Zend Server for i/OS Now Available

April 13, 2010 Alex Woodie

Zend Technologies yesterday announced the general availability of Zend Server 5.0 for i/OS, bringing the most complete stack yet of PHP software to the IBM midrange platform. With Zend Server running under i/OS, customers gain more streamlined implementation and deployments, application monitoring and optimization, error detection, security, and compliance. Two editions of Zend Server are available for i/OS, and Zend and IBM will begin phasing out older PHP stacks.

Zend announced that its enterprise-strength Zend Server stack of PHP software would be coming to the System i server in October 2009, when the company launched Zend Server 5.0. While the stack has been available for Linux and Windows operating systems, the i/OS version has been in beta testing for the last six months.

Zend has built several PHP stacks for the IBM i/OS environment over the years, including Zend Core, Zend Studio, and Zend Platform. But with Zend Server, the company offers what it considers is the most feature-rich stack for developing and running enterprise PHP Web application workloads.

The main features that differentiate Zend Server for i/OS include:

an integrated and customized Apache Web server that eliminates the need for customers to configure their own servers, or to require users to remove existing Web servers if upgrading from other Zend packages;
the elimination of the need to run the Apache Web server under the PASE AIX run-time environment;
integrated code-tracing features (sometimes compared to a “black box” flight data recorder) that enables developers to perform much more detailed root-cause analysis and results in faster development and more efficient applications;
job queue functions that enable PHP developers to better control the execution of application tasks, such as credit card processing, or common maintenance tasks, such as database cleanups. Jobs can also run asynchronously or at predefined intervals;
new page- and data-caching functions that boosts performance and scalability.

Zend is also bundling the 5250 Bridge with Zend Server for i/OS. The 5250 bridge is a piece of software previously offered with the Zend Platform PHP stack that allows PHP developers to build links to green-screen 5250 applications. The software, first unveiled in 2008, offers another way to Web-enable existing 5250 applications.

Zend is offering two versions of Zend Server. The first is “Zend Server for IBM i,” the commercial version of the software that includes the 5250 Bridge and either Gold or Platinum level technical support. The second is “Zend Server Community Edition for IBM i,” which is a free download. The community edition includes one year of Silver level support, and will be bundled into future releases of the i/OS operating systems (presumably including i 7.1, which IBM is announcing this week).

With Zend Server for i/OS offering such a comprehensive stack of PHP software–and the community edition filling the gap for free PHP software–Zend and IBM decided it no longer needed the Zend Core and Zend Platform for the i/OS platform, so those two products will enter end-of-life, the companies announced.

With yesterday’s announcement, the five-year relationship between IBM’s Rochester lab and Zend’s Silicon Valley campus graduated to a new level of mutual affection. In a statement, IBM’s Ian Jarman, the manager of Power Systems software, says Zend Server 5.0 for i/OS brings new Web development capabilities to existing RPG and COBOL applications.

“The commitment of IBM and Zend to technology cooperation has led to a robust, fully supported solution that will help our customers to achieve the performance, reliability, and security they have come to expect when running business-critical applications on IBM i,” Jarman stated.

For more information and or to download Zend Server 5.0 for i/OS, see www.zend.com/solutions/i. To access a collection of pre-recorded Web demos on Zend Server 5.0 by Zend’s i/OS guru Mike Pavlak, see www.zend.com/resources/webinars/i5-os.