LAMP stands for:
- Linux Operating System,
- Apache HTTP Server,
- MySQL database management system,
- PHP programming language
These are the four components LAMP is based on. The term was originated in 1998 by Michael Kunze and has been around ever since, earning plenty of users.
LAMP is a free and open-source approach to web application development. It consists of multiple layers that include an operating system, web server, database, an execution engine, and application framework which supports the layers above it.
Companies like Digg and Facebook have drawn attention to LAMP Stack recently as it is free and it is an open-source web development platform. Web developers prefer LAMP as it easy to deploy and customize.
Understanding LAMP Stack and Its Applications
LAMP is sometimes referred to as LAMP Stack due to its four layers that include an operating system, a web server, a database management system, and a scripting language.
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Apache is a free web server under an open-source license. It works as the LAMP’s web server.
It is the world’s most widely used web server and serves more than half of the websites on the Internet. It works using the HTTP process requests to transmit information.
It offers a secure and extendable web server and allows developers to completely utilize its mature and feature-rich ecosystem.
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MySQL acts as LAMP’s database management system. It is an open-source dbms and stores application data in a format easy for SQL languages to comprehend.
Well-structured business domains, work with SQL as it easily handles large and complicated websites. SQL is the best solution for websites that continually update their content, have a lot of user-oriented content, rely on user’s feedback, and have to store said content.
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PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a programming language and the fourth layer of LAMP Stack. It enables web applications to run smoothly by combining all the elements involved in a LAMP Stack.
Developers cannot completely depend on HTML to build dynamic web pages. This is where PHP walks in. It works well with Apache to pull data out of the database to execute dynamic processes.
PHP is an efficient and flexible language, but sometimes developers use languages like Perl or Python for a LAMP Stack.
LAMP Stack is built in a very classic style with Linux at the base, then Apache, MySQL, and the PHP on the topmost layer, which is actually inside Apache. These four software layers in LAMP Stack enables the web application development platform to maintain the high performance of the website.
How do they all work together?
The process begins once there is a request sent from the user’s browser to the web server, Apache. Then Apache forwards the request to PHP to load the file and run the codes.
Meanwhile, PHP communicates with MySQL to collect any information or data referenced in the code. Once done PHP utilizes the code from the file and data from the database to create an output and display web pages, where it requires HTML.
LAMP Stack is good at processing both static and dynamic pages easily. Once the code is run, PHP forwards the data back to the Apache web server, which is then sent to the browser. The new data is then stored in MySQL.
Linux the operating system makes this interconnectivity possible, as a base supporting the process.
- LAMP Stack’s four layers are all Free and Open-Source Software which means they are free to download, easily available, and help users who want to avoid paying large sums of money to develop their website.
- LAMP Stack has been around for more than a decade, as a result, there are plenty of users who have built modules on the web application development platform. Which helps other developers who may refer to the same modules and save time in development.
- Developers can gain easy access to community support which makes it easier to fix bugs and other issues.
- LAMP Stack has a secure architecture and web application platform that ensures sophisticated encryption in the process of development.
- LAMP Stack provides scalable features in the development of applications and websites.
- It helps simplify the development process and flexibility when compared to other commercial-based products.
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Theta Technolabs is a one-stop IT Solution provider ranging from web development to mobile application development as well as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and IoT solutions.
They use LAMP Stack to deliver detailed solutions with the help of its far extending capabilities. With the help of LAMP Stack, the development team at Theta produce lower-priced e-commerce and trade alternatives while satisfying their diverse requirements and objectives.
The team at Theta is also able to rapidly evolve E-learning design companies that offer their products and services worldwide with software-facilitated E-learning solutions. LAMP STack makes it possible for them to produce interactive E-learning opportunities for educational strategies with its customizable and flexible approach.
Along with this Theta is also capable of developing CRM Solutions, Enterprise Solutions, Customize small-mid scale ERP as well as design and implement customized EHR or EMR computer systems for their clients. Frameworks like Flask, Laravel, WordPress as well as Symphony were easy to use with LAMP Stack.
