Zend has just announced their latest partnership with RightScale, a leader in cloud computing management, to provide you with a new Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering. This is not just your typical PaaS, though, this will provide a “solution for deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications with high availability, elasticity and portability in the cloud.”

What does this mean for your cloud dreams? Fast onboarding for one thing. According to Michael Crandell, the CEO and a founder of RightScale, a typical cloud deployment takes 4-6 weeks, but with RightScale, it is less than 30 minutes to launch an entire cluster, which is an enormous advancement.

Another major benefit is auto-scaling, both up and down. RightScale has a management system that constantly watches what happens on the system, and when load is high enough, it will automatically spin up a new server on Amazon with Zend on top. It then notifies Zend, which deploys your app, and once everything is stable, notifies the load balancer at RightScale to begin use. Done. How long does this process take? According to Zend’s Andi Gutmans, this whole process will take less than a minute. Scaling down takes a minute or two longer as open sessions need to be handled gracefully, but all in all, very quickly.

RightScale currently supports Amazon EC2, but will be adding support for Rackspace Cloud and Cloud.com as well.

So how much will this all cost? Kent Mitchell, Director of Product Marketing at Zend, says this will cost about $2400 per month for a typical configuration which will contain 3.1 PHP servers (the .1 server gives you some flexibility for scaling or for creating a temporary dev environment) along with two MySQL Servers, one Zend Server and two load balancing servers. The price goes down if you pay in advance instead of month-to-month, and customized set ups are available based on need with custom pricing. The cost of scaling, both up and down, will also affect the price, but when paying in advance, you create a pool of servers which allows you some flexibility in having more servers one month and fewer another.

To learn more about this new advancement in PHP and cloud computing, there is an upcoming webinar:
Introducing “PaaS in a Box” – Scalable, Flexible, Portable PHP in the Cloud
Thursday, April 28th, 11am PST.

[Update Apr 20, 01:52 to add a clarification about the kind of servers included in the typical configuration.]

Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 will soon be available (release is currently scheduled for early May) to the PHP development community. Version 4.5, though, is not just the latest version of Flash Builder, it is the beginning of a partnership between Zend and Adobe. Flash Builder 4.5 is under the Adobe umbrella, but will come with Zend Studio 8 bundled in and will have the full backing of Zend. You will now be able to create mobile applications using the Adobe Flash platform and PHP in one integrated application. Both Flash Builder and Zend Studio have been built on the Eclipse platform, so you will be able to build Flex and PHP side-by-side.

So what’s so great about that? According to Andi Gutmans of Zend, having the two programs bundled together will provide a seamless experience end-to-end, creating apps deployable to Android devices with support for iOS and Blackberry devices shipping within 60 days. Even though this is not a pure “write-once-deploy-everywhere”, this will save considerable time and resources. Instead of three completely separate apps for the three separate platforms, you will be able to use one code base within Flash Builder to deploy natively to all three mobile platforms and the web. Dave Gruber of Adobe estimates there will be upwards of 70% code reuse across all platforms (mobile and web).

And the best news beyond that is integrated debugging. Flash Builder 4.5 will be able to handle debugging for all your platforms – desktop, IDE, server-side PHP and device – all in one session.

Everything described above will be available for Windows (XP SP3 or higher) and Mac OS (OSX v10.6 or higher). See the Adobe website for the full list of requirements. The Standard version of Flash Builder 4.5 will cost $399 USD. There will also be a Premium version for $799 USD which will also include memory and performance profilers, a network monitor, and a unit testing harness to connect to major unit testing frameworks. Both the Standard and Premium versions will be available for sale through either Adobe or Zend. There are company-specific upgrades available as well. If you already have Flash Builder, upgrades are available for both versions for $299 USD through Adobe’s website. Current Zend Studio users can contact the Zend Sales team to receive discounted pricing on upgrading to Flash Builder.

As you probably know, training is one of our main areas of focus here at php|a. It’s not just because we believe that a knowledgeable developer is a happy developer, but also because we’ve been on both sides of the fence, and we know how difficult (and expensive) it is to find a good training program.

That’s why on Tuesday we launched a new initiative called php|architect Live!—a full-day, in-person training course that gives you practical and in-depth knowledge of a specific topic.

But there is more: we don’t want our Live! events to be “just training courses.” We want them to be intimate learning experiences. Forget the sterile environment of a dedicated classroom—our training courses take place in comfortable, relaxing environments. You’ll be working on your own laptop, with our instructors guiding you through lots of hands-on exercises.

Our first date is in Austin, TX, on April 20th, when our own Keith Casey will be teaching the ins and outs of Object-Oriented Programming for PHP—from the basics to the more advanced concepts.

Best of all, the entire training costs just $250, (including lunch, breaks, and Wi-Fi connectivity)—because we don’t believe that training should break the bank.

What’s the catch, you ask? Simple: there are only twenty seats available—which is why, if you’re in the Austin area, you should head out to grab your ticket now, before they’re all gone.