Zend Server

Zend Server is a complete, Oracle-enabled, enterprise-ready Web Application Server for running and managing PHP applications that require a high level of reliability, performance and security. (See "Zend and Oracle" Data Sheet.) 

PHP applications using Zend Server can connect to Oracle databases for extreme scalability, availability and security. Zend Server couples the latest Oracle Database driver for PHP, OCI8 1.4, with Oracle's Instant Client libraries to provide an unparalleled out-of-box experience for the PHP Oracle user, either on Windows, Oracle Enterprise Linux, or other operating systems.

Recent contributions from Oracle included in the open source PHP OCI8 1.4 extension used by Zend Server add new features for scalability and availability. OCI8 easily handles tens of thousands of concurrent connections with Oracle 11g Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP). Also transparently enhanced in OCI8 1.4 was integration with Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Data Guard technologies, increasing the benefits of scalability and high availability.

An article on Zend Server highlights its features.

Zend Server can be installed on your own machine using one of these four methods:

• Using an Oracle VirtualBox VM. A quick evaluation, pre-built developer VM with Zend Server and Oracle Database XE can be downloaded from Zend.

• Using Oracle's Unbreakable Linux Network. ULN subscribers can install Zend Server by subscribing to the "Enterprise Linux 5 Add ons (i386)" or "Enterprise Linux 5 Add ons (x86_64)" channels and installing the zend-server-repo RPM. Zend Server can then be installed:

  # up2date zend-server-repo
  # yum install zend-server-php-5.3

• Using Oracle's free, public Yum Repository. Follow the steps to enable the Yum repository given in public-yum.oracle.com. Make sure to enable one of the base channels, e.g. "el5_u5_base" if you are using Oracle Linux 5 update 5. Also in your new repository configuration file, enable the "Addons" channel. For example:

  # vi /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-el5.repo
  

  
  and in the section with the heading [el5_u5_base] enable the channel:

  enabled=1
  

  
  and in the section with the heading [el5_addons] enable the channel:

  enabled=1
  

  
  Save the file and then install Zend Server with:

  # yum install zend-server-repo
  # yum install zend-server-php-5.3
• Or, for other platforms, download Zend Server directly from Zend.com.

A PHP 5.2 version of Zend Server is also available. To install this, follow the instructions above using the package name zend-server-php-5.2 in place of zend-server-php-5.3.

After the installation of Zend Server is complete, its configuration console can be accessed at https://localhost:10082/ or http://localhost:10081/. If a trial license key is not entered during configuration, Zend Server will be fully usable as the free Community Edition without enterprise features.

Support for applications and production environments running on Oracle Linux and Zend Server is available via Oracle (for Oracle Enterprise Linux) and Zend (for Zend Server).