Facebook invents a PHP virtual machine

IDG News Service - Social networking giant Facebook has taken another step at making the PHP Web programming language run more quickly. The company has developed a PHP Virtual Machine that it says can execute the language as much as nine times as quickly as running PHP natively on large systems.

"Our goal is to make PHP run really, really quickly," said Joel Pobar, a Facebook engineering manager. Facebook has been using the virtual machine, called the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), across all of its servers since earlier this year.

Pobar discussed the virtual machine at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) being held this week in Portland, Oregon.

HHVM is not Facebook's first foray into customizing PHP for faster use. PHP is an interpreted language, meaning that the source code is executed by the processor directly. Generally speaking, programs written in interpreted languages such as PHP tend not to run as quickly as languages, such as C or C++, that have been compiled beforehand into machine language byte code. Facebook has remained loyal to PHP because it is widely understood by many of the Web programmers who work for the company.

To keep up with the insatiable user demand, however, Facebook originally devised a compiler, called HipHop, that would translate PHP code into C++, so it then it could be compiled ahead of time for faster performance.

While Facebook enjoyed considerable performance gains of this first version of HipHop for several years, it sought other ways to speed the delivery of the dynamically created Web pages to its billion or so users. "Our performance strategy for that was going to tap out," Pobar admitted.

HHVM is the next step for Facebook. Under development for about three years, HHVM actually works on the same principle as the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). HHVM has a just-in-time (JIT) compiler that converts the human readable source code into machine-readable byte code when it is needed. (The previous HipHop, renamed HPHPc, has now been retired within Facebook.)

This JIT approach allows the virtual machine to "make smarter decisions at runtime," Pobar said. For instance, if a call is made to the MySQL database to read a row of data, the HHVM can, on the fly, figure out what type of data it is, such as an integer or a string. It then can generate or call code on the fly that would be best suited for handling this particular type of data.

With the old HipHop, "the best it can do is analyze the entire Facebook codebase, reason about it and then specialize code based on its reasoning. But it can't get all of the reasoning right. There are parts of the code base that you can not simply infer about or reason about," Pobar said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Facebook invents a PHP virtual machine

IDG News Service - Social networking giant Facebook has taken another step at making the PHP Web programming language run more quickly. The company has developed a PHP Virtual Machine that it says can execute the language as much as nine times as quickly as running PHP natively on large systems.

"Our goal is to make PHP run really, really quickly," said Joel Pobar, a Facebook engineering manager. Facebook has been using the virtual machine, called the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), across all of its servers since earlier this year.

Pobar discussed the virtual machine at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) being held this week in Portland, Oregon.

HHVM is not Facebook's first foray into customizing PHP for faster use. PHP is an interpreted language, meaning that the source code is executed by the processor directly. Generally speaking, programs written in interpreted languages such as PHP tend not to run as quickly as languages, such as C or C++, that have been compiled beforehand into machine language byte code. Facebook has remained loyal to PHP because it is widely understood by many of the Web programmers who work for the company.

To keep up with the insatiable user demand, however, Facebook originally devised a compiler, called HipHop, that would translate PHP code into C++, so it then it could be compiled ahead of time for faster performance.

While Facebook enjoyed considerable performance gains of this first version of HipHop for several years, it sought other ways to speed the delivery of the dynamically created Web pages to its billion or so users. "Our performance strategy for that was going to tap out," Pobar admitted.

HHVM is the next step for Facebook. Under development for about three years, HHVM actually works on the same principle as the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). HHVM has a just-in-time (JIT) compiler that converts the human readable source code into machine-readable byte code when it is needed. (The previous HipHop, renamed HPHPc, has now been retired within Facebook.)

This JIT approach allows the virtual machine to "make smarter decisions at runtime," Pobar said. For instance, if a call is made to the MySQL database to read a row of data, the HHVM can, on the fly, figure out what type of data it is, such as an integer or a string. It then can generate or call code on the fly that would be best suited for handling this particular type of data.

With the old HipHop, "the best it can do is analyze the entire Facebook codebase, reason about it and then specialize code based on its reasoning. But it can't get all of the reasoning right. There are parts of the code base that you can not simply infer about or reason about," Pobar said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Facebook invents a PHP virtual machine

IDG News Service - Social networking giant Facebook has taken another step at making the PHP Web programming language run more quickly. The company has developed a PHP Virtual Machine that it says can execute the language as much as nine times as quickly as running PHP natively on large systems.

"Our goal is to make PHP run really, really quickly," said Joel Pobar, a Facebook engineering manager. Facebook has been using the virtual machine, called the HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM), across all of its servers since earlier this year.

Pobar discussed the virtual machine at the O'Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) being held this week in Portland, Oregon.

HHVM is not Facebook's first foray into customizing PHP for faster use. PHP is an interpreted language, meaning that the source code is executed by the processor directly. Generally speaking, programs written in interpreted languages such as PHP tend not to run as quickly as languages, such as C or C++, that have been compiled beforehand into machine language byte code. Facebook has remained loyal to PHP because it is widely understood by many of the Web programmers who work for the company.

To keep up with the insatiable user demand, however, Facebook originally devised a compiler, called HipHop, that would translate PHP code into C++, so it then it could be compiled ahead of time for faster performance.

While Facebook enjoyed considerable performance gains of this first version of HipHop for several years, it sought other ways to speed the delivery of the dynamically created Web pages to its billion or so users. "Our performance strategy for that was going to tap out," Pobar admitted.

HHVM is the next step for Facebook. Under development for about three years, HHVM actually works on the same principle as the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). HHVM has a just-in-time (JIT) compiler that converts the human readable source code into machine-readable byte code when it is needed. (The previous HipHop, renamed HPHPc, has now been retired within Facebook.)

