PHP usage for websites is growing fast and the popularity of PHP engine is also proven by Cloudlets.com.au customers, getting 62% among other programming languages due to software stacks statistics of the previous year.

Keep reading this blog post and unleash the main possibilities, chief peculiarities, and winning points of hosting PHP applications with Cloudlets Australia.

PHP Versions

The supported PHP engine versions:

  • PHP 7.4.9
  • PHP 7.3.21
  • PHP 7.2.33

The earlier versions are replicated by the platform automativally.

You can choose the engine version you need while environment creation and easily switch between them afterward via intuitive Jelastic UI.

PHP Application Servers

Two PHP application servers are provided by default and supported by the platform:

  • Apache
  • NGINX

PHP Application Deployment

Zero downtime deployment makes possible to run any cloud-native or legacy application. In order to deliver your PHP projects to the created environment within Cloudlets, you can choose one of the available options:

  • via Archive/URL
  • via GIT/SVN
  • Deploying PHP Bitbucket Project

You can also configure an automatic periodic re-deployment from the repository.

Domains Management

You can bind an external domain name (custom) to your application instead of the default environment domain. This can be done in two ways: using either CNAME or A Record.

With the help of the swapping domains feature, end-users won’t experience any downtime (for example, in case you deploy a new application version). You can stage your new application version in a test environment and consequently swap URLs with a production environment just in a few clicks.

Using multiple domains on a single PHP server increases the application usability, efficiency, and scalability, saving the costs on the necessity to set up separate instances.

Automatic Vertical Scaling

Vertical auto scaling is performed via the platform's ability to dynamically change the number of allocated resources (RAM and CPU) for a server according to its current demands, without manual intervention. Due to this feature you never overpay for unused resources and save time on handling the load-related adjustments or architectural changes.

So to set up automatic resource consumption by your PHP server, you have to open the environment topology wizard and specify the upper scaling limit of cloudlets (each equals to 128 MiB and 400 MHz) via the slider:

Your application will operate within these limits reducing resource consumption when the load is down or increasing them when the load is up. It enables to pay only for the resources that are actually consumed.

Manual Horizontal Scaling

In case you'd like to add some extra PHP servers manually, just click Change environment topology.

Then press the “+” button in the wizard and add the required number of instances.

The maximum number of the same-type servers within a single environment layer is 16 nodes and can be adjusted by sending a request to support.

Note: when you add extra servers, load balancing is enabled automatically.

Automatic Horizontal Scaling

Cloudlets provide automatic horizontal scaling, that can be set up through tunable triggers. These triggers monitor the changes in the application load and, respectively,  increase or decrease the number of nodes.

You can easily set up horizontal scaling - just open Settings > Monitoring > Auto Horizontal Scaling section and press Add button.

Сonfigure the triggers for specific stacks and resources (CPU, RAM, Network, Disk) within your environment separately: just specify the conditions of scaling and apply changes.

PHP Clustering

PHP sessions clustering helps to increase your app's availability and failover capabilities using the sticky sessions, run on several app server nodes. It is ensured by a Memcached node, that should be added to your environment and used as storage for the processed sessions’ backups.

While scaling out PHP server with your deployed application, you get its exact copy with all the same configurations and files inside due to built-in data synchronization.

The cloud hosting platform also provides pre-packaged auto-scalable WordPress Cluster and Magento Cluster available for one-click installation. It is also possible to package any PHP application and automate its clustered installation.

Database Connection to PHP Application

Cloudlets provides a set of scalable and fully manageable database servers that you can easily install and operate within the PHP environment. To establish the connection, adjust your application following the instruction based on the database you require:

PHP Modules

It is also possible to extend the functionality of the environment through setting different PHP extensions at the appropriate application servers. You can either select one of the default extensions and activate it, or upload your own custom one – both these operations are described in the PHP Modules instruction.

Apache PHP and NGINX servers include a particular set of the inbuilt modules. You can use step-by-step guides on configuring the various modules:

PHP Security

SSL / TLS (Secure Sockets Layer / Transport Layer Security) technology is also supported by Cloudlets and ensures that all passed data remains private and confidential, i.e., it can’t be intercepted by a third party.

Besides the common protection methods, you can also level up security of your application via customizing the main PHP configuration file, named php.ini. You can edit a number of default settings it contains or add your own ones.

To set up additional configurations, please follow the required guidance for  your application servers:

One more way to ensure the application protection is using a container firewall feature. It lets control your nodes availability both from inside and outside of the platform.

=========================================================

Cloudlets.com.au is a Cloud Platform in Australia for PHP (for example, WordPress, Magento, etc.), Java, NodeJS, Ruby, Python, Go applications and Docker or Kubernetes provisioning and hosting.

Cloudlets is powered by Jelastic PaaS, a global cloud application platform that makes possible to:

  • Create your project environments in 2 minutes automatically
  • Easily manage applications right in the cloud via intuitive UI
  • Use wide variety of technology stacks and suggest new if it is not yet supported
  • Save hosting costs and pay only for resources in use by your apps
  • Smoothly migrate to the cloud without a need to redesign your applications
  • Scale your projects automatically as applications grow
  • Handle traffic load spikes without downtimes and overpaying
  • Control everything easily with out-of-the-box monitoring of RAM, CPU, network, storage, IO with alert notifications

So that, instead of bothering about infrastructure, complicated customizations, and administration of development environments, you can focus on product creation and the platform will do all the rest.

To try out auto scalable PHP cloud hosting in Australia for free - just register at Cloudlets.com.au (without a neccessity to add your credit card information) and test it for 14 days.