> Hi guys,

> I am looking for a web application framework that would be most
> suitable for our environment. I do not have extensive web app
> experience as I have mainly been exposed to backend stuff...but we
> will start building a web app soon.

> 1. Isolated data centres. Our DC's are located in different states for
> redundancy and have no internet connections. We connect to them via
> VPN from our Sydney HQ. Just a little background--these servers are
> farmed optimisation servers used for building airline solutions
> (shortest path algorithm stuff).

> 2. Updates are installed manually by resident sys admins in each DC.
> Non-system software are mantained by us (Qantas) from our HQ using  
> VNC/
> SSH. This web app is not to be considered a system app so it will be
> installed in a neutral UNIX user with *no root access*. It is
> *definitely not possible* to request for the web app to be considered
> as system software or request root access due to the complex nature of
> the contracts surrounding these systems. It's between Qantas, IBM,
> Jeppesen (Boeing) and TCS (the company Qanats outsources its IT
> operations). Having these sort of "simple requests" will involve
> General Managers and like I said not possible to go on that route.

> 3. Updates to the web framework will have to be done via SSH...meaning
> download them in Sydney and update manually. This means the framework
> should be stable enough to allow easy manual updates once every 3-6
> months without changing the API too often...and that it has very few
> individual components. I have experience with Pylons and there are way
> too many components to maintain individually to work properly. Modular
> is a must.

> 4. Hopefully will run using lighttpd and Python 2.4. Upgrading Python
> will also be very very difficult. Our optimisation systems are
> dependent on Python 2.4 and doing a mass Python upgrade would probably
> create chaos. At the moment we just do small incremental 2.4 upgrades.
> Cannot go >=2.5.

> Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance.

> Regards,
> Carlo

> Sounds like a perfect candidate for buildout and hostout based  
> deployment. People have used buildout for django, grok, zope based  
> applications. Not sure about pylons but can't see why it would be hard  
> to make a buildout for it as long as it uses eggs and perhaps even if  
> it doesn't.

> Buildout is all about containing an application in a single directory  
> with a non root user and even your own version of python.

> Buildout however does like to access index servers like pypi to  
> retrieve eggs. You can get round this by prepopulating a distribution  
> location with all the eggs you will need and then specifying that  
> location in your find-links. I've also used a proxy server on my ssh  
> client such that eggs could be downloaded via the ssh link. I was  
> considering building that in as an option in hostout.

> ---
> Dylan Jay, Plone Solutions Managerwww.pretaweb.com
> tel:+61299552830
> mob:+61421477460
> skype:dylan_jay

> On 07/07/2009, at 12:14 PM, Carlo Sogono wrote:

> > Hi guys,

> > I am looking for a web application framework that would be most
> > suitable for our environment. I do not have extensive web app
> > experience as I have mainly been exposed to backend stuff...but we
> > will start building a web app soon.

> > 1. Isolated data centres. Our DC's are located in different states for
> > redundancy and have no internet connections. We connect to them via
> > VPN from our Sydney HQ. Just a little background--these servers are
> > farmed optimisation servers used for building airline solutions
> > (shortest path algorithm stuff).

> > 2. Updates are installed manually by resident sys admins in each DC.
> > Non-system software are mantained by us (Qantas) from our HQ using  
> > VNC/
> > SSH. This web app is not to be considered a system app so it will be
> > installed in a neutral UNIX user with *no root access*. It is
> > *definitely not possible* to request for the web app to be considered
> > as system software or request root access due to the complex nature of
> > the contracts surrounding these systems. It's between Qantas, IBM,
> > Jeppesen (Boeing) and TCS (the company Qanats outsources its IT
> > operations). Having these sort of "simple requests" will involve
> > General Managers and like I said not possible to go on that route.

> > 3. Updates to the web framework will have to be done via SSH...meaning
> > download them in Sydney and update manually. This means the framework
> > should be stable enough to allow easy manual updates once every 3-6
> > months without changing the API too often...and that it has very few
> > individual components. I have experience with Pylons and there are way
> > too many components to maintain individually to work properly. Modular
> > is a must.

