Announcing PHP SDK for Windows Azure… and much more!

I’ve just arrived at TechEd India where I’m going to talk about interoperability in my sessions “Build Mission Critical Applications on the Microsoft Platform Using Eclipse, Java & Ruby” and “Developing PHP Applications using Microsoft Software & Services”. In addition to presenting the on-going activities that Microsoft is driving to strengthen interoperability, I’m excited to be able to demo a new set of interoperability projects related to PHP. I’m going to give you a glimpse of these projects in this post for those that are unable to join us in India.

The first PHP interoperability bridge that we’re announcing is the PHP SDK for Windows Azure. This SDK is the result of an open source development project by RealDolmen, for which Microsoft is providing funding. I’d like to personally thank Maarten Balliauw of RealDolmen for his work on the project. The goal of the SDK is to provide high-level abstractions that enable PHP developers to interoperate readily with Windows Azure.

Keep in mind that the Azure Services Platform has been designed to be open, standards-based and interoperable.

The Azure Services Platform’s support for XML, REST and SOAP standards means that any of the Azure services can be called from other platforms and programming languages. To facilitate the interoperability between the Azure Services Platform and non-Microsoft languages and technologies, Microsoft has  provided funding for two other SDK projects that support 3rd party programming languages: Java SDK for Microsoft .NET Services and Ruby SDK for Microsoft .NET Services

The PHP SDK for Windows Azure focuses on REST and provides the following core features: PHP classes for Windows Azure blobs, tables & queues Helper Classes for HTTP transport, AuthN/AuthZ, REST & error management Manageability, instrumentation & logging support

Windows Azure is the foundation of the Azure Services Platform and it includes the services hosting environment for the platform. At MIX 2009, Microsoft announced the inclusion of FastCGI in Windows Azure’s hosting environment. The FastCGI protocol enables developers to run web applications on Windows Azure that were written using 3^rd party programming languages including PHP. This opens up new options for PHP developers to deploy their applications. For example, in the context of the PHP SDK for Windows Azure you have the 2 following options for deploying your PHP web applications:

A Technology Preview of the PHP SDK for Windows Azure will be released by RealDolmen under a “BSD” license. This version of the SDK supports interoperability with Windows Azure blog storage. A functionally complete version of the SDK – additionally supporting tables and queues - is expected to be available from the download project site by the fall of 2009. Of course you're welcomed to try out and provide suggestions & feedback to the project by joining the user forum.

The second piece of announcement, I’m excited to make is the launch of a series of third party projects that offer samples and toolkit that enable PHP developers to easily include in their web applications the following Microsoft technologies:

Projects	Features for PHP developers
Embedding Silverlight in PHP	Include Silverlight controls in PHP web applications
Web Slices and Accelerators in PHP	Include IE Webslices & Accelerators in PHP web applications
SQL CRUD Application Wizard for PHP	Automatically generated a simple “Create, Read, Update, Delete (CRUD)” PHP application from a table in SQL Server
Virtual Earth Integration Kit for PHP	Include Microsoft Virtual Earth maps in PHP web applications

Microsoft is providing funding for a series of projects, of which this first batch have been developed by Accenture. The third party projects are available on Codeplex.com under a BSD license:

• http://silverlightphp.codeplex.com/,
• http://webslicesandaccelphp.codeplex.com/,
• http://sqlcrudphpwizard.codeplex.com/,
• http://virtualearthphpkit.codeplex.com/

More to come; stay tuned and once again I encourage you to take a look. Feedback is very welcomed.

Vijay Rajagopalan, Principal Architect, Microsoft Corp.

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 13, 2009
  PingBack from http://microsoft-sharepoint.simplynetdev.com/announcing-php-sdk-for-windows-azure%e2%80%a6-and-much-more/

• Anonymous
  May 13, 2009
  Vijay Rajagopalan, a Principal Architect here at Microsoft, is at TechEd India, where he will demo later

• Anonymous
  May 13, 2009
  Vijay Rajagopalan, a Principal Architect here at Microsoft, is at TechEd India, where he will demo later

• Anonymous
  May 13, 2009
  History is not often recognized until people much later see the impact of a small series of events. This

• Anonymous
  May 13, 2009
  Con este nuevo SDK, los desarrolladores PHP podrán desarrollar aplicaciones PHP que aprovechan al máximo

• Anonymous
  May 13, 2009
  [Update 13 Maggio 2009] Il 15- 16 Maggio a Verona si svolgerà il phpDay 2009 , evento dedicato a chi

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  Vijay at work at TechEd India :) http://www.flickr.com/photos/baxiabhishek/3530869180/in/photostream/

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  “ We just posted the announcement: Announcing PHP SDK for Windows Azure… and much more! In short we announced

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  Gute Nachrichten für PHP-Entwickler: Nun ist auch ein Software Development Kit (SDK) für PHP verfügbar.

