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Virtual Appliances: LAMP development made easy
From Federico Cargnelutti
Contents |
Introduction
The LAMP stack of open-source software, which includes the Linux operating system, Apache Web server, MySQL database, PHP and Python, has pushed its way into mainstream corporate software development. In this article I will show you why the LAMP platform has become the platform of choice for the development and deployment of high performance Web applications.
To get a LAMP development environment fired up without the hassles of configuring everything from scratch you only need one thing, a Virtual Appliance.
What is a Virtual Appliance?
A Virtual appliances is a pre-built, pre-configured, ready-to-run enterprise applications packaged with an operating system inside a virtual machine (I'm using Ubuntu 8.04). Virtual appliances are changing how Web applications are developed, distributed, deployed and managed, and they have many obvious benefits for developers.
Reasons for using a Virtual Appliance
- For developing and testing Web applications on multiple platforms.
- For quickly rolling back changes to a known state or creating a “read-only” environment.
- For internal deployment of custom Web applications.
- For customer demos during the sales process.
- For training employees and customers.
- For creating a flexible and open development environment whilst keeping the primary OS compliant with a locked down IT policy.
Now that you've learned about the benefits of using a virtual appliance, it's time you try it out and experience it yourself.
Getting Started
Set up a development environment
- If you don't already have a VMware virtualization solution installed, download VMware Player for free.
- Download a virtual appliance: Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop (568 MB) or Ubuntu 8.04 Server (256 MB).
- Unzip the ZIP file and double-click the .vmx file.
Install Software
- Install the LAMP stack. In Ubuntu 8.04 you can use Tasksel:
$ sudo tasksel install lamp-server
If you need help configuring Apache, visit this page.
- Install the Zend Framework package. With the release of Hardy, the Ubuntu repositories now include a package for the Zend Framework, so you can have just one copy of the library on your server that is automatically updated.
$ sudo apt-get install zend-framework
This will install the Zend Framework in:
/usr/share/php/libzend-framework-php
Have fun
Enjoy your new Virtual Appliance, and welcome to the wonderful world of LAMP!