CF 8 Server Monitor vs. SeeFusion 4.0.6
ColdFusionI haven't seen a concise article on the primary (IMHO) similarities and differences between the CF 8 Server Monitor and SeeFusion. I have 2 years experience with SeeFusion, and have used nearly all of it's features, and I have been researching and tinkering with the Server Monitor tools of CF 8 for the past few months. Here's my top 10 lists of what I've found to be most important:
Primary Similarities
- Real-time monitoring UI
- Can toggle Monitoring ON/OFF on the fly (no CF server restart)
- Active request tracking
- Alerts which can send emails based on various CF events
- CF stack traces
- "Kill" command available to stop long-running/hung requests
- Reporting on slow pages and queries
- Filtering out pages not to monitor
- Can forcibly run Garbage Collection at any time
- API available to program against
Primary Differences
CF 8 Server Monitor
- Server and Application scope details
- UI includes CF Error reporting
- CFThread Monitoring
- Template Cache status
- Detailed Memory Usage Tracking
- CF Scope details
- Cached Query status/details
- Database Pool status
- Ability to create CF "Snapshots"
- Alerts can also call a CFC, Dump Snapshots, and reject new requests
SeeFusion
- Decoupled from CF - if CF goes down or hangs, SeeFusion is not affected and continues to get all information
- Counters: real-time view of current and recent requests
- Log large queries to stdout (based on # of rows)
- SeeFusion.trace() function for more granular, code-level request monitoring
- Streaming debugging output, with filtering and IP-restriction
- Logging of slow requests to a database via JDBC
- Logging of slow queries to a database via JDBC, including query exceptions
- Logging of SeeFusion counters to a database via JDBC
- Optional/configurable logging of user-defined events to a database via JDBC
- Configurable rowLimit parameter for limiting query result sets (and preventing OutOfMemory errors)
Sources:
- http://seefusion.com/index.cfm?do=c.versions
- https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a227210/p59838964/
- http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/monitoring_pt2_02.html
Charlie Arehart said:
Hey Aaron, that's a very helpful list. Thanks for organizing it.
I do want to point out that where you listed app and server vars, it should also list session vars. And let's not forget tag/function profiling. There are still more things that could be listed, but I don't mean to take away from the useful entry. It's just that the CF8 monitor is indeed very rich.
Indeed, thanks for pointing to the article I did on the CF8 monitor (at the Adobe Dev Center). I hope it may help others explore all its ins and outs of its many capabilities. Part 3 (on alerts and snapshots) should be up next week. Part 4 (on the multiserver monitor and miscellaneous stuff--done and being edited) will be up soon after that.
But great to see another entry in support of SeeFusion. I love all the tools.
Indeed, I support your pointing out that SeeFusion has value even in the face of CF8's monitor. Some may know I'm a fan of FusionReactor and I've written blog entries making the case for it (and SeeFusion) even on CF8. All these tools each bring something unique and a shop could conceivably get value out of all 3. I hope someone (perhaps I myself) may do a comparison like yours for FusionReactor as well. We all benefit by understanding all that the various tools bring to the table.
Keep up the good work, and I'll subscribe to your blog. Good stuff here.
I do want to point out that where you listed app and server vars, it should also list session vars. And let's not forget tag/function profiling. There are still more things that could be listed, but I don't mean to take away from the useful entry. It's just that the CF8 monitor is indeed very rich.
Indeed, thanks for pointing to the article I did on the CF8 monitor (at the Adobe Dev Center). I hope it may help others explore all its ins and outs of its many capabilities. Part 3 (on alerts and snapshots) should be up next week. Part 4 (on the multiserver monitor and miscellaneous stuff--done and being edited) will be up soon after that.
But great to see another entry in support of SeeFusion. I love all the tools.
Indeed, I support your pointing out that SeeFusion has value even in the face of CF8's monitor. Some may know I'm a fan of FusionReactor and I've written blog entries making the case for it (and SeeFusion) even on CF8. All these tools each bring something unique and a shop could conceivably get value out of all 3. I hope someone (perhaps I myself) may do a comparison like yours for FusionReactor as well. We all benefit by understanding all that the various tools bring to the table.
Keep up the good work, and I'll subscribe to your blog. Good stuff here.
Aaron Longnion said:
@Nick,
Good question... I'll give the usual answer: it depends. If you have the money and you're running high-traffic, high-availability sites, it shouldn't be hard to make the case for both (or all 3, if you like FusionReactor). For me, the killer features for SeeFusion are the logging slow pages & queries to dB for analysis, Counters, and the fact that it's de-coupled from CF.
For the Server Monitor, the killer features are the detailed level of granularity which you can follow what's happening on each request (CF scopes, function calls, cache info, etc.), Memory tracking, and snapshot dumps.
@Charlie,
No problem, my pleasure.
I agree that there is lot's more to list, but was trying to distill the list to what I consider to be most important to most situations.
I'd love to see a FusionReactor "top 10 list", and could add that to this post, or will link to you from here. Keep me posted.
I'm honored that you like my post, and thank you for subscribing! I only wish I had more time to blog more often.
Good question... I'll give the usual answer: it depends. If you have the money and you're running high-traffic, high-availability sites, it shouldn't be hard to make the case for both (or all 3, if you like FusionReactor). For me, the killer features for SeeFusion are the logging slow pages & queries to dB for analysis, Counters, and the fact that it's de-coupled from CF.
