[Twisted-Python] Why Zoteca Uses Twisted

Itamar Shtull-Trauring twisted at itamarst.org
Mon Dec 24 07:53:37 EST 2001


1 Twisted

1.1 Open Source Advantage

Zoteca believes that Open Source software provides a considerable
business advantage. Many parts of any software platform
are generic, and not restricted to the task at hand. Using
Open Source software for these components allows us to concentrate
R&D resources on our core competencies and proprietary advantages,
while still using an underlying technology that is unparalleled
in terms of cost, flexibility, scalability and robustness.

1.1.1 Open Source Saves Money

The costs for development for Open Source components is spread
out over a number of organizations and multiple developers.
As a result, for every person-year of investment on our
part, we receive tens of person-years of development in
return, at no additional cost.

1.1.2 Open Source is Flexible

Open Source development allows us to cooperate with organizations
and individuals from other industries, bringing ideas and
knowledge from many different fields of competency to bear
upon our common infrastructure needs. This development process
takes advantage of orthogonal synergy between different
industries' software requirements. Hence the resultant software
is far more generic and flexible than had it been developed
for one specific use. Of course, total access to the underlying
source code also allows customized changes for particular
applications.

1.1.3 Open Source is Scalable and Robust

Developers on open source projects are not engaged in an
intellectual exercise nor are they removed from the application
space of the software under development. They are developing
the software for their own use for real needs. They are
not only developers, but users and testers as well. Hence
the resultant software is far more field-ready and scalable
to real-world applications than proprietary alternatives.
The multiple environments the components are used in, also
ensures that they are robust and relatively bug free. Being
cross-platform is the icing on the cake.

1.2 Twisted Network Server

A prime example of this Open Source approach is the Twisted
network server. Twisted is written in Python, a cross-platform,
high-level object-oriented programming language. Twisted
includes a web server, a telnet server, a multiplayer RPG
engine, a generic client and server for remote object access,
and APIs for creating new protocols and services. Twisted
is being developed and used by individuals and organizations
from across the world, for uses ranging from massive multiplayer
games to streaming audio servers.

Some of Twisted's advanced features include:

* Abstraction layers for protocols and transports, allowing
   design of servers that transparently support multiple
   transports (e.g. TCP and SSL).

* Pluggable event loops, supporting integration with GUI
   toolkits and platform-specific event loops (e.g. wxPython,
   Java or Unix/Win32 specific APIs).

* Multiple protocol support inside a process, allowing cross-protocol
   applications, integrated web control panels, etc..

* A metrics system supporting centralized collection of protocol
   and process statistics.

* Perspective Broker, a powerful, asynchronous and efficient
   remote object protocol, which can also be used from Java.

* Integrated event-based and threaded programming, using
   the Async/Half-Async design pattern.

The use of Twisted and Python has had many benefits for Zoteca
when developing our software:

* Low cost of development, since basic infrastructure needed
   by any network server is built in to the platform.

* Cross-platform and platform specific support (Twisted,
   and thus Zoteca's servers, can run and take advantage
   of the Unix, Windows and Java platforms).

* Flexibility and speed of development, allowing easy customization
   of the software.

* Wide scale testing of low-level infrastructure in a variety
   of situations.

* The ability to customize and enhance Twisted to support
   additional functionality.

1.3 About Zoteca

Zoteca has developed a new, patented, proprietary technology
which provides reliable, available, private and secure ("RAPS")
data sharing in networked environments. Zoteca's mission
is to create a family of product toolkits, which integrate
into customized versions of data sharing applications. These
Zoteca-based products provide RAPS services to end-users
--- both businesses and consumers.

In current networks it is nearly impossible to achieve reliability
and accessibility simultaneously --- hence the constant
shuffling of data between centralized servers and the organizational
edge. Similarly the more private and secure networks are,
the less efficient data sharing becomes. Zoteca creates
spaces where individuals and groups share data in a total
RAPS environment, simultaneously efficient (R & A) and safe
(P & S).

The core of our innovation involves decoupling computing
entities (data, files, etc.) from specific physical computers
or locations, thereby eliminating single point of failure.
By using distributed protocols, redundant and immutable
data stores, sophisticated authentication schemes and encryption
techniques, we address the problem at the infrastructure
level, allowing us to offer guaranteed levels of service
in terms of the four RAPS dimensions.

For more information about Zoteca and our products, please
visit http://www.zoteca.com.






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