New Version of Zend Server Enables Rapid Application Delivery and Auto-scaling of Enterprise PHP Apps in the Cloud

CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Zend Technologies today announced the general availability of the new version of Zend Server, the world's leading PHP Web application server used by GE, NYSE Euronext, Orange, eBay, and other leading brands to run their business-critical PHP applications on-premise and in the cloud. The new version, Zend Server 5.5, extends Zend Server's application lifecycle support by adding key application deployment and IT automation features that help bridge the gap between development and operations teams and support rapid application delivery and auto-scaling of enterprise PHP applications.

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"Close to five million developers are creating today's web and cloud apps using PHP, fueling greater demand for capable solutions to run those applications," said Andi Gutmans, CEO and co-founder of Zend. "Working with Zend, our customers have accelerated web app development, and turned their attention to the challenge of deploying their applications in a more seamless, automated way. The new version of Zend Server offers customers an automated solution, robust tooling, and best practices for rapid deployment of PHP apps that can perform well and scale automatically to the unpredictable work loads of today's dynamic web environments."

Rapid Application Delivery with New Application Deployment Capabilities

Zend Server 5.5 addresses key challenges faced by IT operations teams using conventional deployment processes, which tend to be manual in nature, and thus error-prone and time-consuming. Development teams typically hand off 'blueprints' rather than fully packaged, ready-to-run applications, leading to guesswork and the potential for delayed releases on the operations side. Development and operations teams may lack visibility into bottlenecks or errors occurring in one another's environments. When errors occur, an inability to easily rollback changes can lead to failed launches, with downtime delays and SLA non-compliance problems that can cost a company thousands or even millions of dollars not to mention brand loyal customers.

Zend Server 5.5 offers a better deployment approach, with:

• Application packages that streamline the hand-off from development to operations teams, with predefined settings and parameters, saving time and eliminating unnecessary errors
• The ability to rapidly roll back and recover from code or deployment errors or outages so that servers and applications can be restored to their last-known working state
• Proactive monitoring and real-time alerts that notify operations teams about application status and deployment issues so they can better resolve the issues before end users are impacted

According to Phillip Shipley, Manager of Web Development at Cisco Webex: "Launching PHP applications in a continuous integration environment means creating and managing multiple deployment scripts and paying special attention to the release process. All this increases overhead and risk at time of deployment. With the new application packaging and installation support in Zend Server 5.5 we have the potential to simplify and accelerate deployment and reduce overhead and risk with an automated and consistent update/rollback process for our applications."

Auto-scaling of Business-critical PHP Apps through Increased Automation

The growing importance of web and ecommerce workloads, along with the proliferation of end user devices, is driving unpredictability of web site traffic and workload, leading to a need for more automated real- time scalability of applications. Zend Server 5.5 provides:

• A holistic approach that supports auto-scaling of applications and infrastructure, in clustered environments, to meet rapid and unpredictable changes in demand
  • Web APIs for automated provisioning, configuring and deployment of applications
  • Web APIs for auto-scaling of highly available clusters
• Automated provisioning of a standardized PHP stack to leverage technology while promoting consistency and productive collaboration across development, testing, staging and production environments
  • Enablement of Continuous Integration (CI) processes supports agile deployment

According to Steve Gilliard, Senior VP of Software Development at Techweb/UBM: "Our ability to streamline and accelerate deployment is greatly magnified across more than 20 sites, some of which have tens of thousands of pages and traffic in the millions of visitors. We used the Zend PHP platform in the development of these sites, and from what our development and operations teams have seen of Zend Server 5.5, it appears to have the right ingredients to help us reduce points of failure and roll out packaged PHP applications that meet tough requirements for performance and reliability."

Zend Server 5.5 and the RightScale Zend PHP Solution Pack For Cloud Deployments

Together, RightScale and Zend are automating cloud application deployment with the RightScale Zend PHP Solution Pack. This open Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution combines the RightScale Cloud Management Platform with the Zend PHP architecture powered by Zend Server for a faster on-ramp to cloud deployment while retaining control of the architecture and preserving freedom to choose among target cloud resource pools.

According to Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale: "With Zend Server 5.5 as part of our open PaaS solution, RightScale customers gain fast onboarding and auto-scaling with high availability for their PHP applications in the cloud. It's the best and most rapid method available today to automate PHP application deployment and manage the application lifecycle."

Zend Server and the Zend PHP Solution

With Zend Server, customers can develop, deploy and manage modern, cloud-ready PHP apps more efficiently, without the complexity, high cost and risk commonly associated with conventional approaches to deployment. Zend Server offers the only complete, enterprise-ready PHP stack that combines proactive monitoring, Code Tracing with root-cause analysis for quick problem resolution, powerful caching and other performance optimizations, job queuing, and a tested and certified PHP runtime supported by Zend, the PHP Company. An integral part of the Zend PHP solution, Zend Server includes Zend Framework, the leading PHP application framework, and is fully integrated with the Zend Studio, the leading PHP integrated development environment (IDE).

Product Information

Zend Server (http://www.zend.com/en/products/server/)

Zend Server Cluster Manager (http://www.zend.com/en/products/server-cluster-manager/)

Zend Server 5.5 Application Deployment (http://www.zend.com/en/products/server/deployment/)

Videos

Zend Server overview (http://static.zend.com/topics/videos/zend-server-introduction/)

Zend Server Application Deployment (http://static.zend.com/topics/videos/zend-server-deployment/)

Webinars

Zend Server 5.5: Bringing the agility of PHP to IT operations

September 21, 2011 - 9:00 am PDT; 12:00 pm EDT; 5:00 pm BST; 6:00 pm CEDT

September 22, 2011 - 9.30 am EDT; 2.30 pm BST; 3.30 pm CEDT

About Zend Technologies

Zend is a partner to business for the rapid delivery of modern apps across mobile and cloud. We are the leading provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical applications in PHP, which runs more than one-third of the world's Web sites. Zend's industry-leading PHP solutions, including Zend Server and Zend Studio, are deployed at more than 40,000 companies worldwide, providing a comprehensive solution for the entire application lifecycle. Learn more at www.zend.com.

SOURCE Zend Technologies