Suggestion for Web App

[Harlin Seritt]

I want to make a recommendation to a group of internal customers where
I work concerning a Python web framework. They are seeking to build a
portal that can handle around 5000 total users  but probably no more
than 100-200 simultaneous users. This is supposed to serve mainly
static content - the content will hold references, tutorials and
examples for different technologies, a forum (similar probably to
phpbb) and podcasts (rss and mp3 files). Also I believe it will
definitely need a decent DB server for this.

They have some other suggestions ranging from Websphere/JSP's to PHP. I
personally don't think the PHP will scale well for growth and I also
think that using Java/JSPs will be too slow for this sort of thing.

I normally work as system and application admin and use Python in a
number of ways to get the job done. Naturally, I am naturally inclined
to suggest something that uses Python or something "Pythonic". I wanted
to suggest Zope but there are also other ones I'm thinking of as well
like CherryPy and Karrigell. Which one of these (or other ones you guys
know of) would do the best job in this situation?

Also do you guys know if MySQL would work with this or should they use
something more robust like DB2 (IBM shop)?

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

Harlin Seritt