When problems are not due to CF, but may be in the web server (and a hat-tip to IIS 7)
Note: This blog post is from 2011. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.Sometimes, CF problems are not really CF problems. Here's a little vignette from a recent consulting engagement (where I provide fast, on-demand CF troubleshooting services).
The challenge
I had a customer contact me recently because their server was performing poorly. They were experiencing significant latency on many requests. They were inclined to think they needed to change something in their application or SQL (as most presume when things go amiss).I helped them determine ultimately that the problem was not CF at all, but instead something amiss in their web server, in this case Apache. (Before any Apache defenders come at me, please: I'm not "hatin' on Apache", just reporting what we observed. Do keep reading for more details.)
I asked if they'd considered at least trying IIS to confirm if it might work better for this challenge, but they preferred the file-based configurability of Apache. While I noted that IIS had gotten better in recent years in that regard, they preferred to bring in some experienced Apache guys to sort things out. (I don't claim any particular expertise with Apache, and I'm not at all averse to letting a customer know when they may need to have someone else help with certain problems.)
The customer's first attempt at resolution