Yes, I know. A bit of a pun. "Little LAMP" is, of course, a play on "Little lamb". Mary had the latter, Exclusive-IT offers the former.
So, what is Little LAMP? That’s simple. It is our server software that we use to turn any Linux server into a solid, hardened, portable, scalable, flexible multi-tenant LAMP stack server, with strict tenant isolation and information security as the top priority.
And now I hear you thinking, "Did you just insult me?" No, certainly not. It was a mouthful, I admit, but let me break it down:
- Software to set up a web server.
- LAMP stands for Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP.
- Little LAMP, because it is designed for 1 to 100 users.
- It runs fine on Azure or AWS, but it is not built for large-scale hosting with thousands of users per server.
- It is, however, very suitable for on-premise servers within an enterprise network.
- It also works perfectly fine on an internet-facing VPS rented by an SME.
- It can even be used as a solution by start-ups or medium-sized hosting providers.
Before we continue, I know there are IT professionals reading this, so a side note for them. Yes, LAMP stack. You heard that right. For a while, there was a bold attempt to push businesses toward alternative stacks. Node.js with pure JavaScript, and Nginx as an Apache replacement, and the list goes on. But after a few turbulent years of experimentation, the industry has largely returned to the familiar and trusted LAMP stack. The supposed downsides of the past have long been resolved, and its maturity and strength remain unmatched. After all these years, it is still going strong.
Let me also point out, especially for the pros, that every one of those alternative explorations brought value. Absolutely, Node.js earned its place, just like Nginx and all the other detours. But each belongs in its own context, and at the right time. These technologies helped wake up the giants, and in some areas, they still lead the way. Take WebSockets in Node, for example, which enable stateful HTTP instead of stateless. Perfect for real-time, efficient communication. In any case, the giants woke up, got to work, and the LAMP stack is back in fashion. The proof lies in the fact that global businesses are once again building on it and relying on it.
Anyway, back to the point. We use Little LAMP internally at Exclusive-IT across various servers, from intranet applications to internal staging environments. It has also been hardened by our Forendox division into a stack that survives the modern open internet, with all the bots, port scanners, and other lovely threats of today's world. To put that in perspective, a custom-built stack can often be breached and taken over within minutes. And even some relatively pricey images in major cloud marketplaces turn out to be less hardened than expected.
But beyond that, Little LAMP is simply a neat piece of software, a folder of files, less is more, that makes it easy to transform a new or existing server into a robust LAMP stack server. Because while in-place OS upgrades are nice, sometimes you just want a clean install or a new image. And you do not want to spend hours or days on installs and configs. You want to copy over one folder with everything in it, run one script to flip the box, and move on. We all have more important things to do in a day.