Sometimes big things come in small packages. And sometimes, big features get added in micro updates.
Plone 4.3.2 has lots of bug fixes. It also incorporates the last security hotfix. It's well worth reading the change notes.
But there's also something very big lurking in the change list:
plone.recipe.zeoserver: 1.2.5 → 1.2.6
* add support for setting zeoserver as read only [vangheem]
* Add integration with ZRS [vangheem]
ZRS is ZODB Replication Services. ZRS manages live replication of a ZODB database to to secondary services.
That's right. Plone just added support for live server replication. In a micro update.
Of course, the real story here is the Zope Corporation's release of ZRS under an open-source license. That happened in late May. What Nathan Van Gheem did for Plone 4.3.2 was add support for setting up ZRS under Plone's Zope server configuration recipe.
ZRS has been one of the best-kept secrets in no-sql. It's a mature technology that's been used hard in a variety of settings. It's a great live backup system, but it's not just for backup. The secondary servers are read-only, but they're still servers, and may be used to serve content via ZEO clients. So, you can build your own CDN. Or, handle a demanding security situation by having a highly guarded primary server used for editing combined with read-only secondaries connected to the Internet.
Now, don't you wonder what else might be lurking in those release notes?