php for enterprise/business whitepaper:

8/14/2019 PHP for Enterprise/Business Whitepaper:

1/18

1


2/18

> Why this whitepaper?

Commercial software publishers have strong marketing teams. Theycan advertise and inform objectively or not their current andpotential customers, as well as media outlets.

Conversely, Open Source tools such as PHP often do not have thenecessary resources to explain their advantages to interested parties.

The Irish PHP Users' Group, the PHP Group, and some .NET and J2EEexperts have collaborated to produce this whitepaper to educatecompanies and the journalists on the quality of PHP.

Editors: Stphane Lambert, Ken Guest, David Coallier

Published under the Open Content Licence, this document can be copied anddistributed as needed.

2


3/18

> Table of contents

1. PHP: Identity ........................................................................................ 4

2. PHP: Key statistics................................................................................... 5

3. PHP for your company ............................................................................. 6

4. Technical architecture ............................................................................. 8

5. A platform that solves integration issues ...................................................... 10

6. PHP, J2EE and .NET: concurrent usage ........................................................ 12

7. PHP ecosystem ..................................................................................... 14

8. What companies think about it .................................................................. 16

3


4/18

> 1. PHP: Identity

20,917,850As of April 2007,PHP was used on20,917,850 domainnames, on

1,224,183 IPaddresses

4,500,000This is theestimated size ofthe community ofPHP developers

4.8 billionThe PHPdevelopmentmarket represents4.8 billion Euros

SecurityThe PHP platformhas had no securityalerts in severalyears and is today'smost reliableplatform forInternet solutions

To learn more:

www.php.netwww.php.ie

PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is both a

programming language (like J2EE and .NET) and aglobal platform language.

As a language, PHP has two syntaxes:

The first is a mix of C, Shell and PERL. This simplewriting style is particularly well suited to thepresentation layer.

The second is similar to Java, and is object oriented.This syntax is suited to business services developmentand complex architectures.With PHP, it is possible to develop:. Dynamic Web applications (websites, intranets,extranets, etc.). Rich clients (PHP-XUL). Client-server applications (PHP-GTK and

PHP4Delphi). Web services (SOAP, XML-RPC, REST). Command line scripts. Background tasks (disk quota management, HTTPserver, etc.)

PHP is developed and maintained by nearly 1,000engineers centralised in the PHP Development Team.The user community has approximately 4,500,000users.

PHP is free software, distributed under a non-viralOpen Source licence, protecting companies and theirusers by not forcing them to publish their code.

PHP is available for at least the following operatingsystems: Windows (Windows 2000 and up), Linux andUnix (most versions), IBM iSeries (AS/400), SGI IRIX6.5.x, RISC OS, Netware Novell, Mac OS X, and

AmigaOS.

4


5/18

>2. PHP: Key statistics

45%Almost half ofApache servers aredeployed with PHP

150,000The number ofsimultaneous userssupported by one ofthe biggest PHPplatforms in theworld (220clustered servers -Yahoo)

35%More than a third ofwebsites are made

with PHP

To learn more:www.php.netwww.php.ie

1 out of 3 websites

PHP is used on more than one out of every threewebsites. This represents more than 20 milliondomain names and 1.3 million IP addresses (Source:Netcraft - November 2006). Almost half of ApacheServers (40% as of January 1, 2007) run PHP. Apacheis used by more than two thirds of all websites (69%as of September 1, 2005).

Source : Netcraft 1 April 2007

PHP runs 35% of the InternetThe survey involves 20 million domain names.

Source : NeXen - July 2008

5


6/18

> 3. PHP for your company

PHP is nowinside ourstrategy; we justdoubled ourproductivity withit.David CoallierPHP Group Member

The manyavailableframeworks forPHP make thistechnology evenmore efficient forRAD.Ken GuestPHP Expert


Simplicity:PHP is a language and a very simple development

model. The original purpose of PHP was to make itpossible to quickly develop data processing Webapplications without any preliminary training. Thiswas so successful that all the major hostingcompanies offer PHP.

Adaptability:PHP uses two syntaxes: one is procedural, the other

is object oriented. Each of these syntaxes makes itpossible to implement the same functionalities buttarget a different audience. The procedural syntax isused commonly by webmasters and data processingspecialists who work on an application's userinterface. The second syntax, Object OrientedProgramming, is purposely similar to Java and C#, inorder to reduce training costs and to encourage themigration to PHP. A Java or C# developer will be able

to learn PHP 5 with little training, as the keyconcepts and syntax are identical.

