Performance: Database Update vs. Application variable

Question

I am new to ColdFusion, so sorry if this has been covered before. I searched and couldn't find anything similar.
I am building an online Texas Hold'em poker application using ColdFusion and Flex. There are quite a few things that need to be stored on the server side that will be updated quite often and these objects will need to be accessed by multiple users. For example, think of something like the current pot between players on a table, or the current hand state (who's turn it is to check/bet/raise), or the current players in the hand. All of these things will be updated quite a few times per hand, and if you add to that that each of these will be different per table, it adds up quick.
Would it be better to store these things in the database or store them in an application variable? Or is there a better way that I am not thinking of? Is there any sort of metric to follow for these kinds of things?

Answer 1

I don't think you'll find a documented general number of application variables you can have on a single server. But I think you could get away with 400 variables without any trouble.
Where you might run into trouble, though, is when you have multiple concurrent requests trying to read and change these values. You'll have to ensure that you single-thread write access to these variables using CFLOCK.
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