Requirements and recommendations for the AWS SDK for PHP Version 3

Install cURL 7.16.2 or later

Use a recent version of cURL compiled with OpenSSL/NSS and zlib. If cURL isn’t installed on your system and you don’t configure a custom http_handler for your client, the SDK uses the PHP stream wrapper.

Use OPCache

Use the OPcache extension to improve PHP performance by storing precompiled script bytecode in shared memory. This removes the need for PHP to load and parse scripts on each request. This extension is typically enabled by default.

When running Amazon Linux, you need to install the php56-opcache or php55-opcache yum package to use the OPCache extension.

Uninstall Xdebug in production environments

Xdebug can help identify performance bottlenecks. However, if performance is critical to your application, don’t install the Xdebug extension in your production environment. Loading the extension slows SDK performance considerably.

Use a Composer classmap autoloader

Autoloaders load classes as they are required by a PHP script. Composer generates an autoloader that can autoload the PHP scripts of your application and all other PHP scripts required by your application, including the AWS SDK for PHP.

For production environments, we recommended you use a classmap autoloader to improve autoloader performance. You can generate a classmap autoloader by passing the -o or ==optimize-autoloader option to Composer’s install command.