We wanted to get the ins and outs of our sponsor's, Intergral, topic at CFUnited! See what Charlie has to say about his session and why you should be there!
Tell us a little about yourself:
Greetings folks. I'm Charlie Arehart, independent consultant, and I'll be presenting "Continuously Improve CF code quality, Server Availability & Application Stability". This is a vendor/sponsor session that I'll be giving on behalf of Intergral, makers of FusionReactor, FusionDebug, and the new FusionAnalytics tools. While I don't work for the company, I am a long-time fan and do in fact partner with them in many ways, having written their training classes, which I also present, and also providing consulting for them for North American clients of their cfconsultant.com service.
Briefly describe what the is session about:
Well, the description on the site says it as well as I could say (since I wrote it). :-) The bottom line focus is how to use their tools (all recently or just about to be updated) to solve the common problems that many CF shops struggle with, whether it's poor performance, inability for CF to stay up, a challenge understanding the root cause of problems, and so on. While there are some tools that some people use to help with these, there are many ways that the Intergral tools offer unique benefits (and can work well with those other tools). Of course many people aren't aware of any tools at all. I'll be showing people how they can stop regarding CF as a black box that's either up or down. Perhaps most compelling, I'll show how they can more effectively analyze and compare server performance information across applications and over hours, days, weeks, months, and years.
Who should attend this session?
Really, anyone with responsibility for--or simply an interest in--effective running of their CF servers (or other CFML engines, or indeed other Java EE servers). There's no particular skill level required to understand what these tools can do. Indeed, even someone with little CF skill (whether a server Admin or a newcomer to CF) can quickly use these tools to show (even a more skilled person) what's going on in their servers, which is a vital first step to resolving problems.
Why did you choose to give this topic?
Well, again, this is a vendor/sponsor topic, so naturally the intention is to make people aware of the products and services from the company. But we all know that most people don't like "sales pitches". Hopefully I've earned a reputation (as an independent consultant) for being an objective observer. Since I'm not an employee, I really am "promoting" these tools because I believe they are valuable and that more people should know about them. Intergral was happy to have me present, because like so many great IT companies, they have great engineers who are awesome at building products (and listening to customers); yet like the average person, they not exactly thrilled by the prospect of speaking before hundreds of people! :-) I love doing it and have been for over 20 years.
How will conference attendees benefit from attending this session?
The primary benefit will be that attendees will learn new tools and techniques for solving common problems that face nearly every CF shop (and those using other CFML and Java EE engines). But again the focus isn't on "features" but rather on ways that problems can be solved. The session will benefit both those who have never seen the tools before, and those who maybe have worked with or at least heard of them before. Especially for the latter audience, there will be new information as the tools have been updated (FusionDebug recently, and FusionReactor soon, and FusionAnalytics is entirely new.) For those who've never seen the tools or any like them, they'll be exposed to the amazing capabilities that they bring to solving problems. And those who may be familiar with other similar solutions (though there's none like FusionAnalytics) will learn some of the ways that the Intergral products do offer unique features/solutions.
When is the session being held?
The session is on the first day, in the first slot after the Adobe Keynote (and break), at 11 am.
Why should people attend CFUnited?
Well, I've been spreading the good news of CFUnited since its inception over 10 years ago, first in a CFDJ article in 2000, and most recently in the farewell interview I did with Michael Smith and Judith Dinowitz in FusionAuthority. As a speaker at every one of the events (along with Michael), I can say it's been a conference that people have gotten great value from every year. Just as there are many tools to solve problems, and I recommend that people make the most of each, I say the same of conferences. Sure, some have their preferences (in tools and conferences, perhaps sticking only with one), but just like a large toolset can bring value to anyone, so too can a wide-ranging conference like CFUnited bring value to everyone who attends.
Whether you're a newcomer to CF or an old hand, an expert in OO technologies or still on the fence, someone who loves to meet people or prefers to just take in the content, you will not only be at home and welcomed at the event, but you'll likely find many other "birds of a feather". Speaking of BOFs, I should add that I'll be doing one called CF911 - Server Troubleshooting, which of course will cover a wide range of tools (free and commercial), techniques (from myself and I hope others), and experiences. As I'll discuss in my keynote talk on CFCommunity, we need to stick together and learn from each other! :-) CFUnited is a great place to do that.
