Options in the ColdFusion Administrator

This chapter discusses a number of ways to improve the performance of your ColdFusion templates, some of which are a bit involved. Before getting into the specific solutions, you should be aware of a number of server-wide options provided by the ColdFusion Administrator that can affect the overall performance of your applications.

The Administrator options most likely to directly affect performance are:

• Maximum Number of Simultaneous Requests. This option on the Settings page of the Administrator should be set to a fairly low number (but not as low as 1) for best performance. The best value for your application will depend on how heavily it is used and how much processing is done per page request.

• Maximum Number of Cached Templates. Ideally, this option on the Caching page should be set to a number greater than (or at least close to) the number of ColdFusion templates that get used on a regular basis.

• Trusted Cache. This option on the Caching page should be enabled for best performance, but only when your application has moved into a production mode (after you have completely finished writing your code).

• Maintain Connections. This option for each of your data sources should be enabled for best performance.

• Limit Connections. In general, if you choose Maintain Connections (above), this option should also be enabled for each of your data sources, and you should provide a sensible number for the Restrict Connections To field next to the Limit Connections check box. As a rough guide, consider starting with a value that is approximately the same as the number you provided for Maximum Number of Simultaneous Requests, above.

See Chapter 29, "ColdFusion Server," for details on each of these options.