Summary

Digital Garage, a Tokyo-based pioneer of custom web business solutions since 1995, builds one of the first Zope sites in Japan for Bandai, Japan - The LaLaBit Entertainment Web.

Case Facts

Digital Garage was approached by Bandai Japan last year with an idea to create a "new entertainment brand" on the Web called LaLaBit, integrating original content, games, and commerce into a seamless community site.

LaLaBit would initially include a free-signup membership system, pay-by-the-month premium services, a pay-per-play arcade, news service, and web-based administration interfaces for all of the above, with web-based email, chat, BBS, and other additional features planned for the future. To provide for payment LaLaBit needed to support from the start two third-party web-based payment systems (P-Click, a credit-card micropayment system, and WebMoney a prepaid digital cash card system), for which through-the-web administration was also a must.

Problem

Bandai wanted the site built in a very short amount of time, but there were strict limitations on development resources and hardware. They wanted a site with a combination of static pages and dynamic content, with an access model allowing them to restrict certain content to non- paying members, and other content to paying members only. Bandai also wanted to connect the whole system up to an existing legacy RDBMS (in this case, Sybase) to store and catalog their data.

Digital Garage had been using Python to do CGI programming for several years by this time, but for a project of this size, the prospect of developing and maintaining the required dozens of individual CGIs and templates for the site was daunting to say the least. Furthermore, DG's developer knowledge base was primarily in Perl and Python programming, so rather than opting for a closed, proprietary, Java-based solution (i.e. Dynamo, Cold Fusion, Net Dynamics, or Web Logic), it was desirable to find an adaptable, free, and maintainable solution that would leverage DG's existing expertise in CGI scripting and Web development.

Solution

For Digital Garage and Bandai's requirements, Zope was a perfect fit. Since Zope was written in Python, it was relatively easy for DG to jump straight into development, and it was also easy to adapt Zope to the particular demands of the LaLaBit project and the Japanese environment.

For example, at the time DG started work on LaLaBit, a Sybase Database Adapter was not available for Zope. But using a publicly available Python extension module for Sybase (ctsybasemodule), the Zope MySQL DA as a reference model, and about half an hour of development time, a Sybase DA was developed to allow Zope to connect to Sybase. Localization of the Zope MailHost product to allow the sending of Japanese email, and customization of error message pages in Japanese for the LaLaBit site were accomplished with similar ease.

Now, as development on the LaLaBit site continues, the fast development turn-around and through-the-web manageability of Zope have also greatly improved the way that already existing parts of the site are maintained. Client demands for a customized, searchable view of "this member data" or "those game statistics" can be coded up and delivered on-the-spot. Editing of site content can be entrusted to content managers, without having to deal with setting up FTP accounts or requiring developers to waste time editing HTML templates. And, as the site grows larger and more complex and client demands change, already-developed components of the LaLaBit site as well as Zope's rapidly growing base of in-house and contributed software Products can be leveraged. This further enhances an already dynamic, interactive site, with as much Japanese support as is needed for smooth operation.

Zope is now an integral part of Digital Garage's future business vision and direction. With LaLaBit and also with the new SonicNet Japan site, Digital Garage will continue to use Zope to enhance its ability to create, support, and contribute high-performance dynamic web solutions tailored to the Japanese market.