Note: This blog post is from 2015. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

While the conference name has changed (from cf.Objective()), there are still plenty of CF-oriented topics, and of course as nearly everyone would point out, it's good for everyone to expand their reach and focus.

To that end, I'll be doing a topic a bit different than my normal focus of CF server troubleshooting. Instead, recognizing that there will be folks there who either use other servers, or develop web apps or mobile apps, I'll do a bit of a "soft" topic on how to troubleshoot performance problems more generically, in:

Hey, my web app's slow. Where's the problem?

Whatever client or server technology you may be using, when your web app is slow, it can be maddening because it's not always obvious where the performance problem is. Is it on the client? on the server? On the network between? Is it all parts of the request or only some? If it's slow on the client, is it slow in all clients (if you support many)? And is it slow for everyone using the app? If it's slow on the server, is it slow in the web application server you may be talking to, if any? Or might it be in the web server? Or the database server?

In this session, veteran troubleshooter Charlie Arehart will help you consider these various possible performance pain points, and he'll share tools which may be available to you (many free, some built-in, some commercial) that may offer just the answer to the questions above. You can't solve a problem until you really understand it, and with the concepts and tools discussed here, you will be well on your way to identifying and resolving the real source of your web application performance problems.

No particular experience is required. Familiarity with web application development with any client and any server technologies will be sufficient to appreciate the techniques and tools to be shown.

So while I won't dig into the weeds of CF server troubleshooting, I will help folks (as I also do daily) with understanding where to find performance problems. There are so many places, I won't have time to get into "how to solve them". My hope is that by showing you how to spot the problems, you can then use other resources (many of which I will share) to then go resolve whatever may be your specific problem or problems.

It's currently scheduled for 1015am (was 9am, when I first posted this) Friday morning in the Nokomis room (that sizable room upstairs from the others), and of course the time and room are subject to change.

Check out Dan Wilson's complementary talk

Some may notice that Dan Wilson has a talk (set for now on the opening afternoon) which may seem similar, Our application got popular, and now it breaks. If you read his desciption, you'll see that it's quite differnt. And he and I have talked. His is more tactical (how did you get into this mess?) where as mine is more strategic (how do I find out where the problem really is?). It would perhaps have been better if the timing was that mine came before his, but hey that's how the objects are allocated on the stack. :-)

I'll also do a sponsored talk for the FusionReactor folks

As in years past, I have also been asked by the FusionReactor folks (aka, Intergral) to give their sponsor talk on their great tool which I use (and help people use) every day in my CF server troubleshooting services, including news of a coming major new release which really will be quite an important upgrade. For more, come to the talk! (There should be a real title and description shown, but there is none for now in the timeslot currently allocated, Thursday at 1;45p. Hope to see that fixed soon.)

And there are several dozen more great talks at this great conference

Of course, there are several dozen other talks on a whole range of topics related to development, so check 'em out, and if somehow you hadn't heard of the conference and might want to come, it's not too late.

It's still at the fabulous Radisson Blu hotel, right next to the Mall of America, still run by the same great team of folks, and still has many speakers who CFers have come to know, with of course lots of new ones (and on new topics) that may be come your favorites. It's a great conference all around, every year, and I can't wait to see some of you there. Well, you know what I mean! :-)

For more content like this from Charlie Arehart:

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Need more help with problems?

• If you may prefer direct help, rather than digging around here/elsewhere or via comments, he can help via his online consulting services
• See that page for more on how he can help a) over the web, safely and securely, b) usually very quickly, c) teaching you along the way, and d) with satisfaction guaranteed