LanguagesPHPZend Advances PHP Development for the Cloud

Zend Advances PHP Development for the Cloud

Deploying PHP to the cloud is about to get easier thanks to a new partnership between commercial PHP vendor Zend and cloud management firm RightScale.

The new RightScale Zend PHP Solution Pack integrates RightScale’s Cloud Management Platform with Zend Server for scalable cloud PHP deployments. The new effort is part of Zend’s overall move to advance PHP in the emerging Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) marketplace.

“This is an open PaaS that is elastic and customizable,” Andi Gutmans, CEO of Zend told InternetNews.com. “We want to enable our customers to deploy this platform on the cloud of their choice.”

Zend’s cloud focus began to ramp up during the Zendcon event in November of 2010 . At the time, Gutmans announced the development of a Zend PHP Cloud Platform initiative. The new RightScale Zend PHP Solution Pack is part of that overall cloud initiative. In fact, Zend Server, which is an integrated PHP middleware server, is a key part of the RightScale solution.

Gutmans noted that the RightScale Zend PHP Solution Pack can be acquired from either RightScale or Zend and is being sold on a pay-as-you-go basis. The solution enables developers to manage, provision and deploy PHP servers in the cloud as well as providing the ability to scale capacity elastically as required.

While Zend also sells Zend Server for on-premise deployments, Gutmans said that providing Zend Server in the cloud on a pay-as-you-go basis does not cannibalize his on-premise business.

“In some cases we’ll make more money, while in other cases we’ll make less,” Gutmans said. “Customers are getting a very rich solution here. They’re not just getting the PHP platform, they are also getting RightScale to manage their entire IT infrastructure in the cloud.”

Cloud Portability for PHP

Zend’s cloud strategy is to support multiple cloud efforts and technology including Amazon as well as the OpenStack open source cloud effort. Zend has been working on its own Simple Cloud technology to help deliver cloud portability at the API level.

“We’re building a customizable platform that will be integratable,” Gutmans said. “My goal is to make sure that the platform is running everywhere.”

Cloud portability is ultimately a route that Gutmans believes is necessary for application developers.

“I think there will be some appeal for the Google App Engines of the world, especially when it comes to the SOHO market,” Gutmans said. “But when I think about ultimately which platforms are going to win it will be the ones that run on multiple clouds. One size doesn’t fit all.”

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.

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