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Updates All in One!
Hot off the press, Zend Server Hot Fix 7 is a cumulative update for the Zend Server stack with almost all of the latest and greatest enhancements. Folks who recently updated their PHP stack for Zend Server were probably getting annoyed at how many PTF's they needed to apply. Now in a single PTF update you can get all the following new enhancements to the PHP stack.
PHP Version 5.3.14
The PHP stack gets updated for PHP 5.3 users and this PTF is ONLY for PHP 5.3. PHP 5.2 has been deprecated for some time and you'll notice from the download page that we reorganized the PHP 5.2 stuff to another page. rest assured the 5.2 stuff will be around for a bit but the main download page was getting a tad cluttered.
Zend Framework 1 & 2
The Zend Framework stack for version 1 has been updated to 1.12.0 and Zend Framework 2 is now included. The DB2 adapter is still undergoing some beta work and should be out soon, but for those who want to get going with ZF2 the code is there at 2.0.2.
PHP Toolkit and XML Service
We've updated the toolkit with a fresh copy of XML Service and the PHP code from the YiPs website but another version is coming soon. Stay tuned.
The PTF Process
When we introduced Zend Server we moved from an automatic update to a PTF approach as more and more IBM i shops were looking for a controlled environment. So please get your PTF from the Zend Server download page and have an updated stack. As always, please get your questions in early and often and feel free to ring up your account manager if your bandwidth is maxed out. Our services folks would love to help! Need some training? Got that too!!!
As this will probably be my last blog of the year, please have a Merry Christmas and a Happy & Healthy New Year! Wishing you all a Peaceful and Joyous 2013!
A funny thing happened on my way to ZendCon, Summit and LUG!
So I figure a recap of the activities from ZendCon 2012 is in order as there was a lot of information shared especially about new product.
Zend Server 6
Zend Server 6 was announced to a very enthusiastic crowd. Some cool new features that were demonstrated include the ability to organize access to Zend Server by role, leverage LDAP authentication and generate statistics on application and web site usage. The new UI was re-written in a lightweight JavaScript framework which makes it perform extremely well. Add to that that the architecture that is API driven and now third party vendors will be able to plug into it! The beta does not include IBM i but i do have an alpha copy loaded on one of my LPARs so it will be along soon. Here is a video with more info.
Zend Studio
So Studio has some enhancements, as well. The most prominent piece is the new Wizard that help a customer build an end-to-end mobile application in minutes. Leveraging the open source PhoneGap library, you can literally build test and deploy in a project in Zend studio to any of the three major handhelds in their specific technologies: iPhone(i/OS), Android and Windows Mobile. Zend Framework 2 integration has been enhanced along with greater PHP 5.4 support. Check out the beta here and provide feedback in the Studio 10 forum!
Other happenings
BCD, IBM and Zend hosted a really happening reception where all the IBM i folks gathered on Tuesday evening. Originally envisioned as a small dinner where the IBM i faithful could gather to network and share ideas (ala CUDS) this reception has evolved into a full blown party with about 45 people joining us from all parts of the community. Folks had a chance to mingle with the authors of the toolkit, IBM’ers Ryan and Tony, one of the current developers of the BCD tools and many Zenders stopped by on their way to and from various events. I think this was easily one of the most successful IBM i networking receptions we ever had and a special thanks to the marketing folks at IBM (Elaine and Andrea) for putting up with my badgering and allowing it to happen. Also, a HUGE thank you for BCD who did a great job participating and sponsoring. BCD is a great new partner and longtime friend of PHP on IBM i.
And then there was the LUG
I had the privilege of addressing the IBM Large User Group in Rochester Minnesota the same week as ZendCon. The crowd was excited as always about the solutions being delivered by Zend and the general direction of PHP. But what was really telling was the interest in mobile solutions and how important mobile has become to this community. more and more IBM i customers are continuing to adopt PHP and it is always great to chat with these folks all over the world! Here's to a great 2013 where the road work will be even greater!!!
The folks at COMMON in Europe created an interesting survey that asks IBM i folks about what "concerns" them about IBM i. (By the way, the survey is written in PHP using an open source content
management system called Joomla and guess what OS it is running on?) While I absolutely love this machine there are many things that concern me so I jumped at the chance the let my voice be heard and here's why.
Years ago I became a charter member of the COMMON Americas Advisory Counsel. This group was created to, essentially, resurrect the old requirements process and provide direct feedback to IBM Rochester to make improvements to IBM i. This came about as the result of a blanket email that went to all members of COMMON in North America. In the application the email asked for a charter requirement. In other words, what would you want IBM to do to IBM i to make it better. Well, it is probably no big secret that my charter requirement was to ask IBM to either enhance Net.Data or bring a scripting solution like PHP to the platform. Not only was my application accepted, but so was my requirement. I was thrilled to become part of an influential community within the IBM i community.
