Is Ajax a spice or an entree?

A recent trip to visit a customer site had me thinking about food. No, it wasn’t the great big burrito I had for lunch. It was the use of technology in the application. We were invited to this customer site to examine a PHP application that was not performing well. This is not unusual for IBM i, Linux or Windows based PHP applications as no one is immune from challenges with coding practices and I for one can write bad code in more than 10 languages! Frequently, customers ask us a couple of standard questions like “where is the problem”. In many cases there isn’t just one problem but a handful of poor practices or as in this case some really good practices, poorly applied.

Now it is not unusual for PHP to “take it on the chin” for the sins of poorly applied technologies like Dojo, ExtJS and others. Frequently, we at Zend are in the trenches of a “This PHP application performs like $@#%” war and have to explain that the PHP is perfectly fine. In many cases the lack of indexes on SQL calls, tuning of the FastCGI or overuse of ajax can contribute to poor application performance. This is why the Application Audit from Zend becomes EXTREMELY valuable. Forgive me as I am not trying to turn this into an advertisement for our canned services as much as relating a recent experience.

After we finished the application audit, our auditor creates a summary. Sometimes in as few as 20 pages and others have shot well past 100. The length of the document really depends on what we find and the overall size and complexity of the application. Once the summary is completed we schedule a conference call with the auditor, customer and maybe a couple of carefully selected folks from Zend. For example, it would not be unusual to have someone from the ZF team join the call for a customer who is using ZF and needs direction on how best to optimize it. We went into the call for this customer with our punch list and I got to drive the discussion.

Like many of my discussions, I tend to think on the fly. The combination of ADD, diverse cultural experience and IT training gives me a unique ability pull analogies out of thin air. Some at Zend have referred to this as the “Pavlakian Response”. I was honored when they named it…I think. Regardless, I got on a bit of a roll with this customer as I started down a food analogy. Everybody can relate to food! We all have to eat, we’ve all had good meals and we’ve all had meals that left us a little less impressed. In this case, I chose to attack the application issues using the spicing analogy.

The meat and potatoes of most PHP applications are typically made up of the PHP code, HTML and database access. In most transaction based applications THIS IS ALL YOU NEED. Now stop with the torches and pitchforks regarding ZF, CSS, JavaScript, etc. I’m not saying those technologies are not valuable; in fact it is quite the contrary. I think JavaScript is EXTREMELY valuable and would encourage everyone to get educated. But just like with food, a balanced approach can make for an ideal experience. Different applications require different solutions much like food may differ based upon the environment. You simply cannot compare a buffet at a conference to a seven course meal at a fine steak house, yet I have enjoyed the experience of both.

Clearly this application was using JavaScript more like an entrée than as a spice and was causing significant problems with latency and unnecessary page rebuilds. For example, somewhere along the line they forgot that the A in ajax stands for asynchronous. Instead they were building everything serially, every time the page was built! This is nice for graphical applications or high level summaries where the data may not change very often. But in transaction processing you do not want to make the data entry folks wait for a summary element to be built before they can continue keying. As IBM i programmers we know this. As web designers become transaction based application developers, a little time in the kitchen working on how to make a balanced meal is in order!

These analogies come in handy because sometimes you never quite know who you are talking to on the phone. The audience for this call was very diverse as everyone on the phone understood what the application was supposed to do but each person possesses a very different level of technical expertise. While opening up the code might work for the developers in the room the business analysts and executives who may not have seen code in a few years might not appreciate the level of detail and potentially tune out. The food analogy helped all of the people in the room relate the fundamental issue and communicate at a common level. While nothing communicates value like a shared understanding we all can relate to a really good meal!

So, I ask you, are you using Ajax or other technologies as a spice or as an entrée?

Global Services means GLOBAL SERVICES...

When they say Global Services, they really mean Global Services…

Some of you may be aware that I used to report to the manager of the North American region. A few months ago I was moved to Global Services which is an awesome reaction to some of the work I have done at Zend. As a result I had a chance to visit the Zend folks in Europe including Paris, Cologne and Milan. The trip was well planned and orchestrated by the local team and I sure had my skates on! One thing that became crystal clear is that there is HUGE demand for application modernization using PHP in Europe!

