[Zope] performance

Paul Zwarts paz@oratrix.com
Thu, 12 Jul 2001 11:44:37 +0200


Greetings Zopesters,

I'm about to prepare a content system that is interface by HTML and/or
shockwave. A list of coordinates is posted and dated records are read in
from (the decision here) the DBMS or ZopeFolderZClass scheme plotted to
these coords. It happens quite often and it is a multi-user system, to
optimally executing multiplie simultaneous requests are the largest deciding
factor.

What I am wondering is if to build my content hiearchy using Folders with
Attributes on a ZClass schema, or Postgres records with BLOBS contianing the
HTML. What is the performance factor?

A) Zope is single threaded, but capable of decoupling, thus a multi-threaded
dbms will open many threads per user. So 5 users hit the site, 5 threads are
started and Zope will RESPOND back single-threadedly. Yes? (1 point for
postgres)

B) Folder reading doesnt require anymore than Zope, thus there is less
activity as far as dbms threading, so folder reading in per request is
quicker, and more dependent of the servers I/O speed (U2W scsi, RAID,
whooaa!) and the content creation model is easier to tackle to create
objects. (1 point for Folders/Attributes/ZClasses)

These are the two biggest pros and cons but I hope someone like Dieter and
Chris that knows the guts of zope can advise me.

Perhaps a dual-usage schema could be used. Objects are created using
ZClasses and reside in Zope (for crawler indexing and client bookmarking,
and no query strings) and each has its index duplicated in Zope for
application indexing purposes. The actual Zope object wouldnt be requested
until its page was needed, and not its presence in an index. I think that
would be the best of both worlds. Comments, or did I just solve my own
problem?

Thanks as always.
Paz