[Zope] Help on hardware configuration for high traffic site

[Carlos de la Guardia]

Hello,

please help me out here. We have a site with the following characteristics:

- Zope 2.5.0, Python 2.1.2, Linux 2.4.7
- Heavily dynamic content, mostly using ZPT with python scripts, Python products and
Zcatalog (65,000 documents with a full text index). No SQL databases.
- 500,000 hits daily average, 45,000 pageviews, peaks at 40-50 requests per second.
- We have Squid in front, but since the site will have user accounts, many pages
which display user specific information cannot be cached.

Currently the site is running on a single PC with 1GB RAM and two
processors. It is doing fine with Squid at the front,  but the thing is we
are about to enable the user account features and don't think the
performance will be adequate.

We are thinking of adding another machine or two behind a switch and use
ZEO to handle Zope calls. Any recommendations or ideas on how to do this
(or not) and what kind of machines to use will be very appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

Carlos de la Guardia
Aldea Systems