For the Server Monitor, the killer features are the detailed level of granularity which you can follow what's happening on each request (CF scopes, function calls, cache info, etc.), Memory tracking, and snapshot dumps.
@Charlie,
No problem, my pleasure.
I agree that there is lot's more to list, but was trying to distill the list to what I consider to be most important to most situations.
I'd love to see a FusionReactor "top 10 list", and could add that to this post, or will link to you from here. Keep me posted.
I'm honored that you like my post, and thank you for subscribing! I only wish I had more time to blog more often.
charlie arehart said:
Thanks for the kind regards, Aaron.
Actually, your comments to Nick reminded me of two more benefits that SeeFusion (and FusionReactor) have over the CF8 monitor: both can work on CF 6 and 7, and neither requires the Enterprise edition of CF. For all its glories, the CF8 Server Monitor does indeed work only with CF8, and only with Enterprise (or Developer), not Standard.
As for an FR top 10 list, maybe I or the Intergral guys could come up with that. Thanks for the offer to put a link to such here. But I'm not trying to take away at all the spotlight you're putting on SeeFusion. It's a great tool, too.
Actually, your comments to Nick reminded me of two more benefits that SeeFusion (and FusionReactor) have over the CF8 monitor: both can work on CF 6 and 7, and neither requires the Enterprise edition of CF. For all its glories, the CF8 Server Monitor does indeed work only with CF8, and only with Enterprise (or Developer), not Standard.
As for an FR top 10 list, maybe I or the Intergral guys could come up with that. Thanks for the offer to put a link to such here. But I'm not trying to take away at all the spotlight you're putting on SeeFusion. It's a great tool, too.
Troy Allen said:
Aaron/Charlie,
I have a customer whom I just upgraded from CF 4.5 all the way to CF 8 Standard. He is having all kinds of JVM OutOfMemory errors and related lock-ups. I am confident it is being caused by bad/bloated code, but I need a tool to FIND the problems effectively. So based mainly on each tool's insight into memory usage, which tool do you think would be a better starting point, SeeFusion or FusionReactor?
I would love to try CF Server Monitor, but it is not an Enterprise install. Slightly off-topic here, but I think that is the one edition differentiator with which Adobe really missed the boat: There should be at least SOME basic version of it with Standard. Maybe not multi-server, and the "deep probes". But if we are going to pay $1,300 for an app server, it would be nice to have at least some basic monitoring capabilities.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
I have a customer whom I just upgraded from CF 4.5 all the way to CF 8 Standard. He is having all kinds of JVM OutOfMemory errors and related lock-ups. I am confident it is being caused by bad/bloated code, but I need a tool to FIND the problems effectively. So based mainly on each tool's insight into memory usage, which tool do you think would be a better starting point, SeeFusion or FusionReactor?
I would love to try CF Server Monitor, but it is not an Enterprise install. Slightly off-topic here, but I think that is the one edition differentiator with which Adobe really missed the boat: There should be at least SOME basic version of it with Standard. Maybe not multi-server, and the "deep probes". But if we are going to pay $1,300 for an app server, it would be nice to have at least some basic monitoring capabilities.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Aaron Longnion said:
@Troy,
So that you don't have to upgrade to CF 8 Enterprise, I'd buy and install SeeFusion Enterprise, install the SeeFusion JDBC wrapper to look closely at the SQL performance/bottlenecks (in my experience, 80+% of the time SQL queries/tuning is the problem). Also, set up the logging to dB, as this will allow you to write reports that tell you what might have happened in the middle of the night when CF crashed, etc.
You may want to contact the guys Webapper.com (support@seefusion.com) to get some help, and perhaps even hire them to train you on finding bottlenecks with SeeFusion. It will be money well-spent, if you can afford it. :)
Best of luck!
So that you don't have to upgrade to CF 8 Enterprise, I'd buy and install SeeFusion Enterprise, install the SeeFusion JDBC wrapper to look closely at the SQL performance/bottlenecks (in my experience, 80+% of the time SQL queries/tuning is the problem). Also, set up the logging to dB, as this will allow you to write reports that tell you what might have happened in the middle of the night when CF crashed, etc.
You may want to contact the guys Webapper.com (support@seefusion.com) to get some help, and perhaps even hire them to train you on finding bottlenecks with SeeFusion. It will be money well-spent, if you can afford it. :)
Best of luck!
Brad Wood said:
Thanks for the good info.
I am a big fan of SeeFusion and the guys over at Webapper. We have purhased CF8 ent at my job, but I haven't had a chance to play with the server monitor stuff much yet. It is nice to see your list side-by-side.
The benifit to SeeFusion for me has really been the database logging. I have been able to create some nice trending reports and Excel graphs based off it.
I have also been able to incorporate the XML API into a home grown Database monitor.
Thanks again.
~Brad
I am a big fan of SeeFusion and the guys over at Webapper. We have purhased CF8 ent at my job, but I haven't had a chance to play with the server monitor stuff much yet. It is nice to see your list side-by-side.
The benifit to SeeFusion for me has really been the database logging. I have been able to create some nice trending reports and Excel graphs based off it.
I have also been able to incorporate the XML API into a home grown Database monitor.
Thanks again.
~Brad
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