What's New in Zend Server

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What's new in Zend Server 5.0.2

Video Procedures

Watch a video that shows the steps to complete a procedure. The video icon will be displayed next to procedural steps that already have a video.

You too can ask for videos that you would like to see by sending a link to documentation@zend.com.

Code Tracing?

Code tracing captures PHP application execution both in production and in test lab environments. This allows developers to replay reported problems instead of trying to re-create them. As a result, there is a dramatic decrease in time consumed by root cause analysis.

Zend Server captures the full execution of the application in real-time – in production or in the test lab – so root cause can quickly be identified.

Benefits  - Finding root cause can often be challenging during testing, and incredibly difficult when the application is running in production. Trying to reproduce the exact environment, application state, and server load in the development lab is both time-consuming and error-prone, thereby taking developers away from their most important task – writing code.

Workflow - The trace displayed in the Zend Server web console functions like a DVD player, showing the recorded execution history of the application. Users can follow the footsteps of a single problematic request in order to quickly pinpoint the root cause of the problem.

1. Manual Workflow - The code tracing of a single request can be generated manually through the code tracing page in Zend Server (Monitor | Code Tracing) (Figure 1). By executing a request, the full application execution is captured and stored in a trace file. The captured trace data can undergo collaborative reviewed leaving no need for developers and test engineers to pore over the symptoms of the defect and no room for misinterpretation of the events leading up to the error.
2. Event Monitoring Workflow - Code tracing in Zend Server has very low performance overhead. This therefore enables its use either while running a load test in the lab or while running in production.

By leveraging the Zend Server event monitoring mechanism, code tracing can save trace data only when a problem occurs. For example, when the performance of a checkout process in a web application drops below a predefined threshold, Zend Server can send an alert and capture the entire execution of the poorly performing request. The combination of knowing that a problem has occurred, while recording the entire execution flow, allows for quick identification and correction even before other users may notice.

Job Queue

Job Queues provide offline asynchronous processing of tasks and activities that can be run independently of the end user experience. For an overview of the Job Queue architecture see Zend Job Queue.

PHP 5.3

New supported PHP version. This release is a major improvement in the 5.X series, which includes a large number of new features and bug fixes. For a detailed list of what's new see http://php.net/releases/5_3_0.php.