PHP Optimized for Windows Server 2008

Stony Stevenson writes "It used to be that popular PHP applications would run more poorly on Windows Server than on a Linux or Unix servers, for which PHP had been optimized. Specialist in the PHP language Zend Technologies now says that's no longer the case. The Zend Core commercially supported form of PHP has been certified by Microsoft as ready to run 'with performance and stability' on Windows Server 2008, said Andi Gutmans, co-founder and CTO of Zend. Previously, PHP 'didn't run as well as it should on Windows,' said Gutmans, despite the fact that 75% to 80% of PHP users were developing on Windows workstations."

Nothing to do with optimization

[dedazo]

PHP on IIS5/6 had to run as a CGI application, because their ISAPI handler implementation was historically crappy and unstable under load. CGI under the thread-oriented (as opposed to process-oriented in *nix) pipelining model of Windows was usually not a good performer. IIS7 introduced FastCGI, which is what Zend used to "certify" PHP to run on Server 2008. But FastCGI is not an optimization, it's a new execution mode for IIS. Nor was PHP modified (AFAIK) in any way to run effectively on FastCGI. Python apps also run very well on it (which personally is more exciting to me than PHP).

Marketing

[LingNoi]

Meh, I wouldn't believe Zend. They're in corporation with Microsoft to provide better interoperability... They're not going to go into a deal with Microsoft and then say, "Still sucks on Windows server" are they?

Surely it should also run better on all windows servers so why just 2008? Unless they're trying to find reasons for you to upgrade..

Re:FastCGI != Apache Module

[theGreater]

Furthermore, FastCGI under IIS (haven't tried with anything newer than 2003r2/IIS6) isn't fully compatible with at least one popular application that I can think of.

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/150672 [wordpress.org]

-theGreater's $0.02.

Re:It ain't no workstation...

[jfbilodeau]

You mean there's a difference between Windows as a workstation and Windows as a server beyond price? Oh, and the crippling of a couple of services?

Maybe I should become one of the 75% to 80% of PHP developers who use this 'Windows' thing and see the difference myself.

Re:Why not Apache?

[jfbilodeau]

Agreed.

In 2004-05, I wrote a PHP application for a client. We had agreed ahead of time that the app would be written in PHP. Upon delivery, everything worked great on the test (WIMP) server that I set up myself. When the technician was called in to put the application in production, he said no problem. I should point out that the fellow is a hard-core and experienced MCSE.

A month later, the application was not installed. I called the technician to find out what was happening, and I was given the story of being too busy. I offered to do it myself, but they would not agree to that. The tech promised to install it ASAP.

A week later, still nothing. Called again. After I pressed the technician as to why he would not install it, the answer he gave we what that 'installing foreign application like Apache & PHP may destabilize the server ecosystem.' According to him, it should have been written in ASP(.Net).

What a wonderful Microsoft-ish answer. He finally agreed to install PHP after I pointed out that PHP CAN run on IIS.

The FUD and BS that MS crams down their MCP just makes my blood boil. Disclaimer: I _was_ a MCP and MCT, so I know the type of stuff Microsoft feeds.

The appplication works. It still being used today by dozens of offices across Canada (coast-to-coast). And as far as I know, the maintenance has been near 0.

Most of my applications are LAMP, and the maintenance time/cost has been near 0.

Re:FastCGI != Apache Module

[pdxp]

PHP used to also ship as an ISAPI module, but it did pretty much the same thing that the CGI did- reload the interpreter for every single request. I'm not sure why they bothered with FastCGI when it would've required about the same amount of effort to write an ISAPI extension. It might have to do with the fact that PHP's source code was more spaghetti-like than any PHP code one could dream up, and not trivial to follow or modify.

It would be interesting to compare the performance to that of Python [insert framework name here] on Windows, both the ISAPI version [sourceforge.net] and the FastCGI version [python.org].

Re:It ain't no workstation...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am using Windows Server 2008 as a gaming platform because of the fact it installs so little stuff by default as well as having a good set of network tools.

Historically, MS server OSes have been solid. I have been using them instead of desktop OSes since NT 4.0. Client operating systems have more bells and whistles, but gewgaws such as media centers and other stuff are useless to me unless on a dedicated machine.