Scaling PHP using database structures
Sharing session data between multiple servers:
Cold fusion, Network File System, Database, Memcached, Redis, Zend server Cluster Manager, Varnish
Scaling PHP using NFS
Advantages: No changes in the PHP code
Disadvantages: Inefficient, not designed for read / write ratio and poor performance & data corruption
Scaling PHP using database
Session sharing using db
Db: MySQL, Ms SQL Server, Postgre SQL, Oracle, etc.
Advantages
Solves scalability problems, wide installation base and DB is readily available
Disadvantages
Sessions have 1: 1 read / write ratio, connection overhead, performance issues and single point of failure
Scaling PHP using Memcached
Advantages: Can store memory in RAM, high availability, works fast and can be clustered
Disadvantages: No persistent data and ability to create alternate memory when RAM is full
Scaling PHP using Redis
Redis is an open source NoSQL database, networked, in-memory, persistent, journaled, key value data store. Redis supports not only strings, but also updated data types such as lists, sets, sorted sets, hashes and more.
Advantages: Incredibly fast, persistent, reliable and non-blocking
Disadvantages: Custom PHP sessions handler, Not scalable and no high availability
Scaling PHP using Zend Server Cluster Manager
Zend is for large scale PHP deployments; Can build PHP cluster stack incorporating even hundreds of servers
Advantages: Fast, reliable, high availability, Scalable & No changes in PHP code
Disadvantages: Zend server support on each node of cluster
Scaling on cloud hosting
Scaling out
With "cloud-hosting", all of the above steps are redundant and handled internally. If you want to scale out from 1 to 5 servers, you can automatically carry out those 4 steps in just 30 seconds. From the management console you only have to move the scale-slider from 1 to 5 and hit the "Confirm" button. This is called "easy scaling" in our parlance.
Scaling down
Deploying a new version is also easy, you just push a new version via git push and your code automatically gets distributed to all the servers in just 30 seconds.
Scaling on Cloud using Amazon DynamoDB
Amazon DynamoDB is the fully managed NoSQL database service offered by Amazon Web Services – as a scalable session store.
Advantages: Native session handling, Create table to store sessions, easy, fast, high performance, scalable, data storage and data transfer fee applicable depending on size and capacity, designed for read / write ratio with session locking capacity
Disadvantages: SQL database at high abstraction level
Scaling on Cloud using Windows Azure
Successfully manage sessions across multiple instances requires a common data store. Session handling via Windows Azure Table and Blob storage
Advantage: distributed, in-memory, high speed, scalable, secure, read only data, and flexible caching
Disadvantages: No support for SQL Azure store for session handling; reading, writing, and deleting of session data is only slightly more complicated;
Source by Shriram S.