> > 4. Hopefully will run using lighttpd and Python 2.4. Upgrading Python
> > will also be very very difficult. Our optimisation systems are
> > dependent on Python 2.4 and doing a mass Python upgrade would probably
> > create chaos. At the moment we just do small incremental 2.4 upgrades.
> > Cannot go >=2.5.

> > Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance.

> > Regards,
> > Carlo

> Hi Dylan,

> Buildouts are ok but what I'm concerned about is maintaining the
> underlying environment that runs the egg files. This must be easy to
> rebuild if the servers ever go down. It is possible to deploy sites in
> Pylons using a single egg file but the environment it runs in requires
> too many independent modules to be installed in lib/python. This
> excess fat is something I'm trying to minimise. Problems I've had in
> the past include a small incremental Genshi version change will render
> the whole site inoperable. With 5-15 various modules I need a better
> way to track incompatibilities. As I'm mostly an analyst/programmer I
> do not have time troubleshooting module version conflicts when I'm
> upgrading.

> Regards,
> Carlo

> On Jul 7, 12:33 pm, Dylan Jay <d...@pretaweb.com> wrote:
>> Sounds like it's not really a deployment problem rather than a
>> framework problem.

>> Sounds like a perfect candidate for buildout and hostout based
>> deployment. People have used buildout for django, grok, zope based
>> applications. Not sure about pylons but can't see why it would be  
>> hard
>> to make a buildout for it as long as it uses eggs and perhaps even if
>> it doesn't.

>> Buildout is all about containing an application in a single directory
>> with a non root user and even your own version of python.

>> Buildout however does like to access index servers like pypi to
>> retrieve eggs. You can get round this by prepopulating a distribution
>> location with all the eggs you will need and then specifying that
>> location in your find-links. I've also used a proxy server on my ssh
>> client such that eggs could be downloaded via the ssh link. I was
>> considering building that in as an option in hostout.

>> ---
>> Dylan Jay, Plone Solutions Managerwww.pretaweb.com
>> tel:+61299552830
>> mob:+61421477460
>> skype:dylan_jay

>> On 07/07/2009, at 12:14 PM, Carlo Sogono wrote:

>>> Hi guys,

>>> I am looking for a web application framework that would be most
>>> suitable for our environment. I do not have extensive web app
>>> experience as I have mainly been exposed to backend stuff...but we
>>> will start building a web app soon.

>>> 1. Isolated data centres. Our DC's are located in different states  
>>> for
>>> redundancy and have no internet connections. We connect to them via
>>> VPN from our Sydney HQ. Just a little background--these servers are
>>> farmed optimisation servers used for building airline solutions
>>> (shortest path algorithm stuff).

>>> 2. Updates are installed manually by resident sys admins in each DC.
>>> Non-system software are mantained by us (Qantas) from our HQ using
>>> VNC/
>>> SSH. This web app is not to be considered a system app so it will be
>>> installed in a neutral UNIX user with *no root access*. It is
>>> *definitely not possible* to request for the web app to be  
>>> considered
>>> as system software or request root access due to the complex  
>>> nature of
>>> the contracts surrounding these systems. It's between Qantas, IBM,
>>> Jeppesen (Boeing) and TCS (the company Qanats outsources its IT
>>> operations). Having these sort of "simple requests" will involve
>>> General Managers and like I said not possible to go on that route.

>>> 3. Updates to the web framework will have to be done via  
>>> SSH...meaning
>>> download them in Sydney and update manually. This means the  
>>> framework
>>> should be stable enough to allow easy manual updates once every 3-6
>>> months without changing the API too often...and that it has very few
>>> individual components. I have experience with Pylons and there are  
>>> way
>>> too many components to maintain individually to work properly.  
>>> Modular
>>> is a must.