First, in the West end of Paris I had a wonderful opportunity to meet one of the few remaining IBM i focused FTSS (Field Technical Sales Support) by the name of Philippe Beorgeois. Philippe hosted a two day event at the IBM offices near the West side of Paris on modernization and I had a chance to present an introductory breakout session on PHP for IBM i. With well over 170 attendees and about 35 people in my room the event was a HUGE success on every level.

Our team in Paris including Christophe, Christian, Clement and David were exceptional hosts. I did not have to worry about anything as they make sure I did not get lost. I would highly recommend the Metro system and anxiously await Scott Klement to review the rail someday. Speaking of rail, on Wednesday I took a bullet train (Thalys) from Paris to Cologne Germany where I met our local account manager Stefanie.





She introduced me to a wonderful customer called GroupMT where Dr. Rainer Schmitz is working magic with PHP on his IBM i. Here is the link to his webinar in German where he discusses some of his awesome achievements.

Two big discoveries as Cologne is the home of Kolsh style beer so I had to try some…

The Dome of Cologne which is a magnificent cathedral that is the final resting place of the Magi (three wise men from Christian history). As I emerged from the train station I got a great look at the cathedral. I received a call from Stefanie who asked where I was and I responded “I’m between the train station and this really dirty church…” she giggled and new exactly where I was. After checking with a few of the locals I discovered the dirt is from hundreds of years of train soot. There is a walking tour available inside the cathedral for the low price of a 1 euro donation. I highly recommend the investment.


When it was time to leave Cologne, Stefanie dropped me off at the station and when I saw my train come up on the board I saw a message. It was in German so out came the Blackberry and thanks to Google Translate I discovered the message read “fall from train”. Needless to say the last train was canceled so I headed back to the Four Points hotel for one more night and enjoyed a little more Kolsch.

I got to spend my Saturday off in Paris and see some of the sights. This was very cool. As I love to walk I took a Metro from my hotel in the opera district to the Eiffel Tower. I was beginning to feel like an expert Parisian on the Metro. I walked from the Eiffel Tower to the American Church, then to the Grand Palace, up the Tuileries to the Louvre and then to Notre Dame. After experiencing the Cathedral in Cologne I was not as impressed with the size of Notre Dame as I was with the relics. The museum tour is a little over priced, but I would not have missed it for the world as they have a relic that contains a sliver from the cross of Jesus and many other priceless artifacts. Feeling a bit tired I walked back to my hotel and grabbed a quick nap. Then off to meet some awesome friends for dinner, Anne and Kent, who just happened to be on vacation in Paris.

Sunday was the trip to Milan and began my visit to COMMON Europe. Dinner that night was in a little café in the Piazza el Duomo, a very famous cathedral.


The next day I went to COMMON and met with Angela and Elena, our Zend team in Italy. Along with Enrico who has recently been recruited to the ZF Core team from professional services, they do a great job taking care of our customers. It was an unbelievable experience because as I presented my session in English there were attendants who translated it into Italian for people who got headsets. It was a little unsettling when I told a joke because as the English speaking folks would giggle about 3 seconds later the folks with the headsets would giggle. But a great turn out and wonderful response for PHP on IBM i! several session by Zend and other companies regarding PHP!



The first night of COMMON we had a great dinner with some IBM’ers. Met up with Steve Will and his lovely wife, Sherry, Alison Butterill, Trevor Perry and some new friends.






The second night was the Gala event. This was truly special as we were shuttled out to the country to a farm with live entertainment. There was an Italian version of the renaissance fair where they conducted sword fights and dancing. After a wonderful dinner we were shuttled back to the hotel and I saw a little more of Milan.

Sessions at COMMON in Italy were VERY well attended. The Zend team was fully engaged starting with Christian Durel our General Manager of European Operations. Working with a couple of other partners he led a very popular round table on New Business Models, innovation, skills development and professional attitude as key factors to exit the current crisis. Many attendees found it to be VERY helpful as they move forward in this treacherous economy!

