The switch to Tomcat

[Completely Free Dating - Andrew]

Hi All,

I noticed with the final release of 3.2.1.000 the default servlet
container has changed from Resin to Tomcat. I have been running with
Resin since I started using Railo however is it now recommend for a
production environment that Tomcat is preferred? If so, are there any
instructions to convert from Resin to Tomcat on my existing
installation?

Kind regards,

Andrew.

[Justin Edwards]

I am also curious as to why the switch was made.  I haven't seen any other mention of this on the lists.   Does anyone have any performance comparisons between the two?   I have been under the impression that Resin is the fastest application server, and that it has some of the better clustering ability.  

Justin Edwards

[Jordan Michaels]

If Resin is working well for you, then there's really not any need to
switch from it unless you have a problem with it. Resin is an excellent
servlet engine.

Tomcat was selected as the servlet engine for the installers because of
it's larger user base (meaning more easily supported by the community as
well as various server control panels) and of it's unrestricted use
options. Resin, has some use restrictions that effect some users.

The plan for the installers is to eventually support several different
servlet engines, not just Tomcat.

-Jordan

[Jordan Michaels]

"Speed" is almost always very relevant to the task you're performing.
I've seen reports on speed tests where resin is faster, and speed tests
where Tomcat is faster. A simple google search for "Tomcat vs Resin"
produces all kinds of interesting reads. Check it out for yourself if
you'd like:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Tomcat+vs+Resin

This shows Resin as being slower for this particular test:
http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/jetty_vs_tomcat_vs_resin

This shows Resin being faster:
http://blog.caucho.com/?p=31

So... application-specific speed tests aside, what matters most to most
folks?

- That it works.
- That it's easy.
- That I can get help when I need it.

... and that's why Tomcat was the first to be added to the list of
supported servlet engines for the installers.

If you have a preference for what servlet engine you'd like to see next
supported by the installer, please make your opinion known. =)

-Jordan

--
Warm regards,
Jordan Michaels
Vivio Technologies
http://www.viviotech.net/
509.593.4207 x 1001

[Sean Corfield]

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Jordan Michaels <jor...@getrailo.org> wrote:
> Tomcat was selected as the servlet engine for the installers because of it's
> larger user base (meaning more easily supported by the community as well as
> various server control panels) and of it's unrestricted use options. Resin,
> has some use restrictions that effect some users.

Just to elaborate on this:
* Tomcat has a much larger user base / community and much more
documentation - so we felt it would be easier for Railo's users to
deal with
* Resin's licensing is an issue for some people:
- the open source version is GPL
- the open source version disables a number of useful features
- all the high-scale, enterprise stuff requires a $699/cpu license
* Resin 3.x seems to have a bug where only one cpu core is used (fixed
in 4.0 apparently)

The biggest difference the average CFML user will notice is the
handling of wildcard servlet mappings and SES URLs. In Tomcat, you
need both *.cfm and /index.cfm/* to get SES URLs working (and, indeed,
need an explicit path ending in /filename.cfm/* for any such SES URLs
you intend to use). In Resin, you can have multiple wildcards (*) in
servlet mappings so SES URLs are easier.

After talking to Caucho and looking at their product offerings, we
decided to reposition Railo + Resin more for enterprise users who
would be more comfortable buying Resin licenses (as well as perhaps
ehCache / Terracotta licenses for enterprise level distributed
caching) and offer a clean free, open source licensed approach for
users who don't want to go down that route.

For more details on the feature differences between Resin GPL and
Resin Professional:

http://caucho.com/resin/doc/overview.xtp
http://www.caucho.com/products/sales/

A concise comparison of Tomcat vs Resin:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1987984/differene-between-tomcat-and-resin
--
Sean A Corfield -- (904) 302-SEAN
Railo Technologies, Inc. -- http://getrailo.com/
An Architect's View -- http://corfield.org/

"If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive."
-- Margaret Atwood

[Ronan Lucio]

Hi All,

I'm very happy with this notice.

I have switched to Tomcat almost 2 years ago because of the pros mentioned above and, one more, in our tests Tomcat answered a little bit faster for our application and showed a better memory management.

Ronan