Data and Services

Looking at the left navigational bar, the next header we encounter is the Data and Services header. Beneath this header, you find several clickable menu items that control how datasources and other external configurable data components behave. We examine this section in detail in the following sections.

Data Sources

First, let's look at the Data Sources page. Figure 25.11 gives you a look at page inside the Administrator.

Figure 25.11. Data Sources page in the ColdFusion Administrator.

The Data Sources page enables you to create, edit, configure, and delete external datasources that you'd like to use with your ColdFusion applications. There's nothing particularly tricky about this section of the Administrator. You simply choose the appropriate driver for the database to which you want to connect, enter the appropriate connection information, and begin using your database.

Verity Collections

Next, let's look at the Verity Collections page. Figure 25.12 gives you a look at the page inside the Administrator.

Figure 25.12. Verity Collections page in the ColdFusion Administrator.

On this page, you can add a new verity collection to the ColdFusion Server by naming the collection you want to create and pointing to an appropriate directory of files on your server. Beyond that, you can also repair, optimize, purge, and delete existing verity collections from this page. Table 25.6 discusses each verity management option.

Table 25.6. Verity Management Options

Action	Effect
Repair	Running a repair on a collection has the same effect as "reindexing" the collection. This eliminates broken or outdated links and includes recent document additions in the collection.
Optimize	Much like a fragmented hard disk, when you delete files that were once in a collection, the index itself gets out of date and fragmented. Running an optimize has the effect of "defragging" the collection, enabling you to save disk space and conduct faster searches against the index.
Purge	When you purge a collection, you are leaving the shell of the collection intact, but deleting all the documents that were a part of that collection.
Delete	Deleting a collection deletes both the shell of the collection and all the associated documents.

Web Services

Now, let's look at the Web Services page. Figure 25.13 gives you a look at the page inside the Administrator.

Figure 25.13. Web Services page in the ColdFusion Administrator.

The main purpose of this page of the ColdFusion Administrator is to enable you to register your web services with a name so that when you call them from your code, you do not need to enter the full Web Services Description Language (WSDL) URL. This enables easier and cleaner CFML code.