There were a few other PHP sessions that explored several different aspects of the technology. it impresses me how creative people become once they realize the chains of the 5250 interface have been released. Mobile, javascript, Flash and other technologies are both powerful and liberating. Seeing members of the IBM i community en bracing these technologies reinforces the fact that we are all on the right track.

Also on deck was Elena and Enrico who hosted a seminar on PHP on the last day. I hear it went very well! I could not stick around as I had to high-tail it home for my son's graduation. Another AWESOME event!

Without question this was an AWESOME trip. WE covered a lot of ground, did a lot of business and saw a lot of the area. Looking forward to my next trip across the pond which looks like it will be around November for an event in London!

Woohoo!

My Breakfast with Al

Several years ago I had just wrapped up some interesting CAAC meetings and I was standing around the COMMON conference registration area trying to decide on breakfast. In walked Al Barsa who was looking to get into the same kind of trouble. Having never met the man, he looked me in the eye and asked me if I wanted to go get something to eat. I said sure, why not!

Certainly I had heard and seen of Al before that event. His many session presentations at COMMON and around the country at local user groups, his tireless efforts advocating and consulting on IBM i, and his passionate questions at the “sound off” session at each COMMON conference were well known. But I never thought I was worthy of breaking bread with the legend. What I learned at that meal was very helpful to me and I try to put some of what Al said into my daily living.

Al was very focused on two things: The IBM i community and his family. His passion for both was about equal and he loved to tell stories about his kids or his systems. It was difficult sometimes listening as I think even he struggled to separate them. But it was clear where his passions lie. I was inspired. It was after that breakfast that I decided to start submitting material for sessions at COMMON. Later at the conference, I considered myself fortunate to now be on a first name basis with the man.

A few years later, the community was shocked by the terrible tragedy that Al had passed away on the last night of the COMMON conference in Nashville. When I heard the news I was stunned. Thanks to such tools as email and web forums, details started to spill and so did the many gestures of respect and reflections of the man. We all discussed things like life and death and wondered what we could do. Many said they wanted to contribute this and that. With Midrange.com fielding most of the posts, David Gibbs decided that he wanted to contribute too. It was clear that Al had quite a long reach.

Not too long after, the COMMON Education Foundation decided to arrange a memorial scholarship in Al’s name. This scholarship is awarded once a year and is meant for only the people who best represented the commitment and caring qualities that Al had for the community. The award has been given two times before this conference: The first to Paul Rogers and the second to my good friend Larry “Dr. Franken” Bolhuis. As the third recipient of this prestigious award, I am lucky to share in some pretty awesome company.

Al had quite a reputation as a hell raiser with IBM and I am proud to be honored with a reward that sees a similar trait in me. While I am thrilled to win this award, I reflect upon my own life and how I have been running pretty hard myself these days. As i look at the clock on the wall I see it is 1:45 am and maybe it’s time to slow down a bit. Not too much, but just a little. Enough to stop and smell the roses, admire my five children at athletics & academia and spend a little more time with the woman who makes me whole. I challenge all of you to look into your own lifestyle and seek the balance that Al seemed to struggle with. But even if Al’s life was not completely balanced, it sure was full of passion and love. Godspeed, Al! As i reflect upon Al I am reminded of an old Japanese proverb: Vision without action is a daydream-Action without vision is a nightmare. Al had a good dose of both and I am proud to be considered worthy of his memorial.

Well, the COMMON Annual Conference is over and I know a lot of people who are heavily educated and a lot of other people who are completely exhausted. But both are happy for the experience. Working with any volunteer group can be a rewarding experience. I have found that my local user group Omni and the national user group COMMON can be very rewarding. If you ever thought of helping out a local user group please consider stepping forward. Consider folks like Al and the commitment and passion they brought to the platform. You too can make a huge difference with surprisingly little effort.

Database or Bust!

A couple of years ago I was quoted as saying “Let’s have a going away party for DDS…”

That article caused a lot of commotion in the community. I like that. Stirring things up. That is part of what I do. I’m not nearly as provocative as some of the other players in the space, but I do my best to get my licks in. Chris Maxcer did a great job of capturing some of the passion and emotion of members of the community but enough is enough. SQL is here to stay and if you don’t believe me just look around.

