Besides the ZMS-specific approaches for an optimisation of the site display (efficiency of the DTML template code and ZMS) the server configuration is crucial for a performant operation of a Zope site. The following literature provides further hints for the peration of Zope regarding the aspects caching, load sharing and VirtualHosts.
How can I accelerate Zope ?
Until recently, we have had a lot of trouble with Zope performance: memory explosion (leaks?), poor Web performance, unexpected restarts, etc. In order to circumvent those issues, we first created a static directory in Apache to bypass Zope completely for big files. However, that was very unconvenient for a community site. We probably could finally solve most issues with the setup described bellow.
URL: http://www.nexedi.org/Members/jp/faq/accelerate-zope.stx
Use ZEO with Zope
ZEO will help you scale your site and give redundancy/high availability to your site too. Every Zope installation will be a Client Storage (CS) that talks to the Zope Storage Server (ZSS). Every CS will have its own object cache and will be able to work independently of other CS.
URL: http://www.zope.org/Members/kedai/UseZeoZope
Python 2.1.x, Zope 2.5.x, Apache 1.3.x/2.0.x, Virtual Hosts and caching installation and startup on RedHat Linux 7.3 and beyond
This new version of the RedHat startup HOW-TO will explain how to setup Zope (2.5.1) on a machine with a RedHat Linux distribution (or similar distros) 7.3 or superior with or without Apache. The new thing is that we have to fix a little problem: RedHat ships Python 2.0 and 2.2, but not 2.1 (and will never ship that version since they have switched to only 2.2 in the RawHide). So we will have to download and install Python 2.1 too (until Zope will switch to 2.2).
URL: http://www.zope.org/Members/markoer2/
resources/howtos/redhat_7.3_startup
File System Cache Manager
An alternative approach to caching web sites. There are three main ways of caching a web site at the moment, using a HTTP Accelerated Cache Manager, a RAM Cache Manager and using an external proxy to do the caching such as Squid or Apache. This is just another approach, its not exactly a brilliant approach and like all the others its not perfect but it is very fast and easy to set up.
URL: http://www.zope.org/Members/andym/FSCacheManager
Edge Side Includes (ESI)
Dynamic web pages can be buffered through the W3C submission "Edge-Side-Includes" technique (ESI). ESI enabled caches add performance to application servers by taking over load of dynamic websites. From Zope 2.7 on an ESI based communication with the caching server Squid should be possible according to the Zope Corporation. The following publications provide for an introduction:
Zope Corporation Announces Open Source ESI Implementation, October 30, 2002
http://www.zope.com/News/PressReleases/OpenSourceESI
Edge Side Includes (ESI) Overview
http://www.edge-delivery.org/overview.html
ESI Language Specification 1.0, W3C Note 04 August 2001
http://www.w3.org/TR/esi-lang
Doug Allen: Edge Side Includes; Network Magazine, 08/04/02
http://www.networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20020804S0004
Caching dynamischer Webseiten mit ESI; networkcomputing.de-Workshop, Edition
9-10/2002 17. Mai 2002
http://www.networkcomputing.de/workshop/workshop%202002/ws_091002.html