When it comes to your Internet, you probably already know that PHP is a necessary component. What you may not understand, however, is that most web services these days something called PHP clustering is equally important. Read on to find out more and why this is.
To put it simply, PHP clustering is when many computers are all working toward the same goal. This is generally seen in things like networks working to render graphics or in protein folding, but there are countless other examples. However, when it comes to the Internet, this means multiple servers that work to provide users with a single website or some other kind of service.
Like I said, that’s the very simple version. In practice, it often becomes much more difficult which is when errors can occur. Often times differing opinions on what clustering really means is at the root of the problem.
In order to make sense of this and avoid problems, load balancing is often applied. In doing so, a master node is put in charge of accepting requests over the web. It then funnels these requests to a vast amount of servers that then process them.
However, in order for this to work, user sessions need to be shared across the entire network. With PHP, all information related to the session is stored on a single file system.
One of the easiest ways to accomplish all this is through a Network File System. It shares one central location for everything and lets the clusters organize around it as well.
Though this may seem complicated, it doesn’t have to be and further technology will evolve to simplify things. The important thing to understand is that modern Internet access takes more than just a PHP.