Hi Bill: Bill Barnes wrote:

My plan for my manufacturing client of 10-20 nodes was to use Linux as a server to Applixware clients coupled to Sybase. Am I to understand that I can use Zope to put an extensive library of applications (accounting, order entry, inventory, etc) on my website that will be available to my client's enterprise, and, better yet, available to other clients, as well.

Yes.. of course, you'll have to develop these applications! :^) If I read this correctly it sounds like you want to be a mini-ASP (Application Service Provider). There is a lot of activity (marketing and real :^) in this area now!

What about performance? Will the database be on my client's hardware or on my website? Reviewing the installations list, I didn't see anything that approached enterprise class operations. Is the system that robust?

The client need only be a web browser. The database (ZODB) is colocated with the Zope server process. It's likely in a manufacturing scenario that you'll be integrating relational data as well (e.g., from Oracle/Sybase). The RDBMS server can run on any machine -- though for obvious reasons it should be topologically close to the Zope server. Performance is a hard thing to measure because of all of the variance in testing methodologies. So, take the following with a grain of salt. "Moderately" complicated Zope apps can do ~1M hits per day on garden variety hardware (P3 450). More hardware usually means more hits. With respect to enterprise class applications -- we (Digital Creations) have developed an app for a customer that they use to publish inventory and backorder levels from a 9TB (yes, TB) Oracle inventory and parts database worldwide. It's been up for over two years. However, there are a lot of folks on this list that are running their entire businesses on Zope. Regards, --Rob