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  Microsoft continues to enhance the interoperability of the Azure Service Platform with the announcement

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  The reason why Free Software or Open Source came in first place was not just an alternative to proprietary technologies, but to offer complete freedom to users and developers. Microsoft has learned nothing yet. Why would I run PHP on Windows? Its more like building a castle in a foundation which is quite unknown. I suggest Microsoft should open source its products before it parish. Don't be an evil Microsoft, you are becoming the most hated company in the world. Wake up and stop these stupid gimmicks. Neil

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  As part of Microsoft’s commitment to Interoperability, this open source project is an effort bridge PHP

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  Hey busy day blogging today about the Microsoft Web Platform today!!!   Check this out, a new SDK

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  Sin duda, hablar de Windows Azure y de la plataforma de servicios Azure es hablar no sólo de aplicaciones

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  Congrats guys! Next step: The Java supports! ;)

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  Check it out - http://blogs.msdn.com/interoperability/archive/2009/05/13/announcing-php-sdk-for-windows-azure-and-much-more.asp

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  May 14, 2009
  As part of Microsoft’s commitment to Interoperability, this open source project is an effort to bridge

• Anonymous
  May 15, 2009
  To Neil - in support to JC Plus, I believe you have to think in the case you’re trying to sell a business solution to a customer that is already using Microsoft technologies. What are you going to do if you develop in PHP but doesn't know how to interoperate. You will lose the business! MONEY This hate you promote does not benefit the customer at all. I do suggest you open your mind to interoperability if you pretend to stay in business, unless you don't need money to survive. The investment Microsoft is doing in interoperability to provide CHOICE is amazing for businesses. They don’t have to go only one way. They have the freedom to chose what’s best for each business scenario. One that does not choose to embrace this move, in my opinion is a person w/o vision and will eventually lose the battle. Either embrace interoperability or prepare yourself to chose another profession. :-) Take care, JP p.s. My thoughts above.

• Anonymous
  May 15, 2009
  Continuando o foco em interoperabilidade, a Microsoft recentemente lançou o SDK do PHP para o Windows

• Anonymous
  May 15, 2009
  Hello Vijay, I attended your session at TechEd and it was the best session I had attended at Teched. Congratultaions. It was a honest & brilliant presentation.  Thanks for talking to us after the session.

• Anonymous
  May 15, 2009
  Nice presentation on PHP Sdk for Azure today Vijay. Really enjoyed your session

• Anonymous
  May 16, 2009
  Thanks for the presentation. As a hosting provider ISV, It was extremely to understand Microsoft's direction and particularly from openness standpoint. PHP SDK for Azure is in the right direction. I will check back in the future for the updated version? Can I asssume, you will PHP SDK for SQL Servervices on Azure as well when it is available? Agrain, Reallly great presentations and demos.

• Anonymous
  May 17, 2009
  eek! If you missed it last week, there is a new PHP SDK for Windows Azure ! For more background on PHP

• Anonymous
  May 17, 2009
  This is excellent news. Where can I get the presentation of Vijay?

• Anonymous
  May 23, 2009
  I attended your session and greatly benefited. In my opinion, it was one of the best sessions at TechEd. Can you please update on the timeline of the Azure SDK?

• Anonymous
  May 27, 2009
  Sandeep, thanks for your feedback on Vijay's session. We are glad you liked it. We expect to have another CTP of the Azure PHP SDK by July 31 2009 followed by a feature complete drop in late August 2009. Please see the "Roadmap" section of the project's home page on codeplex for more details. http://phpazure.codeplex.com/ Thanks.

• Anonymous
  August 14, 2009
  I'm a PHP developer and I enjoy working on the open source scripting language for most part. This is good news! And I'm even more excited that the Microsoft Interoperability Team has now made available PHP Toolkit for Bing Maps Web Service, though not officially supported by the product group.