Interoperability:PHP can instantiate COM, .NET and Java objects. PHPhas middleware and drivers for all of the mainrelational databases, as well as for LDAP, XML, Webservices, Lotus Notes, SAP, and more. PHP does notexist to replace these technologies, but to facilitateinteroperability between them. This offers companiesa single platform with which to incorporate andgenerate presentations of data obtained from thesediverse technonogies.

6


7/18

PHP is just thebest choice: fastand reliable, withstrong results. TheLinux Apache PHPplatform is just the

strongest and themost secure in theworld.Stphane LambertVediovisProductions


Portability:PHP is available on all of the major operatingsystems. The technical approach of PHP is identicalto a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). You just have to

deploy PHP on a station client or server, and theapplication will work immediately, withoutrecompiling, no matter which operating system isused.

Durability:The durability of an IT technology depends primarilyon its number of users. PHP is used by more than

4,500,000 developers throughout the world. Morethan 20 million websites use this technology.Moreover, the Open Source code and the membershipof this Open Source community in the Apachefoundation ensure the durability of PHP.

Performance and loading:If 80% of the busiest websites use PHP, it is primarilyfor its performance and stability. The Linux/Apache/PHP combination is very strong. You do not have toreboot your servers twice a day.

Investment return:The above-mentioned points result in a very fastreturn on investment. Among other things, this is dueto: the absence of any licence costs; only a smallneed for specific training; the most competitive,capable hosting market; widespread competenceamong software firms; and much more.

7


8/18

> 4. Technical architecture


Most of the time, PHP is used with:

A web server: Apache or Microsoft IIS An RDBMS (database): MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle

or SQL Server

The majority of production platforms use Linux,Apache, MySQL and PHP (the "LAMP" platform).

Thanks to the support and many connectors for Java,COM and .NET, PHP is able to connect to most

existing projects of any company. Then, the platformcan use the following interfaces:

Web (HTML, WML, etc.)

Web services using SOAP

Rich clients, client/server (PHP/GTK, PHP/XUL, etc.)

Command line (CLI)

Office documents (Open Documents, Open XML), PDF, Flash, etc.)

8


9/18

PEARPEAR offers morethan 300 additionalcomponents, which

are easy to installand to update with asingle commandline

Requests x 3

With an accelerator,your project canaccept 3 times thenumber ofconcurrent requestswith the samehardware


Internal mechanism:The PHP 5 internal core is the Zend Engine 2. PHP ismade with a modular architecture - the ZE 2 (PHPvirtual machine) uses the same concepts as Java

and .NET. A pre-compiler compiles the source codeand sends it to the runtime for execution.

This architecture allows engineers to addoptimisation tools for execution (opcode cache).They can cut a script's execution time by 66%. Aswell, PHP offers an API to extend its functionalitieswith additional modules. These modules enable youto connect to a database or to LDAP, to execute COM

or Java components, to talk to Web Services usingSOAP, and so on. PHP can also be extended andautomatically updated via PEAR and PECL.

Whatever the interface used (web, client/server,Web service), execution always follows the sameprocess. First, the PHP script is interpreted by theZend engine. It is at this point that PHP would, forexample, connect to a database. Next, thecontextual flow (HTML, SOAP, etc.) is transmitted tothe web server or GTK-server to send it to the finalclient.

Examples of Web and client/server interfaces

Web (HTML) Client/Server (PHP-GTK)

9


10/18

> 5. A platform that solvesintegration issues

"Our companyuses SAP withPHP. Wedeveloped twodistinctapplications andthey completedthe first part wehad with SAP. Weuse them for our2000 employees.We use theSAPRFCextensionmodule.

Arnaud LahayeFm LogisticIT Team Leader


Many technical connectorsAccording to the consulting firm IDC, nearly 40% ofdevelopment costs are due to the integration ofexisting applications or data sources. To reduce thesecosts, PHP can directly connect to most databases(Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, dBase, ODBC, XML,etc.), directories (LDAP, etc.), online paymentsystems (Verisign, Cybercash, Realex, etc.) andprotocols (SMTP, IMAP, FTP, HTTP, TCP, SSH, etc.).

XML Example with SimpleXML: RSS reading

PHP can interface with SAP, Lotus Notes, and almostevery enterprise software.

SAP example: connect and read

10


11/18

PDF and FlashThe FPDF classmakes complexPDF documentswith just a few codelines.The Ming extension,

delivered with PHPcreates complexFlash animations onthe fly.

Word and ExcelThanks to its COMinterface, PHP can

create any type ofoffice document.Of course, theclient needs tohave the readerinstalled.

