Best Middle Tier Architechure?

[Butternut Squash]

What do you guys recommend for doing middle tier in python.
I want to hide the database from the application and have it just use
business logic.

right now we are using c# and .net remoting in a way that just is not
efficient.

I want to rewrite a lot of what we do in python. I have seen XML-RPC and
soap.  Are there other options?

Just curious for some opinions.

Thanks.