This JIT approach allows the virtual machine to "make smarter decisions at runtime," Pobar said. For instance, if a call is made to the MySQL database to read a row of data, the HHVM can, on the fly, figure out what type of data it is, such as an integer or a string. It then can generate or call code on the fly that would be best suited for handling this particular type of data.

With the old HipHop, "the best it can do is analyze the entire Facebook codebase, reason about it and then specialize code based on its reasoning. But it can't get all of the reasoning right. There are parts of the code base that you can not simply infer about or reason about," Pobar said.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Google bigger than Facebook, Netflix and Instagram combined

Computerworld - We all know that Google is big, but a study released Monday showing exactly how big Google has become.

Google, and its bevy of services, including Gmail, search, YouTube and Maps, now account for 25% of all Internet traffic in North America, on average, according to Deepfield, an Internet monitoring company that released the data. 25% sounds good but how significant is that in the online world?

To put it another way, Google's bite is bigger than Facebook, Netflix, and Instagram traffic combined, Deepfield said.

Google has made a lot of headway in the last three years. In 2010, Deepfield reported that Google's services accounted for about 6% of Internet traffic.

Deepfield noted that its analysis, which is based on a "large scale" study of Internet backbone traffic across North America, included a wide array of devices that connect to the Internet -- computers and mobile devices, as well as game consoles, home media appliances, and embedded devices, like Xbox 360 and Apple TV.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said he's not surprised that Google has picked up so much steam and now has grabbed a quarter of Internet traffic.

"Google is making good products," he said. "I'd say that Gmail, Youtube, and Maps probably account for much of the increase... But I suppose it's a good sign that less time is spent screwing off online and people are doing something that at least might be productive."

Google could serve as a good example for other Internet companies trying to get a bigger bite of online traffic.

"Look at Google," said Gottheil. "Provide good tools that answer enduring needs. People always need to find information and communicate, and, I guess, watch movies of cats."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.

Read more about Internet Search in Computerworld's Internet Search Topic Center.

Small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud to host their communications capabilities. Learn how enterprise-quality phone benefits, online management, conferencing, auto attendant, and ease of use are built into a system that is half the cost of a PBX.

Read now.

View the original article here

Google bigger than Facebook, Netflix and Instagram combined

Computerworld - We all know that Google is big, but a study released Monday showing exactly how big Google has become.

Google, and its bevy of services, including Gmail, search, YouTube and Maps, now account for 25% of all Internet traffic in North America, on average, according to Deepfield, an Internet monitoring company that released the data. 25% sounds good but how significant is that in the online world?

To put it another way, Google's bite is bigger than Facebook, Netflix, and Instagram traffic combined, Deepfield said.

Google has made a lot of headway in the last three years. In 2010, Deepfield reported that Google's services accounted for about 6% of Internet traffic.

Deepfield noted that its analysis, which is based on a "large scale" study of Internet backbone traffic across North America, included a wide array of devices that connect to the Internet -- computers and mobile devices, as well as game consoles, home media appliances, and embedded devices, like Xbox 360 and Apple TV.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said he's not surprised that Google has picked up so much steam and now has grabbed a quarter of Internet traffic.

"Google is making good products," he said. "I'd say that Gmail, Youtube, and Maps probably account for much of the increase... But I suppose it's a good sign that less time is spent screwing off online and people are doing something that at least might be productive."

Google could serve as a good example for other Internet companies trying to get a bigger bite of online traffic.

"Look at Google," said Gottheil. "Provide good tools that answer enduring needs. People always need to find information and communicate, and, I guess, watch movies of cats."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.

Read more about Internet Search in Computerworld's Internet Search Topic Center.

Small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud to host their communications capabilities. Learn how enterprise-quality phone benefits, online management, conferencing, auto attendant, and ease of use are built into a system that is half the cost of a PBX.

Read now.

View the original article here

Google bigger than Facebook, Netflix and Instagram combined

Computerworld - We all know that Google is big, but a study released Monday showing exactly how big Google has become.

Google, and its bevy of services, including Gmail, search, YouTube and Maps, now account for 25% of all Internet traffic in North America, on average, according to Deepfield, an Internet monitoring company that released the data. 25% sounds good but how significant is that in the online world?

To put it another way, Google's bite is bigger than Facebook, Netflix, and Instagram traffic combined, Deepfield said.

Google has made a lot of headway in the last three years. In 2010, Deepfield reported that Google's services accounted for about 6% of Internet traffic.

Deepfield noted that its analysis, which is based on a "large scale" study of Internet backbone traffic across North America, included a wide array of devices that connect to the Internet -- computers and mobile devices, as well as game consoles, home media appliances, and embedded devices, like Xbox 360 and Apple TV.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said he's not surprised that Google has picked up so much steam and now has grabbed a quarter of Internet traffic.

"Google is making good products," he said. "I'd say that Gmail, Youtube, and Maps probably account for much of the increase... But I suppose it's a good sign that less time is spent screwing off online and people are doing something that at least might be productive."

Google could serve as a good example for other Internet companies trying to get a bigger bite of online traffic.

"Look at Google," said Gottheil. "Provide good tools that answer enduring needs. People always need to find information and communicate, and, I guess, watch movies of cats."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.

Read more about Internet Search in Computerworld's Internet Search Topic Center.

Small and midsize businesses are moving to the cloud to host their communications capabilities. Learn how enterprise-quality phone benefits, online management, conferencing, auto attendant, and ease of use are built into a system that is half the cost of a PBX.

Read now.

View the original article here