ZendHQ Now Runs Fully on IBM i
April 10, 2024 Alex Woodie
IBM i shops running the ZendPHP distribution of the open source programming language and runtime will be interested to know that Perforce Software recently added full support for IBM i with ZendHQ, the extension for ZendPHP that provides observability and orchestration functionality for PHP-based applications. Previously, IBM i shops had to run part of ZendHQ on Linux or Windows.
Perforce Software originally launched ZendHQ back in June 2022 to give ZendPHP customers more visibility and control of their increasingly complex PHP environments. ZendHQ is a superset of functionality that bundles existing tools that were originally developed for Zend Server customers, including Z-Ray, Code Tracing, and JobQueue, along with a graphical console that lets users view, configure, and drill down into events (and as a bonus, IBM i shops also get a 5250 green screen console; more on that below).
While paying Zend Server customers utilized Z-Ray, Code Tracing, and JobQueue to gain clarity and control over their enterprise PHP environments, users of the free ZendPHP distribution didn’t have anything like it. As Perforce’s ZendPHP user base grew, and as the ZendPHP environments got bigger and more complicated – particularly when running in containerized environments – the need for better tooling emerged, leading to ZendHQ’s release nearly two year ago.
One of the primary tools fond in ZendHQ is Z-Ray, which Zend originally launched a decade ago. Z-Ray helps by monitoring PHP applications for performance and functionality issues and issuing alerts when issues are detected. Code Tracing lets users drill down into events to track down performance or functionality problems in PHP apps, while JobQueue allows users to schedule and manage recurring jobs in PHP app. These enterprise-grade DevOps tools are now available for use in free and open source ZendPHP environments (although the ZendHQ product itself is neither open source nor free).
ZendHQ includes a green screen utility for working with the product.
With the February release of ZendHQ version 1.6.1, Zend announced support for IBM i, enabling the full collection of ZendHQ plug-ins to run directly alongside the PHP runtime and PHP applications. Zend emphasized in the release notes that both the ZendHQ PHP extension as well as the ZendHQ daemon are now running “natively in IBM i Series machines and OS” (or as natively as PASE allows, anyhow). The ZendHQ daemon, it appears, was the part that previously ran somewhere else.
In addition to the GUI, ZendHQ also has a green screen utility, which will appeal to IBM i users. The green screen utility provides menu-based access to various functions, including working with configuration and log files, as well as starting various subsystems.
ZendHQ is an active area of development for Zend, and the company has issued several updates this year already. The latest release brings support for the Zend HQ PHP extension running on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019, while last month, it added new Z-Ray plug-ins that allow it to analyze code for a variety of databases, third-party frameworks, and libraries, including MongoDB, WordPress, and the AWS PHP SDK, among others. In February it announced the availability of the ZendHQ extension for ZendPHP on Windows, enabling customers to leverage the full functionality of ZendHQ when using ZendPHP on Windows.
ZendPHP is available as an open source package. Users can either self-support or buy a support package from Zend. Community-supported ZendPHP can run with PHP version 8.1, 8.2, or 8.3, while the long-term support (LTS) package from Zend supports PHP versions 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, and 8.0.
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