PHP4Delphi

This frameworkenables you to addexisting Delphicomponents as PHPextensions. Or, youcan add PHP scriptsto Delphi software.


Communicating via COM, .NET, Java and Webservices

PHP is the champion of low level integration: theplatform can instantiate COM objects, Java (classes)and .NET. PHP 5 with SOAP has a high level layer toread or create Web services. SOAP enables you toshow a PHP class with a few code lines; acceptsdynamic SOAP proxy generation with WSDL contracts;and enables inversely dynamic WSDL contractgeneration from a PHP class.

Example COM: Word .doc creation on the fly

Example Java: playing with an AWT class

Example SOAP: using a Web Service (weather) anddisplaying the result

11


12/18

> 6. PHP, J2EE and .NET:

Concurrent usage

MVCWith PHP, you canimplement designpatterns like MVC(Model, View,Controller),Decorator,Observer, and more

SOAPWith SOAP, COMand Java, PHPenables you todeploy service-orientedarchitectures. PHP

is not limited to pureWeb architectures.


PHP can be used similarly to Java/J2EE and C#/.NET.However, it can also be used alongside thesedifferent platforms if needed.

Thanks to its ability to work well with COM and Java,PHP is increasingly becoming the standard to managethe graphical layer for applications that use multipleprogramming languages. For example, Lufthansa uses

PHP to display the visual front-end, and J2EE for thebusiness layer.

Enterprises can therefore re-use their existingcomponents instead of re-developing them whenmigrating from one technology to another.

Example: using a Java component (emailvalidation)

.NET communication in progressPHP supports the instantiation of COM components.The (still experimental) class dotnet_load() enablesyou to instantiate a Microsoft .NET assembly fromPHP. Some compilers from PHP to MSIL (.NETintermediate code) are in development (PHP Sharp).There is also an implementation for the OpenSource .NET platform Mono.


13/18


Java developers integrate PHP in their platforms

The JSR 223 working group (for calling Java objectsfrom other languages) is led by Zend Technologies. Atthe latest JavaOne 2003, Zend Technologies was theonly "non-Java" company to have a spot in theconference schedule.

IBM offers several resources for PHP, such as:Bringing PHP to Your IBM iSeries Server (red book),and Developing PHP Application for IBM Data

Servers.

A guidance note available on the Oracle TechnologyNetwork says that Oracle will include PHP in theOracle Application Server. The publisher alsoreleased a set of resources about Open Source. 80%of this content is related to PHP and about theinteractions between PHP and Oracle technologies.

PHP is available for Netware 6.x platforms. Duringthe last annual meeting, Brainshare, Novell focusedon PHP. The keynote was about the groupware

software PHProjekt.


14/18

> 7. PHP ecosystem

Groupware

Management

Development

Administration

PHP has more than2,500 classes andextensions andmore than 500businessapplications forERP, accounting,sales management,CMS, CRM, andmore.


After more than 10 years, PHP has developed a strongecosystem. Some tools make development easier and

faster, while others are about deployment andadministration.

The Open Source community has produced businessapplications for years. These applications helpgroupware enterprises meet their needs. Forexample, eGroupware (enterprise groupware) or SPIP(content management) are used by manygovernments, public organisations and international

companies.

Some software components that are easy to integratecan help a lot of projects to go faster and further.These components are more and more object-oriented, such as phpBB (for forums), andSquirrelMail and IMP (for webmail).

More and more professional tools are available for all

sizes of companies: Dolibarr, Study, PHP Surveyor,GeStock, SugarCRM, etc.

Here is a short list of examples:Development

Dreamweaver, Eclipse, PHPEdit, Zend StudioOptimisation

APC, eAccelerator, Smarty, JpCacheAdministration

phpMyAdmin, phpOracleAdmin, phpSybaseAdminContent management

Spip, eZ Publish, Joomla, Typo 3Framework

PEAR, Symphony, CakePHP, Prado, Seagull, ZendFramework, eZ ComponentsERP, webshops

Dolibarr (ERP), GeStock (stock management), osCommerce(online shop), SugarCRM (CRM)

With over 230 developers and over 300 packages, PEAR has been thecomponents framework of choice for many years. With over 200M

downloads a month, the PEAR installer has proven to be fast and reliableand has been the choice of installer for many frameworks out there (ezc,ZF, Symfony, etc).


