[Zope-dev] ZOPE and my domain

[Ken Crismon]

To All,

I have a project I am working on that I need some Zope experts advice
on.

Understand that I am a Zope novice.  I have got it up and running but
have no idea where to start.  I have also started getting smarter from a
Python perspective.

Well here is the question.

I was privy to a presentation on Zope several months ago that was given
to the Front Range Object Study Group (FROST).

I am now in a position where I need essentially an application server.

It is essentially a work flow automation system that during the course
of the work flow we must pull data from various disparate data sources,
publish data to other data sources and update several flat file systems
and wrap the whole shooting match inside of a transaction or as much of
it as we can!!!

Several options come to mind but none except Zope makes me feel good.

Option One: Install NT with Microsoft Transaction Server, write a bunch
of ASP pages with ActiveX components that do all of the work.  The MTS
will manage the transaction as long as I write the guts of the rollback
and commit for the flat file updates!
Con: Its Microsoft and buggy and usually slow!!!

Option two: Purchase Sybase's Jaguar Component Transaction Server and
write the whole shooting match as a bunch of Java components and rely on

Jaguar to manage the transaction in much the same way MTS does.
Con: I worked as a developer on this project for Sybase.  It is less
than stable even in its fourth release!!!

Option three: Purchase IBM's WebSphere app server, write everything in
Java and run it like Jaguar.
Con: Really new to the market and 100% Java so I am worried about
performance!!

Option four: Install ZOPE coupled with Apache or possibly the built in
ZOPE web server.  Here I am confused as to whether Zope can do the
transaction management.
Con: Don't know if it will provide the functionality I require!!

Can Zope coupled with Apache and Python do what I need?

Thanks for the help,

Ken Crismon
MapQuest