Zend Server: A Guided Tour
By Shahahr Evron
Technical Product Manager, Zend Technologies

Welcome!
I am your tour guide today:
▶ A PHP programmer since 2002
▶ At Zend since 2005
▶ Technical Product Manager for Zend Server
Yes, I have a difficult name (at least for English speakers)
▶ Shachar (German, Dutch)
▶ Shajar (Spanish)
▶ Шахар (Russian)
▶ ‫( ﺷﺨﺮ‬Arabic)
▶ ‫( שחר‬Hebrew)
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Agenda
Zend Server: What & Why?
Improving PHP's manageability
▶ Installation, Zend Server Administration UI
Improving your application's performance
▶ Optimizer+, Data Cache, Page Cache, Job Queue
Improving your application's reliability
▶ Zend Monitor, Code Tracing
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What is Zend Server?
...and why should I care?
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...Well, Just ask your friend at marketing!
“Zend Server is a complete, enterprise-
ready Web Application Server for
running and managing
PHP applications that require a high
level of reliability, performance and
security.”
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Let's try to make sense out of that..
Zend Server Is:
▶ A complete, well tested PHP runtime environment
▶ Supported and updated by Zend
▶ Comes with a set of extra features that:
●
Improve the performance and reliability of PHP applications
●
Make it easier to manage a consistent PHP environment
Comes in two flavors:
▶ Zend Server
▶ Zend Server Community Edition
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Manageability Features
...making PHP even simpler
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Installation
Zend Server uses OS-native installers
▶ Linux: Deb and RPM repositories
▶ Windows: MSI
▶ Mac OS X*: PKG installer
This is good because:
▶ Native means well-known, convenient, proven, reliable
▶ Upgrading, updating, modifying and removing is easy
▶ Automating, scripting and bundling is also easy
* Mac OS X is Community Edition only
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For example, the DEB installation...
All you have to do is:
▶ Add a line to /etc/apt/sources.list
▶ Run the usual aptitude or apt-get commands, or use Synaptic
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For example, the DEB installation...
And you get:
▶ The latest stable* PHP version
●
With additional testing done by Zend's QA team
●
With Zend's extra components
▶ All packaging features supported by your distribution's tools:
● automatic update notifications, configuration management
● Repository mirroring / proxying capabilities
● Ability to hold back / roll back / remove specific components
If you know your way around Debian, you can also easily:
▶ Script & automate the installation
▶ Create your own meta-packages that include the parts you need
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The Administration Interface
Zend Server's GUI allows you to conveniently...
▶ Control the different Zend Server components
▶ Control your PHP settings
●
PHP Extensions
●
PHP Directives
▶ Monitor the current system status
● Extension status
● PHP status
● Logs
● Available updates & security fixes
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Performance Features
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Zend Server's approach to performance
A Web application's performance is affected by many
different factors...
...This is why taking a single measure will only give partial results
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Zend Server's approach to performance
Really improving performance requires combining
different measures:
▶ Configuration Optimization
▶ Opcode Optimization and Caching
▶ Data Caching and Page Caching
▶ Off-line or parallel execution
Not all performance optimizations are equal
▶ Some are almost free and should be done in almost all cases
▶ Some are expensive and should not be done without insight
Zend Server provides the measures, and the insight!
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Optimizer+
Eliminates the stuff you don't really need:
▶ Code optimizer
●
Optimizes certain code fragments to improve execution speed
▶ Opcode cache
●
Caches the optimized, compiled bytecode in RAM
● Reduces or eliminates Bare PHP Optimizer+
compile time 50 45.55
● Reduces or eliminates 45 41.73
40
disk access 35
30
25
20
13.96 12.69
15
10
5.3
5 2.24
0
Magento Drupal SugarCRM CE
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Data Caching
Provides a set of API functions for caching of data items
▶ DB query results, web service calls, complex or hard-to-get data
▶ Output elements
▶ Allows skipping slow PHP code chunks
▶ Shared memory and Disk storage backends
▶ Data could be grouped using namespaces
▶ APC user cache compatibility layer
▶ Zend Framework Zend_Cache_Backend adapters
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Page Caching
Don't execute a single line of PHP if you don't have to...
▶ Caches entire HTTP response
▶ Super fast (seriously!)