15/18

4.8 billionThe PHPdevelopmentmarket represents4.8 billion Euros

4,500,000This is the

estimated size ofthe community ofPHP developers

To learn more:

www.php.netwww.php.ie

As the PHP platform currently dominates theInternet, it is very important to have access to alarge number of resources, companies anddevelopers.

Most competent web agencies can offer PHP solutionsto their customers.

There are more than 4,500,000 PHP developers, andthey keep current with best practices.

Zend PHP 5 Certification (through PearsonVue testingcentres) can certify that a PHP engineer is fully

trained, experienced, and uses best practices:http://www.zend.com/en/services/certification/

In Ireland, the Irish PHP Users' Group can help you tofind information about PHP. It also provides reliableresources to help with your PHP projects.

PHP itself has had very few security warning foryears. Used with Linux and Apache, the resultingplatform is the most secure Internet front-endtechnology. As the source code is available andcontinuously being improved by community, this isalso the best technology to protect important andprivate data.

Be PHP active with PHP.ie,

Join the Irish PHP Users' Group


16/18

> 8. What companies think

Industrials,Automobile,Governments,Televisions,Newspapers, Banks,

Public Services, etc.PHP is used in everyeconomic sector

Facebook,Daft.ie, etc.Successfulcompanies use PHP

3,000,000Daft.ie's PHP platformcan easily generatemore than 3 milliondynamic pages perday. Daft.ie isIreland's biggestproperty website.

More than 1.5 billionYahoo's PHP platformis the first PHPwebsite with morethan 1.5 billion pageviews per day


YahooYahoo is the first website in the world with more

than 1.5 billion page views per day. They use PHPand they hired Rasmus Lerdorf, the creator of PHP.

High-volume websitesMany high-volume websites are PHP-based, such asAlltheWeb.com (a search engine), which has morethan 30 million SQL queries per day.

Testimonials:PHP developers usually love the language. Engineersand project managers like to say good things aboutPHP when they use it for their infrastructure.

We handle, on average, just over 2.5 million page impressionsevery day. PHP handles things just fine, but we are using an opcodecache to help it. Until recently we were using mmcache, but the

shift to PHP5 meant that we moved to eAccelerator for opcodecaching.Charles Von MetzradtSoftware Engineerwww.daft.ie

We've used PHP since the company began 8 years ago. Our mostsuccessful project is a content management system used by 200+clients. It's scalable, adaptable to changing client requirements,and because it's written in PHP, installation and development areboth painless and fun!

Kae VerensLead Developerwebworks.ie

Open Solutions has used PHP for all web application projects forover five years. One of the largest deployments has been acustomer portal for the imagine Group supporting their entirecustomer base of over 100,000 (https://my.imagine.ie/). We usePHP because it allows us to build scalable, robust and secureapplications quickly and efficiently.Barry O'Donovan

Managing DirectorOpen Source Solutions Ltdwww.opensolutions.ie


17/18

> Sources:AFUP (French PHP User Group)

Security Space October 2005http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200612

Netcrafthttp://www.netcraft.com

Eric Daspet & Cyril Pierre de GeyerEditions Eyrolles june 2006http://www.anaska.com/livre-php-5-avance.php

Survey: PHP in the world (based on 20 million domains)Nexen Services January 2007http://www.nexenservices.com

PHP - JavaOne 2003http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2003-06/sunflash.20030611.2.html

Redbook IBM Bringing PHP to Your IBM iSeries Server http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedpieceAbstracts/redp3639.html?

PHP & J2EE Oracle Application Server.http://otn.oracle.com/tech/opensource/php/php_ohs_sod.html

Novell & PHProjekt

http://developer.novell.com/ndk/php.htm

PHP & .NEThttp://fr.php.net/manual/en/ref.dotnet.phphttp://www.akbkhome.com/Projects/PHP_Sharp?click=1065262359http://www.php.net/~sterling/mono/

> Copyright1) Sun and the Sun Logo, IBM and the IBM Logo, Novell and the NovellLogo, Oracle and the Oracle Logo, SugarCRM and the the SugarCRM Logo,Microsoft and .NET are protected in the United States and in othercountries.

2) This document is published under the Open Licence Content. You mayfreely use it if you clearly acknowledge the Irish PHP Users Group and ifyou retain the Open Content Licence.

> GreetingsThe Irish PHP Users' Group thanks the French PHP Users' Group AFUP fortheir help and the work in making the French version of this document.Cheers to Blacknight Solutions for sponsoring us. Thanks also to Derick

Rethans and colleagues for proofreading and validation.


18/18

USE THE BEST PLATFORM: USE PHP

Irish PHP Users' Group