BlueDragon

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This article refers to the CFML engine. For the upcoming Xbox 360 game, refer to Blue Dragon (video game).

BlueDragon is an alternative CFML engine comparable to Macromedia's ColdFusion. It is licensed and distributed by New Atlanta from TagServlet Ltd based out of Scotland. BlueDragon is also distributed and supported by BEA on their Weblogic server platform.

ColdFusion is a proprietary technology based on Web technology industry standards, however it is becoming a less closed technology through the availability of potentially competing products.

New Atlanta's BlueDragon product, released in 2002, provides a ColdFusion MX 6.x-compatible platform to run CFML-based applications on a variety of platforms (MS Windows, GNU/Linux, Apple Mac OS, and more). While ColdFusion MX 7 offers new features not available in BlueDragon, some new features in CFMX 7 have long been in BlueDragon (such as sourceless deployment, server-based deployment on OS X, and more.) Conversely, BlueDragon offers features not available through ColdFusion.

1 Editions
2 Compatibility
- 2.1 Notable Differences
- 2.2 Framework Compatibility
3 Corporate Adoption
4 CFML Resources
5 External links

[edit] Editions

BlueDragon 6.2.1 is available in five editions

BlueDragon Server
BlueDragon Server JX (similar to ColdFusion standalone editions)
BlueDragon for J2EE Application Servers (BD J2EE)
BlueDragon for the Microsoft .NET Framework (BD .NET)
BlueDragon, BEA WebLogic Edition (sold by BEA as a BEA product)

The first two editions are standalone servers which run on Windows, Linux, and OS X. With BD J2EE, CFML applications can be deployed on any J2EE server, enabling integration of CFML and J2EE as enabled in ColdFusion MX. BD, BEA WebLogic Edition, is a special edition based on BD J2EE for use with BEA's WebLogic Server. BD.NET uniquely extends the Microsoft .NET framework and IIS to permit deployment of CFML applications as native MS .NET web applications, offering integration between CFML and ASP.NET that's not possible with ColdFusion.

The Server JX, J2EE, MS .NET, and BEA WebLogic editions of BlueDragon are commercial products which are available as 30 day unlimited trials which convert to a single-IP developer edition with no expiration.

The Server edition, on the other hand, is free for deployment -- though not for hosting, redeployment, or (as of the 6.2 release) commercial use. Intended to gain favor with those comparing to other free web application platforms, there are no differences in CFML tags supported in the free Server edition, but it supports only ODBC drivers on MS Windows (and only MySQL or PostgreSQL on GNU/Linux and Apple Mac OS X), it supports only IIS on MS Windows or Apache on GNU/Linux or Apple Mac OS X, and does not support secured (SSL) connections.

None of the limitations of the free Server edition exist in the commercial Server JX, J2EE, .NET, or BEA WebLogic editions.

The .NET edition of BlueDragon may indeed be the most compelling edition for many, since it's something that ColdFusion MX does not support. Designed to run on Microsoft's .NET platform, BD.NET not only enables CFML applications to leverage the powerful benefits of the .NET platform, it also opens the door to integration between CFML and ASP.NET as well as .NET objects.

[edit] Compatibility

BlueDragon offers several advantages (tags, functions, and other functionality) not found in ColdFusion. Similarly, there are a few tags and functions found in ColdFusion that are not supported currently in BlueDragon. New Atlanta maintains a complete list of incompatibilities with Adobe ColdFusion MX in the documentation.

[edit] Notable Differences

No support for AMF (Flash Remoting protocol)
BlueDragon's .NET edition can create .NET objects
BlueDragon 7 will include new tags such as CFTHREAD and CFJOIN which will allow multi-threaded page requests.
No support for event gateways
BlueDragon includes a tag for IMAP protocol
BlueDragon cannot generate Flash movies, neither via CFDOCUMENT nor CFFORM. Version 7 will generate raster documents using CFDOCUMENT.