▶ Configured from UI, no code changes required
▶ Live / cached decision is based on request or session parameters
▶ Variants can be created 700
based on request or 600
589.26
session parameters 500
400
300
201.17
200
100
21.94
0
No Cache Session Rule Other Rule
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Page Caching
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Job Queue
A PHP script often needs to handle several tasks.
▶ Some of which don't need to be interactive
Think of a typical on-line forum:
▶ A user posts a message to a thread
▶ Message is saved in the DB
▶ Emails are sent to all thread watchers
▶ Search index is refreshed
▶ Feeds are regenerated
Your end user shouldn't wait for these to finish!
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Job Queue
Job Queue allows you to
▶ Put certain tasks into a separate execution queue
●
Off-load to a later time (or even run in parallel)
●
Off-load to a different server
▶ Execute certain tasks at a specified time
● Distribute processing load to off-hours
▶ Execute certain tasks periodically
While..
▶ Maximizing reuse of existing infrastructure & code
▶ Making sure nothing falls between the cracks
▶ Doing it all from a PHP API
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Job Queue – A Common Execution Flow
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Reliability Features
Make sure it keeps running!
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Reliability?
Getting your application out there is one thing,
keeping it working properly is a different story!
Zend Server helps you by:
▶ Making sure your software is
up-to-date, including critical fixes
▶ Monitoring your apps for errors,
slowdowns and other troubles
▶ Capturing data that can be used
when resolving any detected issues
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Application Level Monitoring
Zend Server Monitor will watch your application for:
▶ PHP Errors (including warnings, notices, uncaught exceptions...)
▶ Failing functions (user-defined or internal)
▶ Failing DB queries
▶ Slow functions (user-defined or internal) or DB queries
▶ Slow request executions
▶ High memory consumption
▶ Errors reported by Zend Server
components
When an issue is detected,
Zend Server will report an event
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Root Cause Analysis
Recurring events are aggregated and placed on a timeline
▶ So you can know if a problem repeats, and if so when
Each event report contains context information that can
assist in debugging the event:
▶ URL, file, line, error message, repeat count etc.
▶ Request information (GET, POST, COOKIE etc.)
▶ Server information
▶ Session Information
▶ Backtrace (if relevant)
For many errors, this information is crucial for debugging
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Integration with Zend Studio
Zend Server integrates with Zend Studio and allows you
to “replay” an event
▶ In a debugging session
▶ In a profiling session
▶ This can be done with one button click from the GUI
▶ …or, by exporting the event data and passing it to a developer,
from the developer's IDE
▶ You can also “replay” on an alternate testing server
In many cases this eliminates time spent on reproduction
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Code Tracing
Reproducing an issue is not always possible...
▶ Dependency on specific SESSION state
▶ Dependency on specific database state
▶ “Replaying” the request is risky or impossible
“Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”
- Billy Wilder
Zend Code Tracing can capture the entire execution flow
▶ ...and, it is efficient enough to be used in most production
environments!
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Code Tracing
Can be used in several ways:
▶ Automatic tracing in case of a Zend Monitor event
●
For example a PHP error, a slow execution or high memory usage
▶ Manually through the GUI or from a browser
▶ Through API
Can capture the following information:
▶ Execution tree including function calls and included files
▶ Function agrument and return parameters
▶ Output and header generation
▶ Location of errors, exceptions and Zend Monitor events
▶ For each node, execution time and memory usage is measured
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Code Tracing
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Updates & Hot Fixes from Zend
Zend Server is regularly updated with...
▶ PHP releases
▶ Zend Framework releases
▶ Important patches to PHP and supporting components
●
Bugs fixed by the PHP team but not yet released
●
Patches committed by Zend to the PHP source tree, but not yet
released
Zend also issues hot-fixes when needed
▶ All relevant security reports are analyzed by Zend
▶ This includes PHP, extensions, libraries, and other components
▶ Zend is committed to releasing hot-fixes for critical issues
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…So, what have we seen?
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Closing Words...
Zend Server can help you to...
▶ Stop worrying about PHP updates
▶ Improve your applications performance using various tools
●
Some improvement is effortless
●
You get the infrastructure for future improvement
● You get the diagnostic tools for prioritizing optimizations
▶ Know about production issues as they
happen
▶ Quickly resolve these issues
Focus on your own applications!
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Thanks!
Email me: shahar.e@zend.com
Learn more at http://www.zend.com/server
Copyright © 2009 Zend Technologies Ltd.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of
this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street,
Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
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