

Advanced Management and Security

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.

Enhanced Performance and Memory Management

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.

back to top

Feature Benefit Table


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.

back to top

Actual performance increases vary according to each application and environment. For more information on performance enhancements and benchmarking test data, see the ColdFusion 5 Performance Enhancements Brief. (http://www.coldfusion.com/Products/ColdFusion/generalinformation/Performance)

back to top



Copyright © 2001, Macromedia All rights reserved.