What's Zend Framework?

Zend Framework is an open-source software framework for PHP5. It has a flexible architecture that lets you build interactive web applications and web services effortlessly. One of its strengths is the highly modular Model-View-Controller design, which makes the code more reusable and easier to maintain and lets you focus on the big picture.

History

Zend Framework was conceived in early 2005 while many new frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails and the Spring Framework, were gaining popularity in the web development community. Zend Framework was publicly announced at the first Zend Conference in October 2005.

Features

• All components are fully object-oriented PHP 5 and are E_STRICT compliant
• Use-at-will architecture with loosely coupled components and minimal interdependencies
• Extensible MVC implementation supporting layouts and PHP-based templates by default
• Support for multiple database systems and vendors, including MySQL, Oracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and Informix Dynamic Server
• Email composition and delivery, retrieval via mbox, Maildir, POP3 and IMAP4
• Flexible caching sub-system with support for many types of backends, such as memory or a file system.

Advantages

• MVC application framework – Zend Framework’s model-view-controller architecture provides an industry best practice for Web application development. It enables the separation of business logic from user interface design.
• Database support- Access multiple brands of RDBMS via a database-independent object-oriented interface. Databases supported include IBM DB2, MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL and SQLite.
• Internationalization – Zend Framework supports advanced yet simple solutions to develop PHP 5 Web applications for a global audience.
• Web services – Use classes to publish and consume Web services and feeds in PHP.
• Foundation Framework services – Zend Framework provides many other classes to make common application development tasks quick and easy. For example, solutions for email, sessions, authentication, logging, caching, filtering input, and others are included.

Built in the true PHP spirit, the Zend Framework delivers ease-of-use and powerful functionality. It implements best practices in connecting the application to databases and networks. And so, it frees the developer to concentrate on user interactions and the business logic behind them.

All in all, Zend Framework provides much required “face-lift” to PHP and facilitates powerful solutions for building modern, robust, and secure websites.