Zend Announces General Availability of Zend Framework 2

New Version of World’s Leading Web Application Framework Provides Best in Class Building Blocks to Develop Next Generation Web Apps

Cupertino, Calif. – Sept 6, 2012 – Zend, the PHP Company, today announced the release of version 2 of Zend Framework, the leading PHP application framework. Zend Framework continues to be one of the world's most successful open source projects, providing re-usable code and best practices that developers can use to create modern, high-performing web applications. The framework is already in use at thousands of companies including Cisco WebEx, BNP Paribas, BBC, CaringBridge, Allied Beverage, Shaklee, and many others.

A Community Approach

The heart and pulse of Zend Framework is its vibrant and active contributor and user base. With recent changes to the license and moving the project to the popular GitHub open source collaboration service, contributions to Zend Framework have continued to increase, with more than 600 developers contributing to this version. Community members contributed more than 13,000 commits including a number of key features such as the module manager and security tools.

Modern, flexible and mature

"When planning Zend Framework 2, our greatest asset was the amount of feedback we had from the immensely successful Zend Framework 1", said Zeev Suraski, Zend CTO.  "We've learned many lessons – both on what we did right and on what we could have done better. The result is a modern, flexible framework that builds on the solid foundation of one of the most successful PHP projects while taking advantage of the latest advancements in PHP."

"We’ve completely rewritten Zend Framework to simplify the process of architecting for different workflows," said Matthew Weier O'Phinney, Zend Framework Project Leader. "Now enterprises can seamlessly re-use functionality between different applications and sites using ZF2's modular building blocks. We've also added important new security features. Lastly, and most importantly, our community continues to build and improve on ZF2, making what is already the most enterprise-capable PHP framework on the market even better."

Improved modularity and workflow

Zend Framework 2 was built from the ground up with modularity in mind. The new ModuleManager provides a way to write a module once and reuse it in any Zend Framework application simply by dropping the module into the project tree.  In addition, new components such as the ServiceManager and EventManager provide a foundation for building flexible, configurable workflow applications that can trigger and react to specific business needs. This event-driven and modular design makes developing and enhancing Zend Framework 2 applications simpler and faster, allowing developers to deliver projects more quickly.

New Generation of Security 

With enterprise IT systems facing increasingly complex attacks, preventing attacks before they happen is crucial. Zend Framework 2 provides the tools for achieving these goals: state-of-the-art cryptography aimed at protecting sensitive data, including passwords; default SSL certificate verification in the HTTP client to prevent "man in the middle" attacks; and a variety of measures to prevent various XML document attack vectors. Finally, a new Escaper component provides a best-in-breed approach to context-specific escaping mechanisms aimed at preventing malicious redirects and code injections.

Integrated with Zend Server

Zend Framework is also available as an integrated component of Zend Server, the #1 application server for business critical PHP applications. Used together with Zend Server, Zend Framework has a proven history of running high usage business applications in some of the largest companies in the world, including BNP Paribas, one of the world’s largest banks.

Zend Server is the only application server designed to support Zend Framework apps that provides the runtime scalability, application monitoring, troubleshooting, and fault tolerance necessary for a corporate environment. Zend Server also includes complete support not only for the core open source PHP stack, but also for Zend Framework. Learn more about Zend Server.

Where to find Zend Framework 2

Starting today, users can download Zend Framework 2 on the Zend Framework site. In addition, developers can get full access to all of the features of Zend Server with Zend Framework 2 on the Zend Developer Cloud, a free, cloud-based development environment. To try outZend Developer Cloud

Where to learn more about Zend Framework 2

The PHP 2012 Conference (ZendCon) in Santa Clara from October 21-25 provides one of the best opportunities to attend in depth training on Zend Framework.  ZendCon offers a multi-day track with 15 in depth sessions and tutorials on Zend Framework. Topics include Zend Framework 2 modules, the new router, internationalization, forms, building ZF2 apps, going mobile, design patterns and more. For more information visit http://zendcon.com/sessions/?tid=2622.

Additionally, Zend is already offering online ZF 2 training at http://zend.com/training

To learn more about Zend Framework 2 and how to get started, developers can attend a free webinar hosted by Matthew Weier O'Phinney, project lead, on September 12, 2012 at 9:00am PDT/12:00pm EDT/5:00pm BST/6:00pm CEDT. To register, go tohttp://www.zend.com/en/company/news/event/1112_webinar-getting-started-with-zf2

About Zend Technologies 

Zend partners with businesses to rapidly deliver modern apps across mobile and cloud. Founded in 1999, Zend helped establish the PHP language, which today runs more than one-third of the world’s Web sites. Today, Zend is the leading provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical applications in PHP. Zend’s award-winning PHP solutions including Zend Server and Zend Studio are deployed at more than 40,000 companies, including NYSE Euronext, BNP Paribas, Bell Helicopter, France Telecom, and other leading brands worldwide. Learn more at www.zend.com.

 

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