>>> 4. Hopefully will run using lighttpd and Python 2.4. Upgrading  
>>> Python
>>> will also be very very difficult. Our optimisation systems are
>>> dependent on Python 2.4 and doing a mass Python upgrade would  
>>> probably
>>> create chaos. At the moment we just do small incremental 2.4  
>>> upgrades.
>>> Cannot go >=2.5.

>>> Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance.

>>> Regards,
>>> Carlo

> Here is an example on how to use buildout with pylons.

> http://wiki.pylonshq.com/display/pylonscommunity/Howto+install+Pylons...

> In addition in my talked I gave examples of using pinned versions of  
> nginx, squid, varnish, disutils packages etc with buildout.

> http://www.slideshare.net/djay/buildout-and-hostout-or-how-to-host-an...

> > Regards,
> > Carlo

> > On Jul 7, 12:33 pm, Dylan Jay <d...@pretaweb.com> wrote:
> >> Sounds like it's not really a deployment problem rather than a
> >> framework problem.

> >> Sounds like a perfect candidate for buildout and hostout based
> >> deployment. People have used buildout for django, grok, zope based
> >> applications. Not sure about pylons but can't see why it would be  
> >> hard
> >> to make a buildout for it as long as it uses eggs and perhaps even if
> >> it doesn't.

> >> Buildout is all about containing an application in a single directory
> >> with a non root user and even your own version of python.

> >> Buildout however does like to access index servers like pypi to
> >> retrieve eggs. You can get round this by prepopulating a distribution
> >> location with all the eggs you will need and then specifying that
> >> location in your find-links. I've also used a proxy server on my ssh
> >> client such that eggs could be downloaded via the ssh link. I was
> >> considering building that in as an option in hostout.

> >> ---
> >> Dylan Jay, Plone Solutions Managerwww.pretaweb.com
> >> tel:+61299552830
> >> mob:+61421477460
> >> skype:dylan_jay

> >> On 07/07/2009, at 12:14 PM, Carlo Sogono wrote:

> >>> Hi guys,

> >>> I am looking for a web application framework that would be most
> >>> suitable for our environment. I do not have extensive web app
> >>> experience as I have mainly been exposed to backend stuff...but we
> >>> will start building a web app soon.

> >>> 1. Isolated data centres. Our DC's are located in different states  
> >>> for
> >>> redundancy and have no internet connections. We connect to them via
> >>> VPN from our Sydney HQ. Just a little background--these servers are
> >>> farmed optimisation servers used for building airline solutions
> >>> (shortest path algorithm stuff).

> >>> 2. Updates are installed manually by resident sys admins in each DC.
> >>> Non-system software are mantained by us (Qantas) from our HQ using
> >>> VNC/
> >>> SSH. This web app is not to be considered a system app so it will be
> >>> installed in a neutral UNIX user with *no root access*. It is
> >>> *definitely not possible* to request for the web app to be  
> >>> considered
> >>> as system software or request root access due to the complex  
> >>> nature of
> >>> the contracts surrounding these systems. It's between Qantas, IBM,
> >>> Jeppesen (Boeing) and TCS (the company Qanats outsources its IT
> >>> operations). Having these sort of "simple requests" will involve
> >>> General Managers and like I said not possible to go on that route.

> >>> 3. Updates to the web framework will have to be done via  
> >>> SSH...meaning
> >>> download them in Sydney and update manually. This means the  
> >>> framework
> >>> should be stable enough to allow easy manual updates once every 3-6
> >>> months without changing the API too often...and that it has very few
> >>> individual components. I have experience with Pylons and there are  
> >>> way
> >>> too many components to maintain individually to work properly.  
> >>> Modular
> >>> is a must.

> >>> 4. Hopefully will run using lighttpd and Python 2.4. Upgrading  
> >>> Python
> >>> will also be very very difficult. Our optimisation systems are
> >>> dependent on Python 2.4 and doing a mass Python upgrade would  
> >>> probably
> >>> create chaos. At the moment we just do small incremental 2.4  
> >>> upgrades.
> >>> Cannot go >=2.5.

> >>> Any suggestions are welcome! Thanks in advance.

> >>> Regards,
> >>> Carlo