64-bit ColdFusion - Part I

64-bit Computing Arrives

The era of mass 64-bit computing has arrived. With even low-end servers running multi-core 64-bit processors with 16 GB or more of RAM, 32-bit software has hit the wall and will be phased out in many server applications over the next couple of years, with desktop systems making the transition over a longer period of time.

For Web professionals, the advent of affordable mainstream 64-bit hardware with greater than 2 GB RAM is both a tremendous benefit and, at least in the short term, a significant challenge. The primary benefit is the amazing scalability that can now be achieved using a single server with two or more multi-core procesors and large amounts of system memory. The challenge is that, in order to take advantage of large RAM sizes, applications need to run on a 64-bit OS in native 64-bit mode so they can address all the memory. At this time, ColdFusion 8 (or rather, JRun and several other associated binaries) are natively compiled in 32-bit mode and do not run in 64-bit mode. Adobe has started to port the full ColdFusion platform to 64-bit, beginning with Solaris, but it may take some time before the platform is available in 64-bit deployment on Windows and Linux.

ColdFusion as a Java application

Frotunately, only some elements of CodFusion server are compiled 32-bit binaries. At its heart, ColdFusion is a big Java application that can be deployed on any compliant Java server. Some elements of the platform are not available in a pure Java deployment (Verity search comes to mind), but the core server is fully functional.

There are two or three keys to deploying a Java application in 64-bit mode - a 64-bit OS and a 64-bit JVM to run the Java server, and a 64-bit web server (if you plan to integrate with a web server). I started my deployment project with Windows Server 2003 R2 64-bit, JBOSS Application Server 4.22, and IIS 6.0 64-bit. For reasons that I will detail later, I switched out IIS 6.0 for Apache 2.2 compiled in native 64-bit mode. Here is the software list:

• JBOSS 4.22 - [Downloads] 
• Apache 2.2 - [Sources] - [Unofficial Win x64 binaries]
• Windows Server 2003 x64 (includes IIS 6.0)
• ColdFusion 8 Enterprise - [Downloads]
• Sun JDK 5 - [Downloads] - look for 64-bit binaries

In terms of the licensed software here (Windows and ColdFusion), you can purchase Windows online from many different vendors, just make sure you are buying the 64-bit version. ColdFusion can be purchased online from Adobe, but for Enterprise, I suggest you contact Adobe about the volume licensing program so you can take advantage of volume discounts and upgrade plans. See the volume licensing page at adobe.com for more details.

The unofficial 64-bit binaries were compiled by Jorge Schrauwen, a CS student and software service provider in Belgium. If you plan on using his binaries rather than compiling Apache yourself (which is no fun at all, let me assure you), be a good sport and give Jorge a PayPal donation for his efforts.

I installed JBOSS using the Sun JDK 5 64-bit binaries. You may choose to run the JDK 6; if so, make sure to check adobe.com and the blogosphere for information relating to possible JDK 6 issues.

Next time I will delve into the software install.