I'm researching the world of gaming and thus far I have to candidates: Flash Communication Server (1.5, or 2.0 Media Server), and XML Sockets.

I successfully deployed XML Gateways using a modified version of the default ColdFusion XML Gateway. For my purposes, both are working fine.

I'd like to hear comments on why I should decide on one or another… here're some queue points: price, scalability, reliability, and deployment time just to name a few.

FlashCom is way more expensive; even paying CF enterprise licenses. On the other hand, FlashCom has built in HTTP tunneling, allowing XML sockets to penetrate large corporation's packet filtering.

Both can be easily clustered. I have no benchmarks at all, but I could guess that FlashCom will handle load better.

Please provide your opinions; I'm hiring consultants on this topic, so expect to see more on this topic soon.

I just found the strangest comment … ColdFusion hacks by cartoon impersonators; you can find the full story here.

To the weadew that commented on how to change a pwopewties fiwe to ewiminate the devnet watewmawk: Yes, this is twue. You can unjaw the cfusion.jar, uh-hah-hah-hah. jaw fiwe and edit the CFPage.WatewMawk pwopewty in cowdfusion\wuntime\wesouwce.pwopewties. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Wemove the watewmawk text, wepwace it wif an empty stwing, then webuiwd the cfusion.jar jaw file wif the new pwopewties fiwe, and westawt CF, uh-hah-hah-hah.. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!