It’s All up in the Air
Although almost everyone seems to be captivated by cloud computing, PHP developers seem to be none too enthusiastic about it. At the ZendCon 2010 PHP Conference in California, Andi Gutmans, Chief Executive Officer for Zend Technologies, offered many reasons to explain this indifferent response to cloud computing.
PHP is a popular dynamic scripting language used on the web, and Zend Framework is working toward building more secure and reliable web applications and services. Zend Technologies is a PHP development tool maker.
Most PHP developers at the conference reacted with some doubt concerning what cloud computing can do. Although most agree that it certainly will be a game changer in the future, they also tend to think that that future may be a decade or more away and that now is not the time to push cloud computing.
Interestingly, just a year or so ago, Zend Framework announced the latest version of its open-source Zend Framework. Zend Framework 1.8 gave PHP developers an easier connection to the cloud for their PHP applications. It included a new Rapid Application Development feature that boosted PHP development. It provided support for Amazon’s EC2 and S3 cloud offerings. Developers thus gained access to Amazon’s scalable storage server and acquired the ability to manage EC2 instances. Before this, Zend announced the availability of its Zend Framework Release 1.11 which incorporated the Simple Cloud API. The benefits of cloud computing are undeniable—its speed, reliability, cost effectiveness, and scalability are just a few of these benefits. One of the big plus points in favor of cloud computing is that it can reduce the complexity, time, and expense of software development. Huge savings in maintenance and infrastructure costs are possible with the use of cloud computing in exploratory areas. For instance, SAIC’s vice president of technology, Jim Cannaliato, avers that the company has been using Amazon Web Services to do all its research work.
According to some PHP developers, however, cloud computing does not offer much value. It has not yielded benefits like reduced staff costs and economic value, and therefore, the PHP industry thinks that cloud computing is mostly hype at this stage.
Perhaps a more charged aspect of cloud computing is the effect it has on jobs. Private cloud computing, for instance, has resulted in companies cutting jobs. With the power to deliver automation, better provisioning, and “on call” availability of services, private clouds can lead to the elimination of a vast number of jobs. For instance, Unisys did away with several U.S.-based jobs and instead uses the services of just a few people in India, who look after an organization of 1,200 employees.
Zend has pushed hard for PHP developers to leverage cloud computing. The company promises higher availability, reduced costs, and better provisioning. For instance, portable cloud applications can be created with the Simple Cloud API. PHP applications can be tested more quickly with the cloud computing domain offered through the company’s partnership with RightScale. The Zend Server Amazon Machine is also a virtual machine image that mirrors the Zend Server, and developers can use it and pay for only what they use.
The Simple Cloud API, by itself, brings cloud technologies to PHP and vice versa. Three main areas are covered here: Simple Queue Services, File Storage Services, and Document Storage Services. The company has garnered assistance from big companies like Microsoft, Rackspace, and IBM in participating in this open-source community, and it is confident that this effort will lead to the definition of APIs for cloud application services. It will eventually usher in the next generation of cloud-native applications that have been written in PHP.
Zend is eyeing a future where PHP is optimized for mobile devices and the cloud, and with the release of its Zend Framework 1.11, the company is offering the power to optimize web applications for mobile devices. Gutmans even says that mobile is more important than the cloud and will enhance application portability across different cloud platforms.
| [Source] Software Outsourcing Blog Section: http://www.techomechina.com |
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