Network IPC With Authentication (in Python)

I am looking for a way to connect a frontend server (running Django) with a backend server. I want to avoid inventing my own protocol on top of a socket, so my plan was to use SimpleHTTPServer + JSON or XML.

However, we also require some security (authentication + encryption) for the connection, which isn't开发者_JAVA技巧 quite as simple to implement.

Any ideas for alternatives? What mechanisms would you use? I definitely want to avoid CORBA (we have used it before, and it's way too complex for what we need).

Use a client side certificate for the connection. This is a good monetization technique to get more income for your client side app.