How to build a computationally intensive webservice?
I think you can build it however you like, as long as you can make it an asynchronous service so that the users don't have to wait.  
Unless, of course, the users don't mind waiting in this context.
I need to build a webservice that is very computationally intensive, and I'm trying to get my bearings on how best to proceed.
I expect users to connect to my service, at which point some computation is done for some amount of time, typically less than 60s. The user knows that they need to wait, so this is not really a problem. My question is, what's the best way to structure a service like this and leave me with the least amount of headache? Can I use Node.js, web.py, CherryPy, etc.? Do I need a load balancer sitting in front of these pieces if used? I don't expect huge numbers of users, perhaps hundreds or into the thousands. I'll need a number of machines to host this number of users, of course, but this is uncharted territory for me, and if someone can give me a few pointers or things to read, that would be great.
Thanks.