Fundamental Zope Components

Zope consists of several different components that work together to help you build web applications. Zope's fundamental components are shown in the figure below, and explained following the figure.

ZServer
Zope comes with a built in web server that serves content to you and your users. This web server also serves Zope content via FTP, WebDAV, and XML-RPC (a remote procedure call facility).

Web Server
Of course, you may already have an existing web server, such as Apache or Microsoft IIS and you may not want to use Zope's. Zope works with these web servers also, and any other web server that supports the Common Gateway Interface (CGI).

Zope Core
This is the engine which coordinates the show, driving the management interface and object database.

Object Database
When you work with Zope, you are usually working with objects that are stored in Zope's object database.

Relational database
You don't have to store your information in Zope's object database if you don't want to. Zope works with other relational databases such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase, MySQL and others.

File System
Zope can of course work with documents and other files stored on your server's file system.

ZClasses
Zope allows site managers to add new object types to Zope using the Zope Management Interface. ZClasses are these kinds of objects.
Products
Zope also allows site managers to add new object types to Zope by installing "Product" files on their Zope server's filesystem.