14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is making consistent efforts to warm up to PHP developers and to get them to leverage its Cloud operating system. The company has worked together with Zend Technologies in order to make sure that version 1.10 of the open source Zend Framework 1.10 plays nice with Windows Azure. On January 28th, Zend technologies announced that the latest iteration of its open source PHP web application framework brought to the table support for the Redmond company’s Cloud platform. Vijay Rajagopalan, Microsoft principal architect, applauded the support added into the Zend Framework for Windows Azure cloud services noting that a key milestone was reached through the collaboration between the two companies.
In mid-2009, the software giant revealed the launch of the Community Technology Preview build of Windows Azure SDK for PHP CTP, with Rajagopalan promising at the time that support for Windows Azure in the open source PHP web application framework from Zend technologies would follow. “PHP developers find the Windows Azure platform compelling,” noted Jean Paoli, general manager Interoperability at Microsoft. “Microsoft’s decision to contribute PHP-based Windows Azure components to Zend Framework helps demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to openness and interoperability by providing greater choice and opportunity for Microsoft customers and partners.”
Critical to the Zend Framework support for Windows Azure is the new Zend_Service_WindowsAzure component in version 1.10 which was contributed by the Redmond company to the PHP open source project. Rajagopalan explains that devs will now be able to call Windows Azure APIs from their PHP applications, while taking advantage of the Cloud platform’s storage services, such as Blob Storage, Table Storage and Queue Service.
“The ubiquity, simplicity and flexibility of PHP make it ideal for building cloud applications. Native Windows Azure support in Zend Framework 1.10 brings the power of Windows Azure to a substantial community of Zend Framework users,” added Zeev Suraski, chief technology officer and co-founder of Zend. “Along with new features for established developers, we are shortening the learning curve for beginners, with enhanced documentation, new tutorials and improved documentation structure.”
Zend Framework 1.10 is available for download here.
PHP SDK for Windows Azure is available for download here.