CF MX and TeamSite Virtualization

Does anyone have experience using TeamSite and ColdFusion? We are currently getting our Interwoven environment set up and it seems we're having trouble getting TS to properly virtualize pages against ColdFusion.

Does anyone have experience with using an application server with TS and getting it to virtualize properly - experience specifically with ColdFusion would be excellent, but any suggestions appreciated.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Migrateduser

There are 3 ways to virtualize Cold Fusion server pages on Team-Site. They are as follow:

1 Smiley Happy

By using the iwproxy_preconnect_remap
2 Smiley Happy

By using the iwproxy_preconnect_redirect
3 Smiley Happy

By taking advantage of the ColdFusion server working in a distributed environment.

Each method has advantages and disadvantages:

1 Smiley Happy

By using the iwproxy_preconnect_remap

Advantages: Almost all of the Cold Fusion server pages will get virtualized except for the pages that performs form operations like "POST". Furthermore, proxy_preconnect_remap retains the original area as the working area and directs files there from another area. In this scenario, docroot is based on the original area's parent branch.

Disadvantages: Cold Fusion form files that uses the POST operation and passes URL parameters via the Action HTML tag, breaks. This is primarily due to the fact that the web-server on the Team-Site server does not know how to handle this kind of "POST operation. Usually when you have both Cold Fusion and the Web server on the same machine, Cold Fusion installation configures your web server's configuration file in so that the web server will know how to handle this kind of POST operation.

2 Smiley Happy

By using the iwproxy_preconnect_redirect

Advantages: Almost all of the Cold Fusion server pages will get virtualized. Even pages that will perform operations like "POST".

Disadvantages: iwproxy_preconnect_redirect causes the area you redirect to your current working area (and that area's parent branch becomes the basis of docroot). In addition to that, Smart Context Editing (SCE) feature of Team-Site will not be available when previewing a page.

3 Smiley Happy

By taking advantage of the ColdFusion server working in a distributed environment

Advantages: Almost all of the Cold Fusion server pages will get virtualized. Even pages that will perform operations like "POST".

Disadvantages: No disadvantages reported yet.

sajiddc

is your Coldfusion server on windows or Solaris? How about your Teamsite server, windows or solaris? There are additional steps that you need to be aware of if your Teamsite is on solaris and ColdFusion on Windows. hence I was asking.

laj1

Please elaborate on Windows-based CF/TS integration issues.

Thanks.
len.

sajiddc

Well bradleymk in his post covers almost all the major point of the integration.

Since you are on windows, you will have to do a drive mapping (an UNC mapping) from your CF server to your iw-mount of your TS server. This way, you will be able to preview CFM pages within teamsite. Now I have personally used method#1 and method#2 that bradleymk mentions. They both worked great except if you have "POST" operation in your pages and you want to test it from/within TS.

Ofcouse you can always install CF server on your TS box just for the virtualization/preview purpose. Though it is not recommended becoz of performance issues. Then ofcourse, you have the licensing issue(s).

What kind of CFM pages do u have? Just asking. No obivious reasons.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any more question(s).

laj1

We've got the lot. POSTs, GETs, some with HTML some just CFML. Some are custom tag safe, others not.

I'll probably try method 2 first, then depending on usability testing, may move on to method 3 with CF on the TS host.

Len

sajiddc

GETs should work with no problem.
For POSTs, you may have to use method 2.

HTML with CFML are no probs.

Custom CF Tags, should also work as long as you have your branch/workarea setup right.

wsin_log(41).txt

laj1

Lets look at 3 for a second. I'm used to running CF on a stricly local basis.

How do I do this without having to move the content across the network before calling for virtualization?

Or are you saying some thing different.

Len.

laj1

In the interest of completeness, thought I'd reply again and a let you all know how our integration turned out.

While we did end up having to use some fairly complex REs to knit a few of our branches together, we ended up going with Cold Fusion Option 3.5.

3.5? you ask.

Yes. Option 4 is "run CF on your teamsite server host".
We do that, because our box has enough horses to support it (so far).

But we have a tiered development environment, and we'll need the DEV DSNs to point to a different DB server than the QA DSNs. So I'll have to eventually do some mappings, and use CF in distributed mode for one of the DEV/QA tiers.

I haven't decided which tier yet. I'll see which one makes sense in context when the time comes.

On a side note, I'd be interested in hearing (either privately, or through the bit bucket forum) about anybody's/everybody's experiences with CFMX.

Cheers.
Len.

Len Jaffe
My Hear Is A Flower