[Zope] Zope Startup Questions II (Son of Zope)

[Alexander Limi]

Hello again.

Thanks for the answers to my previous mail, the answers were to-the-point
and, as all good answers do, provoked some more questions :)

Without further ado, I give you - the questions:


- Zope DB size
We already have 300 artists, and expect it to come close to 1000 after a
short while. The mp3s should be separated from the main DB, obviously, but
separating bitmaps from the rest of the data is not desirable. However,
with 1000 artists each having - say, 300K of data, one sooner or later
approaches the 2G limit for linux boxes when counting the other content on
the site.

Does anybody know if this is a limitation of the kernel or the FS? And is
it going to be fixed in the foreseeable future?

On a side note, we plan on storing the mp3s on several servers spread
throughout the country, and pass all requests for files to an object that
queries the servers for their individual loads at the moment. Any thoughts
on how to implement this in an elegant way using Zope/Python?


- Backup

How does one perform a backup of a file (data.fs) bigger than 1G without
going offline? Even copying the file to another location to back it up from
there could cause strange behaviour if people are changing details in the
database along the way? Or is there something I haven't understood yet? To
stop the transactions in the DB every time one does a backup (and 2G of
data takes somr time to back up, no matter what solution :)


- Multiple servers

I've seen you mention ZOE in some of the discussions here, but could not
find any information about it on the Zope site. Is this an external or
internal product? What does it do? Any info appreciated.


- And something from the previous mail:

>> 6. This is a bit specific, but anyway: users should be able to write
>> "http://mp3.no/artistname" and be sent directly to the artist with that
>> name. Does Zope have any specific mechanisms for doing this?

Michel wrote:

>Uhm.... yes, but it would require some trickery if you want that
>information to come from, say, a database, but nothing to complicated.

>Otherwise, you can just create a top level folder for each artist.  This
>could get pretty hard to manage however, you might want to consider
>http://site/Artists/artisname

This is not an alternative, simply because people want simple URLs, and
when they want to promote themselves they prefer URLs people remember.
Thus, mp3.no/artistname is important. :)

So, could you explain (roughly) the trickery involved in this?

In addition, we are going to have two classes of users: artists &
listeners, with slightly different needs: Artists should be able to upload
songs, enter text for their webpage etc. The listeners should be able to
have a customized "view" with login/cookie - a kind of "my.mp3.no" (á la
my.excite.com) where they can pick the artists they are interested in,
their own "skin" for the website, notification by email when one of their
favourite artists releases anything and so on.

It would be entirely acceptable for us to have two folders "artists" and
"listeners" with the users in, as long as it is transparent to the users.
Suggestions on how to best solve this in Zope are welcome (seeing as the
Zen is not that strong in us - yet :)

Thanks for your time,


Alexander Limi
MP3 Norway - http://mp3.no