Over the next several years as I watched my PHP requirement evolve into the partnership with Zend and THOUSANDS of IBM i people around the world enjoying PHP running natively on IBM i, I also had the chance to provide input and requirements on many other aspects of IBM i. Some of them include Blades, simplified interfaces, and even a confirmation screen for potentially dangerous commands like PWRDWNSYS and ENDTCP. As you might have guessed, some requirements were accepted and some were not for various reasons. However, while sitting in a keynote presentation by Steve Will at the recent OMNI Technical Conference I was commenting to someone sitting next to me about some of the many things IBM has brought to IBM i that were the result of mine and other peoples requirements. This made me quite proud that our contributions were perceived as valuable and that proved that IBM was listening!
A couple of years ago I left the advisory counsel for a number of reasons, most notable was that my role had evolved from customer to ISV and that I found myself focused on other initiatives. But this survey gave me what I was looking for in a fast and easy way to communicate some of my recent requirements. You can always create a requirement at COMMON or by going online. But when something is easy I just love it!
It took me a whopping 5 minutes to fill out the Top Concerns survey and I encourage you to do the same. The designers of the survey are also awarding a prize which you can choose to decline. All responses are anonymous, unless you would prefer to include your name in the description field.
This is a great opportunity for a great platform. Please find some time to cast your opinion. Even if it is just to say thanks for a wonderful operating system!
The PHP community around IBM i is growing up and I couldn’t be more impressed.
As I get ready for the fall conference season I see plenty of travel in my future. This is always a good thing as that means there is demand and sincere interest in PHP on IBM i. What also seems to be chewing up my free time is our training programs. Zend has two major IBM i centric initiatives. First is the PHP I Foundation for IBM i. This is the class where most IBM i customers begin their journey down the PHP road. The class is taught online for 2 hours a day, every other day for three weeks by John Valance and occasionally by me. There was so much demand for the course in the 2nd half of this year and now we are sold out for the rest of 2012.
Building on the success of the foundations 1 course is our SmartStart which combines the system setup, Foundations I training, and a “Proof-of-Concept” type project for one low price. One major advantage is that we let the customer decide the project! These have ranged from iPad applications on a shop floor to Web services to Executive dashboards. The concept is to compress the head pounding that many IBM i folks endure when learning a new technology from 6 months down to 2 weeks. At the end of the engagement most customers have a solution they can show off and support! In today’s “results oriented” society, this provides a big advantage for most IBM i shops. A CIO can show REAL value for the investment and also make a VERY informed decision about the strategic value of PHP without risking the entire budget.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I would love to say the SmartStart has been a smashing success and in many ways they have all been successful. But we have learned a lot about the delivery and services around IBM i and are in the prime execution mode of SmartStart. In addition to delivering training a local company I walk away with new perspectives on businesses using PHP and the day to day issues developers struggle with when working with IBM i. Some of these issues are self-inflicted like working with RPG II & III skills and code bases while others are still struggling with three environments on a single IBM i. We at Zend ARE listening and in the next few months you will be hearing about the fruits of our labors. The R&D group is hard at work on MANY new initiatives and we are working to address a number of the customer concerns raised over the years as we move toward the next major release. I think that teases it nicely without committing to any details ;-)
I have run in to a few customers over the last several months who were surprised to find out they had access to support. One of the worst things an IBM i programmer can do when trying to adopt PHP is suffer in silence. We have a ton of resources at Zend.com that are designed to help everyone adopt PHP regardless of platform. And even though our installer is fairly straight forward we have seen some customers have trouble because of old system configuration settings that they inherited. Let’s look at some of these resources.
We have a bunch of webcasts where you can tune in to see just about everything from basic PHP to Zend Studio and Zend Framework discussions and examples. Not all of these webcasts are geared specifically for IBM i, but that’s OK since they are all geared toward PHP. And it’s the same PHP that runs on t Linux, Windows and IBM i.
All of our products are fully documented in both online and PDF formats. These materials talk about installation and configuration options for both version of Zend Server, Zend Studio and Zend Guard. In addition to the standard documentation on our site we also host many white papers and case studies. These tend to illustrate many of the interesting ways to leverage PHP and also discuss how many of our customers are deploying PHP based solutions in their own environments.
Sample Scripts
With Zend Server comes several sample scripts that illustrate basic PHP functions. These samples are great for validating that Zend Server was installed properly and demonstrate basic PHP functions like database access and Zend Framework usage. They can be accessed from the Demo Applications subtab of the Monitor tab in the Zend Server Administrative Interface and the script code is in the default document root: "/www/zendsvr/htdocs/samples.
Cases
Opening a support ticket is the best way for a supported customer to get help. Cases are designed to help customers with issues during installation or why some feature sets might not appear to be functioning correctly. There are several support levels available at Zend including the 1 year of free support thanks to our partnership with IBM which is available after registering your copy of Zend Server for IBM i. The SLA’s for the various support models delineate what is available to whom. Customers with Gold or Platinum support also get a phone number to call for support. This number was sent to your primary Zend account holder immediately after purchasing Zend Server. If you don’t have it or don’t know where it is please drop us a line or call your account manager.
Zend and MySQL…
On my travels through Europe as I visit many IBM i customers I am presented with wonderful challenges and opportunities. One challenge had me stunned but I must say should not be terribly surprising. It was about the DB2 Storage Engine for MySQL and support.
