Comparing FusionReactor 3.0 with ColdFusion 8 Monitor

If you are considering purchasing FusionReactor to augment the monitoring capabilities of Adobe's ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition Server or would just like to compare features, we've put together the following list to highlight key differentiators.

Feature Adobe CF 8 Monitor FusionReactor
View Information Provide real-time standard monitor metrics - including:
  • Server response time;
  • Memory usage;
  • Slow active requests;
  • Thread usage;
  • Database status (active and slow queries)
  • SQL Statement detail
Yes Yes
View Information Monitors ColdFusion 8 (Enterprise) Yes Yes
View Information Monitors ColdFusion 8 (Standard) Yes
View Information Monitors ColdFusion MX 7.x (Standard / Enterprise) Yes
View Information Monitors ColdFusion MX 6.x (Professional / Enterprise) Yes
Monitors Adobe LiveCycle Server and Flex Data Services Yes
View Information Monitors J2EE Servers: JRun, JBoss, Websphere, Weblogic and can be installed on any servlet or J2EE engine e.g. Tomcat, Jetty Yes
View Information Monitors alternative CFML Servers Yes
View Information Platform independent AIR Application for Enterprise Dashboard Yes
View Information Ability to launch a shell script if the Enterprise Monitored Server goes down, comes up or becomes unresponsive Yes
View Information CPU performance monitoring (for the CF instance and the entire server) Yes
View Information Monitor runs outside of ColdFusion (if ColdFusion goes down the monitor stays up and running) Yes
View Information Extensive "low overhead" logging on metrics (including request data) - essential for debugging and problem identification Yes
View Information Features a built in web server (so you can access your monitoring data even if your web server is down or stops responding) Yes
View Information Compression support - to optimize network bandwidth Yes
View Information Search and replaces filters Yes
View Information Enterprise Dashboard supports grouping of servers, showing a consolidated "health" view of the entire group Yes
View Information Soft Kills Threads Yes
View Information Full Java level detailed stack traces Yes
View Information Option to capture the entire request/response Yes

NOTE: ColdFusion 8 Server Monitoring is ONLY available in the ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Edition.

FusionReactor supports ColdFusion 6.x, 7.x and 8

FusionReactor has been available since 2005 and supports ColdFusion MX 6.1, 7.x and 8. So, if you are still using ColdFusion 6 or 7 you can use FusionReactor right away. Should you decide to move to ColdFusion 8 in the future, FusionReactor will continue to deliver and add many features that ColdFusion 8's monitor does not offer.

If you have a mixed environment of ColdFusion servers e.g. you use ColdFusion 7 and 8, you can monitor all server versions using FusionReactor. FusionReactor's Enterprise Dashboard allows you to group servers both logically and physically and shows the server status for server groups as well as individual machines. The dashboard shows the health of the server including CPU, memory, request and database performance overview and graphs without having to log in to the server.

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FusionReactor monitors other Adobe and J2EE servers, not just ColdFusion

FusionReactor also monitors other Adobe Server's like LiveCycle and Flex Data Services as well as J2EE servers like JBoss, JRun, Websphere and WebLogic. In addition FusionReactor supports the following operating systems: Windows, Unix, Linux and Solaris as well as the following CFML servers - Railo, Smith and BlueDragon/J2EE - See the complete list of system requirements.

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CPU performance monitoring

Immediately see the state of the CPU both within your CF server instance and the total physical machine CPU in an easy to read graphical dashboard display on our Enterprise Dashboard or via the information logged in FusionReactor's extensive logs.

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If ColdFusion goes down, FusionReactor stays up and running

FusionReactor does not run inside ColdFusion and may be installed on a separate Servlet Engine, such as Tomcat or JBoss to provide a "monitor the monitor" or "cross-over" monitor.

Often you will still be able to access FusionReactor even if ColdFusion is unresponsive, but if the JVM itself has been interrupted then FusionReactor may also be unavailable. Even in this situation though, FusionReactor will still have logged everything up until that point so you can find out what has happened. Additionally, you can enable the Crash Protection feature to notify you when the system gets into various panic states and it will store stack traces to help you identify the cause. It is also possible to configure Crash Protection such that requests are queued or terminated in order to try and stop the server getting into such a state that it actually becomes unresponsive. This is a critical feature for ensuring that support or administrative personnel are immediately alerted to server issues.

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Extensive "low overhead" logging

FusionReactor's low overhead logging lets you see what's going on with the server at the current time and can also capture the server metrics and store this information for future analysis. This capability means it is able to log incoming requests and their associated responses to the file system. Request capture can be very useful for a variety of reasons from technical to legal, such as in auditing (for legal reasons), data analysis and problem identification. Also developers can use stored requests in order to be able to reproduce specific load conditions or test cases.

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Has a built-in web server so you can access your monitoring data even if your web server is unavailable

FusionReactor has its own built-in web server so you can access it even if your primary web server (e.g. IIS or Apache) is down. You can of course access FusionReactor via the regular web server if it is available.

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Compression Support

Compress responses to minimize network bandwidth. Configurable fully automatic compression takes care of minimizing the data sent to those web browsers that can handle it. Bandwidth can be lowered by up to 70% and more on many requests, keeping overloaded networks running.

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Search and replace filters

Make dynamic changes to the website content or fix minor issues without having to change the code. Global filters let you change the content sent to the web browser on the fly by matching, replacing or removing strings.

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Soft Kills Threads

FusionReactor performs many types of soft kill actions when stopping a ColdFusion request before prompting the user if it should perform a thread kill.

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Java level detailed stack traces

FusionReactor creates full Java detailed level stack traces even on JVM's < version 1.5 (Java 5).

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