I was speaking at the RPG & DB2 Summit conference last month and I happened upon a breakfast table where Skip Marchesani was chatting with a few folks. I had gotten to know Jon, Susan and Paul a bit over the years. But for some reason Skip and I never really crossed paths. Not sure why, though I am sure I attended a few of his sessions on database. Regardless, this was a great opportunity to see Skip in action so I politely asked if I could sit down and was graciously accepted to the circle.

Skip was embroiled in the age old discussion of “should I throw away my DDS and move to SQL?” Truly a religious war if I ever heard one. My initial reaction was “Hell Yeah!” but I wanted to hear more. Having been cornered in a religious war or two has made me a little more reserved in the timing of my responses. In this case I watched the master at work. Skip acknowledged each of the attendee’s concerns. Performance, scalability, RPG/SQL performance vs. record level access. I was happy to say that a lot of my own impressions were in line with what Skip was saying. Woohoo!

When the conversation died down I jumped in with a few comments of my own that Skip probably would have offered but timing may have given me an advantage. Things like cross platform ubiquity and the fact that school kids KNOW SQL and not record level access. Solutions like MySQL and Miscrosoft Access do a great job of weaning people onto SQL. Languages like Java, PHP and others use SQL as a primary data access mechanism and thus the programmers KNOW SQL.

It was a healthy discussion that ended somewhat awkwardly as some do. The attendee was the sole supporter of his software. He had no intention of rewriting the application any time soon. He had no need for a DDS to SQL migration. From that Skip and I were hard pressed to encourage him to move everything. “By golly” we said “leave it alone!”

But, from the perspective of keeping the skills up and learning something new the attendee did surprise us by saying he would take a piece of his application and give it a try. He would explore the opportunities of SQL vs. DDS and report back his experience. At that point I felt that we had achieved the goal.

One of the things I harp on in my sessions and I would bet Skip would agree, is that you should use the right hammer on the right nail. Frequently folks try to bait me into a religious war on Java vs. PHP. I’m sorry, that dog just doesn’t hunt. We could be here for days talking about the advantages of one over the other and it would only become a religious discussion. If you like Java and have a lot of Java and want to explore PHP? That’s OK. If you decide to stick with your Java, that’s OK too! Make an informed decision and move confidently in the direction you like. Same goes for this guy and DDS. If he were looking to turn his application into the next generation of the software and add in new features, etc. Skip and I would have beat him mercilessly about the head and shoulders with SQL. But it was clear he was leveraging the investment. That’s OK too. As long as you are willing to absorb the risks and the rewards, have at it!

So, in a nutshell, “DDS is dead!...Long live DDS!”

Interview with the ElePHPant

Many of you may have seen or heard of the PHP elePHPant. He has been making the rounds to different events around North America and is looking forward to another exciting year of visiting different parts of the country and the world to meet & greet the PHP faithful wherever they are playing.

This entry is a very special edition where we get an exclusive interview with “the” PHP elePHPant! Many of your questions about this mysterious creature can be answered here finally and for the first time. We are very lucky to have bumped into the elePHPant at an event in Texas. Here is his story.



Mike: You have been reclusive and it seems that last year you came out of hiding to meet folks around the world who are doing PHP. What is your background and where do you hail from?
ElePHPant: It is really very boring story, but if you insist, I was born in Kenya. Although there are many who wish to dispute that. After growing up with a couple of my siblings I got the itch to move beyond the limitations of the African continent and started traveling the world.

Mike: So great to hear about where you came from, where do you call home today?
ElePHPant: Today I live in suburban Chicago. It is a great town for pachyderms and other wild life because there is very little that impresses the typical Chicagoan. Looking forward to the new mayor as some say he used to work for an ex-Kenyan.

Mike: You mentioned that you have siblings. Have we seen any of them?
ElePHPant: My brother is mascot for Republican party and since I live in Chicago he doesn’t come by to visit very much. Nice guy but ironically he can be a bit of an ass! Some years ago my sister got hooked up with some bad folks back in the old country and ended up doing taxi work in India, got a small family, etc.

