Always prevention is better than cure, so first we will check the measures that need to be in place to avoid any upcoming disasters.

Steps to increase Application Performance:  

Share system load with multiple instances using load balancing servers

  • With CF enterprise edition, we can manage the admin/front end sites by creating multiple instances/cluster environments.
  • Create two or more ColdFusion instances and bind admin/front end to different instances.
  • Create a cluster with two or more instances and bind to admin and create another instance for front end (if the scheduled jobs have more load than the front end).

Performance by rewriting efficient code, DB tuning

  • Rewriting efficient code
    The code should be Scalable, Secure and Reliable.
    It should be easy to maintain the code.
  • DB tuning
    Keep checking the database performance on regular intervals.
    Try to re-index the data on timely basis like weekly or monthly based on the size of the database.

Finally what needs to be always ready when something goes wrong.

Steps to follow during Disaster Recovery:

1. Get the backup site on different environment/server ready to restore business operations

This you can achieve by having Stage site ready with almost identical code and data, this will be the best less turnover time plan.
Stage site Code and DB data should be always identical with the Live site.
The code should be manageable from both stage and live sites, so it will be easy to make stage site as Live when needed.
All site configurations should be defined separately for both sites.
Finally, ensure that the Stage site is fully functional and secure.

2. If your ColdFusion Application is on the AWS server, you can register image for the Live site and can restore when needed quickly

Create Image server to Live server and make sure all configurations and permissions are correctly copied.

3. DB backups and Code backups, estimated time for DB recovery

Monthly/Quarterly checks on DB backups to check the size of DB.If the DB size is drastically increased it will take time to import backups.

4. Keep all installation software, security keys, any needed API class files ready on backups

  • Monthly Check if any new applications been implemented, have all details in one place.
  • Monthly Check if any major changes to existing applications? If so, update the recovery plan accordingly.
  • Monthly Check if any hardware configuration changed? If the changes affect your ability to recover, make appropriate changes to the plan.

5. An annual disaster recovery Test should be done

6. All CF administrator settings, scheduler tasks setup

ColdFusion specific XML server configuration files and the XML files used to store ColdFusion Administrator settings should be taken readily to import after set up.
For details, the scheduler file will be in neo-cron.xm (Stores ColdFusion Administrator settings for Scheduled Tasks).
You can see all the other info on Adobe site.
https://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/kb/purpose-location-xml-configuration-files.html

*Note: Although this plan and setup is good enough for most of the ColdFusion applications, others would need a customized plan.
If you need any emergency help and / or disaster recovery set up, we can discuss the action plan. Contact us now.