Welcome to the February 2012 edition of the Zend IBM i Newsletter. This is a monthly newsletter dedicated to PHP for the IBM i community.

NOTEWORTHY NEWS

The new face of MySQL on IBM i: Zend DBi

Please give a big welcome to the technology preview release of Zend DBi! Despite Oracle's decision to no longer update or distribute MySQL for IBM Power Systems, it's been clear that there's great demand for MySQL, the most popular database for PHP. As a result, IBM and Zend have partnered once again to provide Zend DBi, the latest distribution of MySQL, packaged and supported on IBM i.

Download the technology preview release of Zend DBi »

Zend Server 5.6 – Hotfix 2!

Make sure you have the latest, greatest, and safest PHP environment! Hotfix 2 for Zend Server 5.6 for IBM i resolves known issues with the demo script pages, spooled file access, and others, as well as including all the fixes from Hotfix 1. Please ensure that you install Hotfix 2 after either upgrading to Zend Server 5.6 or installing from scratch.

Download Zend Server 5.6 for IBM i Hotfix »

UPCOMING EVENTS

WEBINAR: Performance Tuning PHP on IBM i
March 6, 2012 - 9am PST, 12pm EST, 5pm GMT, 6pm CET

In this webinar, Mike Pavlak and guest host Alan Seiden will discuss some of the more fundamental areas that reveal performance bottlenecks. They will explore hardware, software and configuration options that will help your PHP applications fly.

More information »

Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association (WMCPA)
March 20, 2012 - Lake Geneva, WI

The WMCPA Spring Conference will host a wide variety of sessions and a full track of dedicated PHP sessions and special PHP lab sessions.

More information »

RPG & DB2 Summit - a System i Developer Event
March 26, 2012 - Ft. Worth, TX

The Summit will include a special intensive workshop about PHP for IBM i with presentations and lab sections covering the basics of PHP through RPG program calls and database access using DB2 and MySQL.

More information »

Northeast IBM i User Groups Conference (NEUGC)
April 02, 2012 - Framingham, MA

NEUGC will offer 17 sessions on PHP and Web Development given by some of the best speakers in the IBM i community including Jon Paris, Aaron Bartell, and Don Denoncourt.

More information »

WEBINAR: Stored Procedures with PHP and IBM i - Part II
April 12, 2012 - 9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm GMT, 6pm CET

The first webinar explored SQL Stored Procedures and how they get implemented and consumed by PHP running on IBM i. Recording available This follow-up session will explore the creation and usage of RPG programs as stored procedures and how they get implemented in a PHP application running on or off IBM i.

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WEBINAR: Stored Procedures with PHP and IBM i - Part II
May 2, 2012 - 9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm GMT, 6pm CET

This webinar will explore some of the new features that can make data mining or general DB2 usage a breeze. An IBM speaker has been invited to provide some first-hand perspectives of the new DB2 features.

More information »

COMMON 2012 Annual Meeting and Exposition
May 06, 2012 - Anaheim, CA10

Join the largest gathering of the Power Systems user community and take advantage of 10 PHP sessions with topics ranging from introductions to best practices.

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UPCOMING TRAINING

Online trainings offer students the opportunity to learn from expert instructors in 2 hr per day sessions. Courses offer real-life examples and interactive hands-on training to sharpen existing skills and add new ones.

PHP I: Foundations (IBM i /OS Programmers)

This course provides ILE programmers with a solid foundation in the PHP language. This course guides students through the basics of PHP with numerous examples and hands-on exercises, and makes frequent reference to the similarities and differences between the PHP and RPG languages. May 14, 16, 18, 21, 23, 25, 29, 30 & June 1 (English on-line class) from 6-8am PST (1-3pm GMT)

Learn more »