PHP serves as a powerful scripting language tailored for web and mobile applications, transforming static pages into dynamic, interactive, and personalized experiences. AWS provides a robust suite of resources designed to assist developers in creating secure, reliable, and scalable PHP applications within the AWS cloud. Alongside these resources, Zend Technologies, recognized as an Advanced APN Technology Partner, offers an enterprise-grade application platform for PHP available through AWS Marketplace.
About Zend
Zend has deep roots within the PHP community, with its founders being among the original authors of PHP. The company utilizes its extensive PHP expertise to deliver a highly scalable and high-performance environment, enabling businesses across various sizes to innovate swiftly and reliably. Zend’s solutions have powered thousands of critical PHP applications worldwide. Since joining the APN in 2012, Zend has made its Zend Server solution available on AWS through AWS Marketplace.
Drivers to the AWS Cloud
The general shift towards cloud-based application development, coupled with customer demand, motivated the Zend team to expand onto AWS. “Most new application development is cloud-first; Zend was an early adopter of this strategy,” notes Lisa Johnson, Zend’s Director of Business Development. With a customer base focused on agile development and continuous delivery, the team recognized that collaborating with AWS was the most effective approach to monetize its cloud offerings.
“AWS simplifies access to Zend Server for developers,” Johnson states. “From independent developers to large corporate teams, AWS allows them to consume exactly what they require. We observe developers starting with very small development images for cost efficiency, as well as large organizations managing extensive clusters that would be impractical in an on-premises setup.”
Zend Server on AWS
Zend Server is a comprehensive PHP distribution that includes several value-added features aimed at enhancing productivity, performance, scalability, and reliability. One standout feature, Z-Ray, provides developers with real-time insights into their code’s performance and its utilization of system resources—including those on AWS. Zend Server encompasses over 80 PHP extensions and is compatible with Apache.
Leveraging AWS, Zend Server empowers organizations to scale applications to meet ambitious growth targets. Enhanced performance is achievable through an integrated suite of technologies that facilitates data and code caching, job queues for asynchronous processing, job scheduling to optimize response times, and dynamic cluster configurations.
Zend Server employs AWS CloudFormation, enabling clients to effortlessly scale Zend Server on AWS. Its clustering technology synergizes with AWS clustering, optimizing workloads for available resources.
How APN Partners Can Collaborate with Zend Server
Johnson emphasizes various ways fellow APN Partners can leverage Zend Server to support their end customers. “APN Partners developing business-critical web and mobile applications, such as e-commerce, can harness the performance, scaling, and compliance features of Zend Server. For instance, any vendor aiming to accelerate application delivery should consider Z-Ray, a technology in Zend Server that provides real-time insights into code quality and performance.”
Furthermore, Zend Server and AWS facilitate quicker responses to security vulnerabilities. For example, a Managed Service Provider (MSP) supporting numerous small to medium-sized businesses faced multiple hacks on commerce sites. It took the MSP two weeks to patch the sites running open-source PHP in a hosted environment, whereas only two days were needed for those utilizing Zend Server on AWS. “With both Zend Server and AWS enhancing automation levels, businesses can respond more swiftly to evolving environments—especially crucial for commerce security,” Johnson adds.
The Advantages of Partnering with AWS and AWS Marketplace
Zend’s AWS business experienced a threefold increase in 2014, with a target of fivefold growth in 2015. A significant factor in this growth is AWS Marketplace. “We rely heavily on AWS Marketplace to promote and distribute our cloud solutions, driving revenue for us. We’ve gained from being featured on the Marketplace homepage and in the featured products section,” Johnson states.
Customers can choose from three editions of Zend Server—Developer, Professional, or Enterprise—available on both Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux through AWS Marketplace. After selecting their edition and Linux distribution, customers can opt for various Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance types, ranging from t2.micro to c2.2xl. “AWS Marketplace empowers customers with the flexibility to select precisely what they want, presented logically,” Johnson notes.
Offering solutions on AWS Marketplace allows Zend to cater to a wide spectrum of customer use cases and sizes. “Due to the availability of very small instance types on AWS, we can extend our offerings to a wide array of small customers,” Johnson explains. “Simultaneously, AWS’s scalability enables our largest clients to run configurations that were previously unfeasible in an on-premise setting.”
Additionally, Zend Server on AWS serves customers who need to operate a supported version of PHP 5.3. While the open-source PHP community currently supports versions 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6, many customers still rely on PHP 5.3 for various reasons. Zend is the sole provider offering long-term support for PHP 5.3. “If you have a production application utilizing PHP 5.3, you’re taking a significant risk if you’re not under support,” Johnson cautions. “Setting up Zend Server through AWS Marketplace is one of the simplest ways to maintain a supported, scalable environment for PHP 5.3.”
Looking Ahead
Zend is investing in technologies that drive the API economy and mobile applications for enterprises, such as its Apigility offering. “We look forward to leveraging AWS to assist more enterprise customers in achieving their objectives in mobile app development,” Johnson expresses.
“We’ve been incredibly satisfied with our partnership with AWS,” she concludes. “And this is merely the beginning.”
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