Performance issue when cfc is called as web service

[jl <joled@xxxxxxx>]

Hello,
We are using Coldfusion MX 7 on a Windows 2003 server SP2, 3Gigs RAM,
4 CPUs (2 dual core), SUN  JVM 1.4.2_11, Min & Max JVM Heap sizes =
512, simultaneous request limit = 24. I created a CFC which does a
cfhttp call to a remote SaaS application. Included on almost every
page of our website is an iframe that calls the CFC. When I invoke the
CFC with cfinvoke and I do not call it as a service it works fine
under normal load. I created a web service using this cfc, when I
invoke the cfc as a web service the CF process hangs and has to be
restarted.

I then downloaded Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 and in a virtual
machjine downloaded MicroSoft's Web Aplpication Stress 1.1. After some
testing with numerous simultaneous users settings I found a point at
the CF server will hang up and have to be restarted when using the web
service. When I change the .cfm to not use a web service but simply
call the cfc the CF server does not hang and response from the website
is acceptable.

Any suggestions on how to figure out why the web service hangs the
server while the same number of calls to the cfc without using a web
service is ok? It looks like a JVM issue but am not 100% sure at this
point.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Joe