First, what is Mike talking about? Well, MySQL is the world’s most popular open source RDBMS and it runs on nearly every platform including IBM i with the recent edition of the new Zend DBi product. MySQL is architected in a special way in which the UI is separated from the data storage layer. This allows MySQL to change the storage layer without having to rewrite the application. Does this sound familiar?
The idea is that you would use an application that would store data in MySQL, possibly SugarCRM, Drupal, MediaWiki or something like along those lines. Even a home grown application talking to MySQL would work. Then, you tell MySQL to store the data for those tables in DB2 rather than MySQL via the ENGINE SQL directive. This lets your applications talk to MySQL while the actual data is being stored in DB2 on IBM i. It is important to understand that this data is NOT replicated. The actual data store is DB2. Existing tables can be converted to DB2 by using the alter table statement as well. IBM has a couple of great redbooks on the subject that are well worth checking out.
So someone asked if the DB2 Storage Engine is supported. According to IBM, the answer is yes so long as they are current on their IBM Software Maintenance Agreement (SWMA). If a customer is current, then that customer who deploys this solution and has who needs to log a support ticket a problem can, under SWMA, open a PMR regarding the DB2 Storage engine and IBM will work toward a resolution. This is a good thing and proves that IBM will stand by their solutions.
I developed a new presentation called Introduction to MySQL for IBM i. This session has been getting some pretty good reviews and I have gotten some awesome feedback for updates. As a result we are scheduling a webcast on the MySQL and IBM i in August! There is no charge for the live and recorded webcasts at the Zend website so like voting in Chicago – tune in early and often!
or...the Rising Tide Raises all Boats...What has DB2 Done for me Lately?
There are two sides – PHP and/or as important as PHP is the OS You should examine your OS level and I will implore you to consider leveraging your current investment. Upgrade to i6.1 or i7.1 today! IBM has done a nice job adding features to IBM i and the way they do that is with new releases and the technology refresh process. And i6.1 or higher has new DB2 features that can dramatically improve the performance of IBM i and expand your abilities as an IBM I developer.
One thing is clear, IBM is investing heavily in DB2 on IBM i. I have been on the road now for two weeks of a six week road show. (They let me go home on weekends to see how much the kids have grown). As I visit all these events I notice there seems to be 2 guys from IBM Rochester talking about DB2. This would not be so shocking if it weren’t for the fact that it’s rarely the same two guys! It appears IBM has been hoarding an army of DB2 guys and now they are on the road talking about all the great new stuff! This led me to a dramatic realization that makes perfect sense when you think about it. If IBM invests in RPG, as they continue to do, then many RPG folks benefit, same for Java and COBOL, etc. But, since we ALL use DB2, any investments IBM makes in DB2 benefits ALL OF US! Yes, PHP gets faster and more powerful as IBM improves DB2!
Yep, PHP, RPG, COBOL, Java and all the utility vendors benefit from performance and feature improvements to DB2. Makes sense to me. As I have no idea how much IBM spends on IBM i R&D and know even less about how they divide it up, I can only guess that the portion invested in DB2 is significant. Why? Think about it. Anything IBM changes in DB2 has to be rock solid and virtually bulletproof. The main reason for this is that IBM themselves are using DB2 on IBM I to run parts of the OS! This means the developers have added pressure of IBM management breathing down their backs as well as customer satisfaction.
IBM uses the carrot and stick approach to get customers to upgrade and update their systems. In some cases, folks simply cannot cost justify an upgrade. I am not looking to start a religious war about why a company should or should not go off maintenance. But I do understand that these are tough times and every penny counts. So if you are a company on maintenance and you have a machine that can go up, why haven’t you? Time? Experience? Confidence? Could be a myriad of reasons why you are holding off. I ask you to look at the benefits, however. I have a customer who recently planned a hardware upgrade. Obviously, the upgrade would go smoother if they upgrade the OS from V5R4 to i7.1 before attempting the hardware, so they did. There were so many performance improvements and opportunities to improve DB2 performance that they were able to cancel the hardware upgrade. Think about that value! A company was able to postpone a significant investment just by implementing a newer version of the OS that THEY WERE ALREADY ENTITLED TO thanks to their SWMA!
If you can swing new hardware, there are things like smaller footprints and lower power utilization. We have a new Power 720 in our office with 9 LPAR’s and I am amazed at how powerful it is as well as easy to administer. Now, I did get some help setting the machine up. But once it was set up it has been great! Which brings me to my last point, excess power? In many cases I have customers who have upgraded hardware to stay current on maintenance or simply to add a little capacity like disk, etc. What some of these folks discover is that their machines have excess capacity at the end of the upgrade. So what to do with that capacity? I have a few ideas. How about an open source CRM or content management system written in PHP? By implementing something like Joomla, Drupal, MediWiki or SugarCRM, customers can take advantage of this excess capacity by leveraging PHP natively on IBM i and simultaneously avoid the investment in additional Intel infrastructure. Nice.
