PHP API for Cloud Application Services

Posted by Abel Avram on Sep 29, 2009

Sections

Architecture & Design,

Development,

Operations & Infrastructure

Topics

.NET ,

Cloud Computing ,

Data Access ,

Architecture

Tags

Azure ,

API

Zend Technologies, calling themselves The PHP Company, has launched the open source Simple API for Cloud Application Services project intended to help PHP developers creating applications consuming services from all major clouds. Microsoft has contributed with Windows Azure SDK for PHP Developers.

A number of cloud technology vendors, Zend, IBM, Microsoft, Nirvanix, Rackspace and GoGrid, have contributed to a project led by Zend in order to create a simple API which is intended to be used to access various cloud resources. For the beginning, the API offers support for File Storage, Document Database Storage, and Simple Queue services for Amazon Web Services, Rackspace Cloud Files, Windows Azure, and Nirvanix Storage Delivery Network. Zend intends to include this API as a new component of the Zend Framework called Zend Cloud.

Microsoft released in July their Windows Azure SDK for PHP Developers, a set of tools for PHP programmers working with Azure. Later, Microsoft contributed this SDK to Zend’s Simple API initiative. The SDK is currently a CodePlex project jointly developed with RealDolmen and licensed under New BSD License.

Windows Azure SDK for PHP offers not just storage support:

• PHP classes for Windows Azure Blobs, Tables & Queues (for CRUD operations)
• Helper Classes for HTTP transport, AuthN/AuthZ, REST & Error Management
• Manageability, Instrumentation & Logging support
• Support for storing PHP sessions in Azure Table Storage

PHP developers can use both the Simple API and the SDK, especially if the tasks are other than storage, but in the future they can expect the Simple API to grow including more and more features. Zend currently recommends caution in using the API in production because it is probably going to change being in early stages.

The interfaces can be easily converted from PHP to another OO language since they were designed that way. It is interesting to see if this project will spawn other similar ones, targeting languages like C# and Java.

1. Back to top

   It's not a cloud.

   by Cameron Purdy

   If it needs an API, then it's not a cloud.
   
   If you have to know that it's a cloud, then it's not a cloud.
   
   If it has an SDK, then it's not a cloud.
   
   Peace,
   
   Cameron Purdy | Oracle Coherence
   coherence.oracle.com/

   Reply

2. Back to top

   Re: It's not a cloud.

   by Abel Avram

   Hi Cameron,
   "If it needs an API, then it's not a cloud." - Correct. API means Application Programming Interface. The cloud is not an application. SDK is also for applications.
   Now, the sentence "If you have to know that it's a cloud, then it's not a cloud." is a bit cloudy, so to speak.
   
   The news post is about an API that provides services for applications. Any application has storage needs, but instead of providing the storage on the local disk or network, the API facilitates the storage in a cloud. So, the API is not used inside the cloud but it is between the application and the cloud. What is great is that PHP developers can use it to work with multiple clouds.
   
   Peace to you, Abel

   Reply

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