[Python-grants] Python-based Data Warehouse with Web Service Access

[Stephen Waterbury]

Eric Jahn wrote:
> I am exploring development of a client case management data repository 
> (MySQL/PostgresQL based) with a web services wrapper implemented in Python.  
> An XML repository like 4Suite Server would also work, I suppose.  The bigger 
> picture is that we are running numerous hosted web apps in our community and 
> regionally that track client data, but that have no automated way of 
> synchronizing with eachother.  I know a provider XML schema has been created 
> by airs.org, and a client data schema is the next logical to-do.  Does anyone 
> have knowledge of any Open Source work already done along these lines?  

We are developing an application framework for data repository web services.
It is based on PostgreSQL, Twisted, and some other Python packages.  We
haven't released it publicly yet because we're in the middle of a
refactorization of the ORM to provide automatic support for many-to-many
relations.  The framework is designed to be very configurable and to
support "ontology-based" domain object definitions.

I am only mentioning this in case you haven't yet started development
and, if you think our architecture is close to what you are looking for,
you might be interested in both using and contributing to it.

Caveats:
* we have no Web browser interface yet (we use a wxPython client) ...
   we plan to implement one but it is not a high priority for us
   at the moment, so we have been waiting for Twisted's Nevow
   to become a little more stable before we begin.
* our current web services interface is done in XML-RPC (but we plan to
   implement essentially the same interface in SOAP -- it's just that
   XML-RPC was easier for prototyping)
* as I say, we are still developing, so there's lots of "assembly required".
* unless you are either already familiar with Twisted or eager to learn it,
   you probably don't want to get involved, because Twisted is fundamental to
   our server implementation and it has a learning curve.

If after all those caveats you are still interested, let me know.  ;)

Cheers,
Steve