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Recently, AWS has introduced a new “Serverless LAMP Stack '' which builds PHP applications with Amazon Lambda and API Gateway in place of Apache. It aims to solve the overcoming challenges of horizontal scaling of traditional applications.
This new model separates the application into static and dynamic requests, for example, the dynamic requests are sent to Amazon Lambda’s functions using a custom runtime layer. Then, this server function reads and writes to an Amazon Aurora database which is compatible with MySQL.
As traditional LAMP Stack components are interchangeable, they are not just limited to the original layer of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP which makes it flexible and easily customized to the objectives and requirements. This ability makes the LAMP model be accustomed to free and open-source software as well as benefits from relying on AWS Services.
According to Peter Zaitsev, co-founder, and CEO of Percona and open-source advocate, the AWS model is “the new Very Proprietary Serverless LAMP stack to lock you in forever.”
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Slack used MySQL as a storage engine for all their data from the beginning and used its servers to operate and active configuration.
With this, Slack began as a simple LAMP Stack and their data was stored on three primary database clusters on MySQL which were Shards, Metadata cluster, and Kitchen sink cluster.
LAMP Stack model enabled the web-app to be highly available, provide more product-development velocity, debug problems easily, and as more teams and their users signed up, they could keep up with the growth.
In 2016, Slack faced an issue with storage and collaborated with Vitess and ran its clusters as well as leverage the same storage technology for their new products and solutions. This allowed them to attach a unique database to MySQL and duplicate the data without any interruptions.
LAMP Stack has helped Slack collaborate with various industries and provide solutions as required by their business functions. Today, they serve over 2.3 million QPS (queries per second) at the peak, 2 million of which are reads and 300k are writes.
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The free online encyclopedia runs on LAMP Stack which is powered by MySQL database. Alexa has announced it to be the tenth busiest site.
The number of subjects and topics covered on this website will require a stronghold on the database and management of the same as well as an efficient web application development platform. The website has developed its own application Load Balancer which increases the flexibility and efficiency in database usage.
Wikipedia utilizes sharding for the vertical and horizontal partition of data according to data segments, tasks, time. It needs quick and efficient solutions to resolve the queries within seconds and that is where the LAMP stack plays an important role.
Wikipedia is built on the platform Wikimedia and runs different other dwarf websites as well. Wikimedia runs on multiple servers which include LAMP Stack, Lucene, Memcached, etc.
Its three physical data centers are in Tampa, Amsterdam, and Seoul that handle 3 Gbits of data traffic, across 350 servers from clusters in 3 different countries.
Wikipedia depends on LAMP components for the website, as a result, there are over 8 million articles spread over hundreds of language projects. The site has an exponential growth which is doubling every four to six months in terms of visitors, traffic, servers, etc.
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Solspace and its LAMP Stack's solution
Solspace’s client Pratt Institute needed to allow its users who were logged into their ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) server to easily move through it and their ExpressionEngine CMS driven website. The issue arises when Pratt users visited a protected website on the CMS, while logged in to the ADFS account, they would just get to where they were going seamlessly.
Solspace is primarily a LAMP Stack development agency. Here, their solution SimpleSAMLphp configuration needed to correctly declare the definitions of the service provider.
They were able to leverage Microsoft Azure to create a reliable dev environment which enabled them to isolate variables and the problems that arose. Microsoft and LAMP Stack are different from each other, although the flexibility of LAMP Stack allowed them to build a custom module for Pratt’s website which connected to their ADFS identity system.
Conclusion
Once you go through this article you may have a better understanding of LAMP Stack and its web applications. It has proven to be a secure and stable platform for website development and has also adapted itself by collaborating with various other solutions.
In the above applications, we learned how LAMP Stack is easy to customize according to available resources. It is interchangeable with other open source solutions and simplifies the development process.
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