On the Zend Framework blog Enrico Zimuel has posted a tutorial showing you how to easily create ZPKs and package up your application for deployment on Zend Server.

Zend Server provides the ability to deploy applications to a single server or cluster of servers via the ZPK package format. We have offered zf-deploy for creating these packages from Zend Framework and Apigility applications, but how can you create these for Expressive, or, really, any PHP application?

They start by listing out some of the requirements you'll need to get started (the zip binary, Composer, etc). The tutorial then walks you through the setup including the contents of the .htaccess and deployment.xmlconfiguration files. It then walks through the installation of dependencies and actually creating the ZFK (via the zip binary). It wraps up with a simple example of the creation of a ZPK containing a single index.php file.

Adam Culp has posted a new tutorial to his site showing you how to set up local debugging inside PhpStorm combining it with the Zend Debugger tool.

Setting up debugging in an IDE with a local development environment has gotten so easy it can be done in a few automated steps. In this post I will demonstrate how to get step debugging functioning with

Adam Culp has posted a guide on his site showing you how to set up debugging in Zend Studio, the PHP IDE from Zend. In it he walks you through the setup on both the server and client side to get them working happily together.

Recently I was helping someone set up step debugging in Zend Studio, and had some difficulties. Therefore I decided to create a blog post to remind me later, and perhaps help others get it set up.

I was doing this on an Ubuntu laptop, so while menus may vary slightly the process should be very similar. Also, I did this using a local virtual machine in VirtualBox, but using Bridged networking mode to simulate a remote server. In Zend Studio I had a project created with the Zend Framework Skeleton Application, and created a virtualhost in the virtual environment that mirrored that.

He starts with the server, pointing out that the only thing really needed there is an installed and working version of Xdebug. He then goes through each step in the IDE, complete with screenshots:

• Configuring the server in the Preferences
• Testing the connection between the two
• Enabling debugging on the project
• Ensuring the server is configured correctly to use debugging when specified

While some of his instructions are more specific to a Zend Server installation, they can still be mostly applied to any kind of system. You can also check the Xdebug documentation for additional help.

In his new post to his site Zeev Suraski talks about the momentum growing behind PHP 7 and some of the recent articles about companies making the move and the overall impression of the new version.

We’re now a few months since PHP 7 came out, and if you’ve been following what’s going on in the PHP world, things are looking pretty exciting! [...] First, InfoWorld gave PHP 7 the 2016 Technology of the Year Award, which is quite remarkable. Remarkable is also how InfoWorld chose to describe the performance gains that are promised by PHP 7 – and I absolutely agree.

[...] As more and more people are trying PHP 7 out, we’re seeing more and more evidence that the promise of 2x performance is being realized, big time. Most recently, Badoo published an article detailing their experience migrating for PHP 5.6 to 7.0

He gets into a bit more detail about the numbers that Badoo published and gives a quick "thank you" to Dmitry Stogov for helping to spearhead the effort to get PHP 7 out the door from Zend. Finally, he points out that there's a Zend Server version that already runs on PHP 7 if you'd like to try it out.

The SitePoint PHP blog has posted a tutorial from Daniel Berman giving you a step by step guide to setting up an Elastic LAMP stack on AWS, the Amazon Web Services platform using Zend Server.

This article introduces what is probably one of the simplest ways of setting up and running an elastic LAMP stack on the cloud – using Zend Server on AWS.

More specifically, the workflow described here includes launching a pre-configured AWS CloudFormation template that sets up all the components of a LAMP stack: Zend Server’s certified PHP stack plus all of Zend Server’s add-on features (including Z-Ray), a MySQL database, a Zend Server elastic group consisting of additional Zend Server instances, an elastic load balancer, and other pre-configured security definitions. This article is perfect for those contemplating moving their production environment to the cloud or those who already have one set up on AWS.

He starts with some of the basics: what Zend Server is and what role CloudFormation plays in the deployment process. The rest of the tutorial is broken up into several steps of the setup and deployment process:

• Step 1: Launching the stack
• Step 2: Managing the stack
• Step 3: Deploying an application
• Step 4: Monitoring the stack

They include screenshots of the web-based interfaces you'll use to complete each of these steps, giving you a great visual guide to where you should be and what things should look like. In the end you'll have a simple application, running in AWS on Zend Server you can easily monitor and configure.

On the Zend Blog they've posted a new guide showing you how to create a PHP cluster in AWS using the Zend Server software to help make things easier.

Running a cluster of PHP servers on AWS can be a complex task to say the least, and in this article we will look into the various tasks involved in managing a PHP clustered environment. We will look into why it can be a complex and tricky task and how Zend Server help alleviate the pain involved.

