WAMP is an acronym for the combination Microsoft Windows, Apache, MySQL and one or more of Perl, PHP and Python. It is modelled after the more well-known LAMP, referring to the all-open source/free software approach which uses Linux instead of Windows.

Each element of the WAMP acronym provides an essential layer of functionality:

• Microsoft Windows is the operating system;
• Apache is the web server;
• MySQL is the DBMS (database management system [or, database server]);
• PHP is an object-oriented web scripting language;
• Perl is a powerful, general-purpose, object-oriented scripting language;
• Python is yet another powerful, general-purpose, object-oriented scripting language.

Although the half-humorous acronym WIMP has been floated and occasionally used for a system with Microsoft's IIS as the web server, most IIS setups use the included ASP for scripting and Microsoft's Access or SQL Server for the database, as the open-source MySQL and PHP tend to be more often used with the open-source Apache.

This is a middle ware that sits between the operating system and a platform independent application. This means the an application can be written independent of the Operating System that is to be used.

External Resources

Many WAMP installers can be found on sourceforge.net:

• TSW (The Saint WAMP)
• BigApache
• FoxServ (outdated)
• XAMPP
• XAMPP)
• >e-novative> WAMP