Oracle beefs up PHP driver

The enhanced driver, OCI8, allows for server-side connection pooling across multiple Web servers, which Oracle hopes will bring increased scalability, availability and compatibility to applications focused on PHP, the programming language for personal home page development on the Web.

Existing PHP applications--open-source software that lets servers create customized Web pages--will be able to take advantage of the new connection pooling without changing any code.

John Deeb, senior director of product management at Oracle, said OCI8 addresses "the need to scale the number of users that can be online at any point in time, accessing all kinds of data." That need, he added, "has increased significantly, and so has the reliance on technologies like PHP."

This contribution is the latest in a relationship between Oracle and PHP that stretches back more than three years.

Marcus Browne of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.