Cluster Cats & Bright Tiger
What Are These?
Allaire, the brothers (J.J. and Jeremy) were no doubt visionaries, what they created in ColdFusion no doubt played a large part in what is now known as “The Dot-Com Bubble”. However their part was most certainly not the wide-eyed, greed-driven lust for promoting non-sensical ideas, with no chance of profit.
“The Dot-Com Bubble Burst”, did impact Allaire Corporation, but that is a subject for another post.
Bright Tiger Bows In:
Bright Tiger Technologies was a software company based in Nashua, New Hampshire, that specialized in web application development tools. On April 14, 1999, it was acquired by Allaire Corporation . This acquisition was part of Allaire's strategy to expand its product offerings and strengthen its position in the web development market during the late 1990s.(PitchBook, PitchBook)
As a bit of history, Allaire Corporation, was founded in 1995 by Jeremy and Joseph (JJ) Allaire, and as we know was known for its ColdFusion web application platform. The company went public in January 1999 and pursued several acquisitions, including Bright Tiger Technologies, to enhance its technology stack .
Largely because of the effects of The Dotcom Bubble In early 2001, Allaire itself was acquired by Macromedia for $360 million . Subsequently, Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems in 2005, bringing ColdFusion and related technologies under Adobe's umbrella.(Wikipedia). Short history lesson completed.
The acquisition of Bright Tiger Technologies by Allaire played a role in the consolidation of web development tools during the dot-com era, contributing to the evolution of integrated web application platforms.(OpenView)
Cluster Cats:
Let’s imagine we created a web site using ColdFusion, it runs on a single instance-server, even worse, the database is on there also. As a note point, I have often encountered this exact set-up in production environments. Someone asked me once, “what is the biggest beneficial change you have seen in computing infrastructure?” The answer is deceptively simple, “getting beyond one”. In our example here, even keeping the database on the same instance-server when me move to more that one instance-server we are in a much more stable-dependable world. So now what happens when someone browses the web site, which instance-server will respond? This is where clustering comes in. We place the two or more instance-servers into a cluster which answers the web request as if it were a single entity. Bright Tiger had created a software-level clustering mechanism which is what Cluster Cats is-was. My background, pre becoming an Allaire-ColdFusion-Spectre consultant, was very much rooted in infrastructure, networks etc, so Cluster Cats was one of my favorite developments in my Allaire-Macromedia career.
A Boot Camp In Nashua NH:
Here I am stretching my memory, torturously, in any case I was lucky enough to go to a training session on using Cluster Cats out at the Bright Tiger facility in Nashuau, New Hampshire. Apart from being a delightful part of the USA the training we got was phenomenal. Here is my memory stretch, I think the instructor was called Frank De-Rienzo and I apologize if I butchered this and if anyone else who reads this can correct me if needed, I would appreciate it. Let’s assume I am correct with Frank as a first name; he put us through setting up clusters at break-neck speeds. It was incredible and much appreciated by me.
Final Reflection:
These were the halcyon days of ColdFusion, it was a series of amazing updates and improvements driven by one of the most proficient engineering teams I have ever worked with.
Thanks all round for the visionary Brother’s Allaire, the engineering team at Allaire and not to be forgotten, the ongoing support of the current team at Adobe.