On 7PHP.com today there's a new interview, another with Vito Chin, this time talking about cloud computing and doing PHP development specifically for that environment.

Whenever we talk about web development nowadays, there has to be an awareness or at least an interest towards cloud computing. We, as PHP Developers, should be aware of what development in the cloud has to offer and how we can leverage it to stay in the game. To this end, I bring forward a small interview with the Pro Cloud Computing guy, I named Vito Chin! Let’s hear and learn form his pro experience and advice...

After some brief introductions, they start in talking about Vito's book (co-author) "PHP Development in the Cloud" and some of the basics of SaaS (cloud-based services) ownership. He mentions the high scalability needed and some architecture considerations you'l need to keep in mind during development. He also points out a few "pain points" to watch out for and includes some recommendations of services/libraries to use.

In this new article on the Zend Developer Zone, Wil Sinclair has made a "forecast" of sorts as to the role that PHP could be playing in cloud computing in the future.

There are three kinds of services that are commonly associated with the cloud: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Software as a Service has gotten a lot of good press in the past few years, as Salesforce and the like have seen adoption from the smallest shops to the largest corporations.

He points to Platform as a Service as the most likely target for PHP (like the Google App Engine). He also points out some of the other providers for the other types (SaaS, IaaS) like Salesforce, Mosso, Amazon Web Services and Rackspace CloudServers. He digs into a bit more detail on the IaaS services, describing how they work (complete with a fun image) and how your application would fit inside.