Mike: I hear you’ve been sighted all over the states: Orlando, San Antonio, San Jose and Chicago.
ElePHPhant: Yeah it’s been great. Although I fly SW and they get a little cranky when I take up two seats. I am an elephant for heaven sake. What are they thinking? With a little luck I will get to Minneapolis, St Petersburg and possibly Europe. But those long flights in coach can really be a challenge.
Mike: Why do you fly SW, someone with your notoriety should be able to get 1st class on a major carrier.
ElePHPant: Two words: Free Peanuts!

Mike: I guess that makes sense…How did you ever get connected with PHP?
ElePHPant: Well, to make a long story short, I just couldn’t get my trunk around Java. I bumped into a couple penguins while vacationing in Madagascar. They were talking about how their guy Rico was able to throw up a web site with no cash and serve up some content for their “clients.” I chatted them up and they were happy to share a little, but they were rather cagey about the specifics of their content. Then I turned around and they were gone. They struck me as really nice fellas, but a bit paranoid. Later, this guy in France saw me on IRC and asked me if I’d mind posing. Then this hits the street and the rest they say is history!

Mike: So I have seen you at a couple of shows, most notable the IBM conference called COMMON and the PHP tek conference in Chicago. While you are obviously a huge fan of PHP I see you have a Zend cape. Does that get you into trouble with the PHP community who may not look favorably on a commercial endorsement?
ElePHPant: Look, I’m not looking to piss off anyone but I got my own family to feed. Work has been tough lately and as you can guess, my grocery bill isn’t exactly small. I used to compile my own binaries and stack. It was pretty cool to optimize everything EXACTLY as I liked it. But, after a while, the maintenance got a little old. I was more interested in the development of apps and the constant changes to PHP for security and other reasons was a real hassle. Then a guy turned me on the Zend Server CE and I became a fan. It has just about everything I want and now a local shlub at the customer site can maintain the server and I can focus on developing apps. That’s just how I roll these days and would not deny anyone the opportunity to experience building the stack from scratch. But I’ve ben there and done that so it’s time for me to move on.

Mike: So do you use Zend Server CE exclusively or are you using some of the supported features of the full Zend Server product?
ElePHPant: It really depends on the client. Sure there are a lot of cheap companies out there and they know I’ll work for peanuts. But then they find out just how many peanuts I need and they change their tune pretty quick! I show them the advanced features and set up a demo with Ed or Mike at Zend. They really do all the heavy lifting as far as showing the solution. But the real benefit is the ROI. Having access to Code Tracing means I can get home at night and tuck in the little ones rather than calling on my cell phone, yet again, to wish them goodnight! Keeps the Mrs. Happy, too. Have you ever seen an overworked female elephant with an attitude? It’s not pretty. You know the old saying, if big momma isn’t happy, ain’t NOBODY happy! Zend Server helps me code in PHP all day, get home at night, and I can still play on other side jobs with the same distribution whether it is full Zend Server or CE! Consistency is key!

Mike: But what’s with the cape? I mean, did Zend pay for you to have a little space on your…ahem…back for advertising?
ElePHPant: Listen, that cape is symbolic as it really implies that I can fly. And, with the bytecode, data and page caching features of Zend Server my sites fly. There is no formal agreement with Zend but when I’m in the Zend office they have these really cool macadamia’s they fly in from Honolulu and I’ll do just about anything for those! I’m such a tramp!

Mike: Well I want to thank you for the time you spent with us today. If you had one thing you would like to share with the masses about PHP, what would that be?
ElePHPant: Just do it! PHP is pretty hot right now. Sure there are plenty of Java bigots out there who feel the need to slam PHP, but at the end of the day you just need to play and then decide for yourself. One third of the internet running on PHP and 1.7% of the Internet sites worldwide running Drupal is kind of hard to sneeze at. Although, when I sneeze, folks do take notice…

Confessions of a PHP advocate: Hey Java, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings…

This article looks at what several members of the PHP community are up to, and more...

