User Guide

224 Chapter 11 Scalability and Availability Overview
Load management
Load management refers to the method by which simultaneous user requests are
distributed and balanced among multiple servers (Web, ColdFusion, DBMS, file, and
search servers). Effectively balancing load across your servers ensures that they do
not become overloaded and eventually unavailable.
There are several different methods that you can use to achieve load management:
• Hardware-based solutions
• Software-based solutions, including round-robin Internet DNS or third-party
clustering packages
• Hardware and software combinations
Each option has its own distinct merits.
Most load balancing solutions today manage traffic based on IP packet flow. This
approach effectively handles non-application-centric sites. However, to effectively
manage ColdFusion Web application traffic, it is important to implement a
mechanism that monitors and balances load based on specific ColdFusion Web
application load. ColdFusion relies on a leading software-based clustering
technology, ClusterCATS, to ensure that the ColdFusion Web servers, the Web server,
and other servers on which your ColdFusion Web applications depend remain highly
available.
To learn more about different hardware and software load management solutions,
see “Techniques for Creating Scalable and Highly Available Sites” on page 239.