They start by introducing the guidelines of the challenge, easily creating the set of PHP nodes with simpler maintenance abilities, monitoring and session sharing included. While this isn't a step-by-step guide per-se, it does give you a good idea of some of the technology needs around clustering PHP instances (and how Zend Server (Cluster) helps solve some common issues). This includes screenshots of the interfaces used for these common tasks like:

• Upgrading and synchronizing PHP code
• Propagation of changes in PHP configuration
• Monitoring of PHP log and events
• PHP sessions sharing

The SitePoint PHP blog has posted a tutorial from author Daniel Berman showing you how to combine the ContinuousPHP service with Zend Server to create a continuous deployment system for your PHP applications.

The continuous delivery approach aims at making the process of continuously deploying code to production error-free, or at least less error-prone, using automated tasks, tests, builds and deployments. Minimize risk and downtime, maximize quality and value. That’s the motto.

However, this process is not always straightforward, to say the least. Often enough, the continuous delivery tools chosen for implementing continuous integration and deployment are hard to figure out and use, and are usually time consuming and expensive. The bigger the application, the bigger the challenge. This article introduces an interesting new approach to dealing with this challenge by demonstrating a continuous delivery process using continuousphp and Zend Server.

They briefly walk you through some of the prerequisites including an installation of Zend Server already set up and waiting. He also provides a skeleton application you can use if you just want to test it out first. From there he goes through the steps in the process:

• Setting up your repository (on ContinuousPHP)
• Creating a new deployment pipeline
• Configuring build and test settings
• Packaging and deploying your app

All along the way he's included screenshots of the ContinuousPHP interface so you can be sure you're still on the right track. He ends the post with a few extra "goodies" linking directly to the ContinuousPHP and Zend server documentation among other useful links.

On the Zend blog there's a recent post showing you how to run Zend Server on the Google Cloud Platform, an easy to use service that makes deploying new sites a few clicks away.

Day 1 at ZendCon in Las Vegas has seen some pretty interesting announcements, one of them being the availability of Zend Server on Google’s Cloud Platform. Just in case you want to check it out, this article will help you get started.

Google’s Cloud Platform boasts a highly-scalable and reliable infrastructure, with computing, storage and application services for developing, testing and deploying your apps. With Zend Server, you get a certified and secure PHP stack, advanced development tools which include Z-Ray, and a bunch of additional features to aid your development workflow. Taken together, you get a powerful development setup.

They walk you through the simple process you'll need to follow to get the Zend Server instance up and running, complete with screenshots. They help you create the instance, create the server password and launch the result.

The Zend.com blog has a post showing you how to debug WordPress running on Zend Server with the help of the Z-Ray plugin. In their example they're hosting it on an AWS instance, but the same technique can apply on any other hosted version as well.

More and more PHP development is being done in the cloud and on virtual platforms nowadays. The workflow detailed in this brief tutorial is just one way to develop PHP in these environments, but it illustrates just how easy and productive this type of development can be. More specifically, it demonstrates how to launch the newly available Zend Server 8.5 instance on AWS with a WordPress application already deployed, and then use Z-Ray to introspect and debug the code.

The tutorial walks you through the setup and configuration of a new AWS instance with Zend Server and WordPress installed (you can skip to the end if you already have this). They show you how to:

• Launch the Zend Server AWS instance
• Configure the instance to install WordPress as a part of the setup process
• Access the Zend Server control panel
• Accessing the WordPress application deployed on the instance

Once the WordPress application is accessed, the Z-Ray inspection bar will appear at the bottom giving you insight into various configuration options, performance metrics and server information. They also link to a video with more information about the WordPress plugin.

In this post to his site Andrew Embler shows you how to create a custom Z-Ray plugin for the Zend Server (v8.5) to show some statistics about requests made to the application.

Zend just released version 8.5 of their Zend Server application server. A major part of this release is the plugin gallery, which provides an App store for Zend Server extensions. These extensions can add application-specific debugging features to the Z-Ray Debugger. We've built one such extension specifically for Concrete5. It didn't take long – just a day or two. That said, there were some bumps in the process, as you're working on a platform for which the documentation hasn't quite caught up yet. With that in mind, I'm going to share my process for building the Concrete5 Z-Ray plugin, in the hopes that it might help someone who is building their own Z-Ray plugin for Zend Server.

The post is pretty comprehensive, sharing all the code you'll need to implement the extension along the way. He's broken it up into sections to help make it a bit more manageable:

• Create Your Directory
• Place the deployment.json file in the directory
• Add Additional Items specified by deployment.json
• Add the Z-Ray specific Directory
• Create the Z-Ray PHP Class
• [Adding] The Logo
• Basic Panel Details: The Pages Panel
• Advanced Panel Details: The Blocks Panel

Screenshots also accompany some of the steps showing you what the page output should look like once the files and functionality are in place.