Is PHP ready for enterprise? I say yes but why not let the community answer and vote with their feet! People have been using PHP as a programming language for several years to manage content and now mission critical data entry applications. People in various technology religions tend to focus on a single point in an effort to attack a technology. That’s OK as people with a limited perspective should be allowed to focus. The point of this blog article is to broaden the perspective of all developers and essentially say, use what you feel is the correct technology that applies to your application. If PHP is a strong candidate then great! If Java makes more sense for you because of your current shop skill sets then have at it. Ultimately, it is nice to know we have choices.

I won’t engage directly into the religious wars of Java and PHP but I am guilty of playfully poking at other technologies. I have been accused of disparaging Java in a few forums. Obviously these folks don’t know me very well because I disparage all languages simply because each language has its own strengths and weaknesses. In my presentations I am certainly guilty of having fun at the expense of Java, RPG, and COBOL. I have even taken a shot at Paschal, FORTAN and PL1. I kind of liken my playfulness with programming technologies as Mel Brooks tends to poke at nationalities. I have a healthy respect for Java and please keep in mind that our workbench Zend Studio is Java based (Eclipse is a Java project) If I offend anyone that is not my intention and I apologize. But my method of communication is doubtful to change any time soon.

With regard to some recent forum posts about dynamic vs. static typing, please use your own judgment. If you were not aware of a “pro-PHP” perspective on the topic, please check out this posting from a prominent member of the PHP community and very good friend Kevin Schroeder. Kevin's blog article explores what he views are the myths and misconceptions many folks have when comparing strongly typed languages vs. dynamically typed languaes. i encourage folks to review it before taking an extreme perspective, one way or the other. After all, 1/3rd of the internet would not be running on PHP if it sucked and would roughly 7 of the top 10 internet sites by WWW traffic be running PHP?

What I will comment on is the diversity in the community as PHP continues to grow its following. If you happen to check out some of our recently released Case Studies then you can see that some folks are taking more than a passing interest in PHP. Corvette America and Value Drug Mart widens the perspective of some long time PHP advocates for IBM i like Allied Beverages and Aarowcast.

And furthermore, there are these crazy guys at iDevCloud! I have known Jim Oberholtzer and Larry Bolhuis for some time and their latest escapade has really struck a note. iDevCloud is all about making IBM i affordable to those who need a place to develop or learn but can’t afford their own box. Jim and Larry are world renowned for cleverly assembling IBM i hardware and software to suit their needs and sharing those precious resources with folks looking to learn more about IBM i. Zend has partnered with iDevCloud to provide the full version of Zend Server for each of their environments so that folks looking to learn PHP on IBM i not only have the environment, but also the best tools for developing PHP applications. Jim has reported that the overwhelming majority of the customers using iDevCloud have purchased a contract so that they could learn PHP! This is huge!

Furthermore, Jim has written the management of the iDevCloud site in a PHP framework known as Zend Framework (ZF) and it is running 100% on IBM i. If anyone tells you that something cannot run on IBM i, please send them my way. I tend to believe that anything is possible, although something just may not be practical like running a VB application on IBM i. But I digress. Jim is in the process of developing content for a series of presentations where he will be talking more about the MVC architecture of ZF and PHP for IBM i developers. This is a good thing as many IBM i shops want to use ZF but struggle on basic concepts and where to get started. Zend offers training, of course, but assumes you have a solid foundation in Object Oriented principles. This creates a bit of a gap as most RPG and COBOL developers have a procedural background and have avoided OO for years. Jim along with several other folks in the community are looking to close that gap and enable RPG and COBOL programmers with the tools and concepts to adopt all kinds of PHP concepts.

Yes, having a choice is a nice thing!

Patches? We don need no Stinkin' Patches!

Well, if you are familiar with that famous scene from the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” you probably have an idea where I am going…

I am having a little fun here with my reference to this classic film and the recent PHP hotfix that was developed to address a processor exploit. The truth is that all systems need patches sooner or later. Some operating systems need them more than others and release them on a weekly basis. Others batch them up and say come and get them when you are ready. But as we know, on the IBM i things are a little bit different.

