LAMP: The Open Source Web Platform

What Is LAMP?

LAMP is an acronym used to describe an increasingly popular software stack, composed of widely-accepted open source projects:

• L = Linux operating system
• A = Apache web server
• M = MySQL database
• P = PHP/Python/Perl scripting languages

Although the components of the LAMP stack were never designed to work together, they have been used for years by an increasing number of developers to create numerous Web sites. The LAMP components are widely distributed and adopted, included at virtually every ISP and bundled with most Linux distributions, including Red Hat and SuSe.

Who Is Using LAMP?

In the past, LAMP, whether as a whole or as mix-and-match components, was primarily used by large, massively scalable Web sites such as Amazon, Google, Yahoo, and Friendster. Now, LAMP is seeing increasing adoption from enterprise customers, particularly for Wiki and content management solutions. Furthermore, large transactional LAMP applications are already deployed at major companies including Lufthansa, Sabre (Travelocity), Boeing, and Disney.

LAMP components are used more and more widely on their own, as well as in LAMP installations. In just the past year, IBM and Oracle endorsed PHP, Sun announced integration of PHP and Java, and Microsoft included Python as a CLR language. Linux is perhaps the biggest success story among the LAMP components, but the usage of PHP has also grown dramatically over the past five years, as shown in the following chart.

Why Lamp?

For Web applications, LAMP has been proven faster, cheaper, more flexible, and easier than any alternative. There is a strong push to LAMP by vendors ranging from IBM to Oracle to numerous startups and these vendors are adding enterprise-grade capabilities and management to LAMP. There is no question that LAMP is not a passing trend, but now entering the mainstream as a serious contender to J2EE and .NET.

Article from: Developer.com