Zend Technologies' Zend Studio 4 Used for Key NASA Project; Lockheed Martin and Zend to Present NASA Project at MySQL User Conference.

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP company, and creator of products and services supporting the development, deployment and management of PHP-based applications, today announced that Zend Studio 4 will be utilized for ongoing development of frameworks to support NASA space exploration by Lockheed Martin. Specifically, Zend Studio 4 is being used as a critical component in the development of the Online Project Information System (OPIS) project supporting astrobiologists at NASA. OPIS is a database which will be a sophisticated central repository of information for advanced life support systems developed for space travel.

An OPIS/NASA representative will join Zend Technologies in a presentation of this application development process at the MySQL User Conference, being held April 18-21 in Santa Clara, California.

"Any application being developed for use within NASA is considered mission-critical," said Rich Morrow, the OPIS technical lead. "Likewise, any development or deployment solutions used in the creation of these projects must be enterprise-grade. Zend Studio enabled us to get to the implementation phase of OPIS within a very short period of time, while also easily dealing with complexities in the architecture, workflow and management of the OPIS system."

The OPIS project development required an iterative Rapid Application Development (RAD) approach to support the complexities in the architecture, workflow, and management of the OPIS application. The OPIS team used Zend Studio to create an object-oriented code generation framework, which iteratively builds off of a MySQL data model. This framework, coupled with the Zend IDE, accelerated the iterative process and allowed the team to more quickly develop and implement the application.

"Zend Studio 4 has proven to be a key element in enabling development of the OPIS application quickly and effectively," said Julie Levri, OPIS principal investigator, NASA Ames Research Center. "With the aggressive schedule of the NASA Exploration Vision, our team needs fast, nearly bullet-proof development tools. Having PHP development solutions like Zend Studio is a critical factor for successfully deploying our system, so that mission designers can access the data they need."

MySQL User Conference

The Zend/OPIS project will be featured in the presentation entitled "Developing MySQL applications in PHP using Zend Studio - A NASA Case Study" at the MySQL User Conference being held in Santa Clara April 18-21. The presentation will include specifics about the OPIS project challenges and will outline Zend Studio's role in addressing those complexities.

Presenting for the OPIS team will be Mike Ho, an independent consultant working for Lockheed Martin Space Operations, and contracted by NASA. Ho's current work includes developing frameworks and automation solutions to help improve the inefficiencies found in the IT software development lifecycle. Presenting for Zend Technologies will be Michel Gerin, senior director of product marketing, responsible for the Zend Studio product line.

About OPIS

The Online Project Information System, or OPIS, is an advanced database which will be used by NASA's Advanced Life Sciences Researchers, Managers, and Analysts to report and track progress, and compare and choose technologies to be used on space exploration missions. Examples of OPIS information include advanced life support systems to keep humans alive in future space missions, such as recycling air, treatment of waste, food production, water systems and more.

About Zend Technologies, Inc.

Zend Technologies, Inc., the PHP company, is the leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications. Zend and its founders are the architects of PHP, which is used by more than fifteen million Web sites and has quickly become the most popular language for building dynamic web applications. Deployed at more than 8,000 companies worldwide, the Zend family of products is a comprehensive platform for supporting the entire lifecycle of PHP applications. Zend, headquartered in Cupertino, California, is privately held and venture funded with investments from Azure, Index, Intel Capital, Platinum, SAP Ventures and Walden Israel. For more information, please visit www.zend.com, or call 1-408-253-8800.

Zend, Zend Technologies, Zend Store, Zend SOS, Zend.com and/or the logos and icons associated with each of these names are trademarks of Zend Technologies, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.