Zend Unveils New Versions of Zend Studio, Zend Server and Zend Server Gateway for Cloud-Connected Mobile and Enterprise-Grade Applications

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ZendCon 2012 – Zend, the PHP Company, today announced the beta version of new releases of Zend Server and Zend Studio, as well as the new Zend Server Gateway. Together, Zend Studio 10, Zend Server 6  and Zend Server Gateway  offer enterprises a turnkey solution for developing, deploying and automating applications on the cloud and on-premise. Acknowledging the growing importance of cloud and mobile in the enterprise, Zend designed all three products to work together as an end-to-end solution for cloud connected mobile apps, as well as a range of web applications.

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Zend Studio 10
Zend Studio is the award-winning integrated development environment (IDE) for creating high quality PHP code quickly and efficiently. Zend Studio 10 introduces exciting new capabilities for designing both web and mobile apps:

• Makes it easy for developers to build end-to-end mobile apps that span platforms and OSs, evolve over time and pull from multiple data sources.
  • Visual, drag-and-drop methods allow both client-side interface prototyping and cloud-service API creation, using the new Zend Server Gateway. Built-in PhoneGap and JQuery integration enables developers to write, test (using emulator or target device) and package apps that function across all major mobile operating systems, including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and others.
  • Streamlined deployment processes let developers run their PHP-based RESTful services in the cloud or on-premise with advanced diagnostics and debugging through Zend Server.
• Integration with Zend Framework 2 gives developers tools to more rapidly develop ZF2-based apps.
• PHP 5.4 support means that developers can take full advantage of PHP 5.4's new syntax elements, such as traits.
• Core workflows are streamlined to save developers time and effort, including:
  • End-to-end PHP and JavaScript application debugging.
  • Source control integration (SVN, CVS, Git, GitHub).
  • Unit testing, profiling, production debugging.
• Built on the latest version of Eclipse, giving PHP developers the full benefit of Eclipse's code editing capabilities and ecosystem of plug-ins.

Zend Server 6
Zend Server is the world's leading PHP Web application server used by GE, NYSE Euronext, eBay and other leading brands to run their business-critical PHP applications on-premise and in the cloud. With an entirely API-based architecture, Zend Server 6 features major advances in application manageability, scalability and enterprise readiness.

• Zend Server 6 gives users a more granular view and management of a company's application ecosystem:
  • Deploy applications in a standard, automatable way (and define applications from URLs already present on the server).
  • Use new monitoring dashboards to gauge application health at a glance.
  • Displays each application's performance over time and across the cluster.
  • Set caching and monitoring rules for each application.
• Multiple performance enhancement tools help optimize applications at multiple points in the application request, from bytecode caching in the PHP engine, to job queuing, to data and full-page caching.
• Added compliance features facilitate cooperation and visibility between development and operations organizations, without making the system less secure:
  • Different roles with different permissions can be assigned to users, letting operations retain full control of the system and its settings.
  • Developers gain enough visibility into the production environment to troubleshoot issues without risking the security of production systems.
  • All activities are tracked in an audit trail, giving visibility into who changed which settings and when.
• In case of errors, application monitoring detects issues and saves a snapshot of the underlying code execution, enabling developers to rapidly solve production problems.
• Designed from ground up with an architecture that enables high availability and scalability in the cloud. Enterprises can integrate and scale apps on a variety of cloud infrastructure and management services, including IBM, VMware, Red Hat, Amazon and others.
• Zend Server 6 is integrated with Zend Framework 2, the leading PHP application framework.
• Subscriptions to Zend Server come with enterprise-level support for PHP (including PHP 5.4), Zend Framework, and Zend Server Gateway. Furthermore, the service-level agreement (SLA) also includes multi-year extended support for PHP versions that have passed their end-of-life date. 
  • For example the current version of Zend Server (Version 5.6)  includes PHP 5.2, for which Zend provides security, patches and additional support, thus permitting companies who have not yet migrated their apps from previous older versions to do so on their own schedule.

BNP Paribas, one of the largest banks in the world, uses Zend Server as its platform for enterprise development, with more than 700 tools and applications being supported. "We wanted to establish an agile, iterative development environment," said Yannic Mahe, from the BNP Paribas IT organization. "Our developers are fully satisfied with the PHP language and Zend's PHP solutions. For certain projects, PHP has enabled them to dramatically shorten the development cycle and accelerate application delivery."

Zend Server Gateway
The new Zend Server Gateway provides a simple and flexible way to enable cloud services. A lightweight set of PHP APIs based on Zend Framework 2 components, the gateway provides routing, automatic parameter binding, authentication, filtering and validation for RESTful web services to communicate with a diverse set of client devices. This is integrated with a drag-and-drop service creation capability in Zend Studio, which takes the work out of connecting mobile devices to a scalable, cloud-based back end. Zend Server subscribers receive full support for Zend Server Gateway as part of their subscription.

"PHP continues to be the dominant language in enterprise app development," said Zeev Suraski, Zend CTO. "Now Zend is enabling the next generation of mission-critical cloud, mobile and enterprise PHP apps with Zend Server 6, Zend Studio 10 and Zend Server Gateway. I'm very excited about the possibilities this new generation of solution unlocks for developing and deploying amazing end-to-end cloud and mobile apps."

Where to find Zend Server 6, Zend Studio 10 and Zend Server Gateway
Starting today, users can download Zend Server 6 on the Zend Server site  http://www.zend.com/en/products/server/server-6-beta  Zend Studio 10 is available on the Zend Studio site http://www.zend.com/en/products/studio/studio-10-beta, where there is also more information about Zend Server Gateway.

Zend Framework 2 is included in both Zend Studio 10 and Zend Server 6. To learn more about Zend Framework 2, visit the Zend Framework site.

Developers can get full access to all of the features of Zend Server with Zend Framework 2 on the Zend Developer Cloud, a free, cloud-based development environment. 

Zend will be offering online Zend Server 6 and Zend Studio 10 training at http://zend.com/training.

A full series of webinars on Zend products is available at http://zend.com/webinars

About Zend Technologies
Zend partners with businesses to rapidly deliver modern apps across mobile and cloud. Founded in 1999, Zend helped establish the PHP language, which today runs more than one-third of the world's Web sites. Today, Zend is the leading provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical applications in PHP. Zend's award-winning PHP solutions including Zend Server and Zend Studio are deployed at more than 40,000 companies, including NYSE Euronext, BNP Paribas, Bell Helicopter, France Telecom and other leading brands worldwide. Learn more at www.zend.com.

Media contact
Sammy Totah or Lisa Wilson
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415-378-7718

SOURCE Zend Technologies