TeraTech

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Lesson 13:  ColdFusion Automation: Aragorn’s Guide to DevOps Unity

[CFL2M] ColdFusion Tools That’ll Make Your DevOps Life Easier

*Note: This content is from our free ColdFusion Legacy 2 Modernization E-Course [CFL2M]. Interested in getting the full course? Click here to sign up.

Much like Aragorn's leadership unified the Fellowship of Middleware-earth, a solid infrastructure tool unites your development and production environments for ColdFusion.

When building your development environment using Docker, the best way to specify what should go onto the machine is to use one of the supporting CI/CD like ​Ansible​, ​Chef​, or ​Puppet​. 

[By now you should have already downloaded and installed Docker. Well done. Pat on the back!]

Here’s an even bigger congrats because you’re very near to the end of this e-course and are well on your way to a Modernized CF app! This will be the last lesson email. If you missed the last lesson on documentation and commenting, please revisit it.

Now, all three of the above tools work to automate and copy code and other items to build your app on the server. They copy stuff from source control that has changed to the server. They can even call for an automatic testing during the build and reject the build if a test fails. 

Which one you choose depends on management style, background, and preference. 

For instance, Ansible, with its simple YAML syntax and agentless architecture, might be preferred for quick deployments and straightforward management of ColdFusion servers. 

If your team has a strong background in Ruby, Chef might be a comfortable choice, allowing you to leverage that expertise for managing ColdFusion servers. 

Puppet stands out if you prioritize a declarative configuration model to maintain strict compliance and configuration standards in your ColdFusion environments, contrasting with Chef's procedural style and Ansible's YAML playbooks.

No matter which tool you use, scripted provisioning can be a large step towards reducing the cost and risk of (re) building new servers. With this, you can:

  • Skip days of repeated hand-configuration effort every time a new developer starts
  • Gain cost and operational flexibility
  • Allow for an easy hosting upgrade or downgrade path if your needs change.

All you have to do is add it in CommandBox, CFConfig, and TestBox and you are really cooking. Allowing more than enough time for busy hobbits to eat second breakfast.

Aragorn Action Step: Try installing one of these tools and playing around with it.

Best, 

Michaela Light, CEO TeraTech

PS You’re almost at the end of the E-course, great job! The next email is a recap of the second half; you won’t want to miss it.