First, let’s explore what happened. On the Zend website you can read an article that describes the issue. Essentially there was a flaw in the floating point conversion of the Zend Engine that when running on some processors that could cause a site to seize up. As an organization, Zend R&D and several other groups within the company jumped in and deployed the patch in a mere 24 hours from the point of diagnosis. Not bad if you are looking for enterprise support for PHP, I’d say. Here is the important thing, who was exposed? This article goes on to talk about the architectures that were not impacted. Those include Intel 64-bit Linux, MAC OSX and IBM i. So why was IBM i safe? Simply put, Power PC!

People who get embroiled in the religious wars over platforms tend to lose sight of the significant value proposition that we enjoy simply because we run on another processor. Does that mean the PowerPC is without flaws? Hardly. But it does mean that we enjoy a little security through obscurity. Hackers and exploiters are simply not attacking PowerPC. Why? Well probably for the same reason you don’t see too much in the trade press about it. Power PC is powering the Power systems at IBM and some game station like Wii, Xbox, PS3/PS4, etc. so the folks who have a Power System are using it for business, and the gamers are hacking their boxes to load Linux on a 64-bit architecture. Woohoo! We’re safe on this one!

But, enjoying the wonderful safety of IBM i does not mean we should sit back and expect that “Murphy” will never come knocking. The reality is that the IBM i has one of the best “patching” processes in the industry and the fact that most IBM i developers have no clue about it lends itself to significant credibility as most of you simply do not HAVE to know about it. So after talking to so many of you I figured I summarize some of the recent discussion point about PTF’s and Zend as a bit of a refresher. For an in depth discussion on PTF strategy, I would highly recommend Larry “Dr. Franken” Bolhuis' presentation “Managing IBM i PTF’s” at COMMON or a local user group near you! Here are two slides he donated to this blog for your consideration!






First, a refresher on how and where Zend Server runs on IBM i. There are two major worlds that comprise the IBM i Zend Server universe. The first is the IBM HTTP Server Powered by Apache and the second is PASE (Portable Application Solution Environment). Ideally your system manager should have a strategy in place for keeping current with Cumulative and Group PTF’s. If that is the case then you should be good to go. If not, get some religion NOW and some help if you need it. Either way, please read on!

Starting with the Apache server I would direct your attention to the group PTF for HTTP for your respective OS version. It is easy to determine where you are on this food chain as IBM has created a one stop shop to see your current status. Simply run the WRKPTFGRP command from the green screen and press F11 to see the descriptions for the group PTF’s that are currently installed. If, per chance, you run the command and see nothing, there is a very good possibility that you have no group or cumulative PTF’s installed or applied. Need I say more to you about that? I think not. If you have groups installed you should be able to navigate around the screen to see the current level. Find that current level and then head to the IBM website for Fix Central. This page contains a VERY valuable link for current group PTF levels. Compare your level to the IBM level to get a “feel” for how far off you are.

I am pleased that most of my customers tell me they are either current or only a level or two behind. Every once in a while, though, I get someone who cannot install Zend Server and when I ask about their PTF levels they will respond “What’s a PTF?” I walk them through the steps identified above and we discover a lot!

So why do I need PTF’s to implement Zend Server on IBM i? Well, the word “need” is a relative term. When Zend revised the stack from Zend Core to Zend Server on IBM i, several changes were implemented to address a number of customer requirements. Most notable was the dual Apache configuration of Zend Core. To achieve a better performance model and reduce the Apache servers to a manageable ONE, IBM and Zend collaborated on delivering Fast CGI as a method for deploying PHP on IBM i. FastCGI is an open source approach to work with Apache servers and since IBM essentially OWNS the Apache server on IBM i, they have graciously built and provided the FastCGI infrastructure with significant contributions from Zend. IBM implemented these changes as part of the base for i7.1 and via PTF’s for V5R4 and i6.1 as well as the interim releases.

Any company that implements new technology is going to have an aggressive update process. IBM is no stranger to this phenomenon so in order to ensure that you have the latest and greatest fixes and features for FastCGI you should keep current with the group for HTTP as well as your Cumulative PTF package and PASE.