Sizing machine for mailscanner

[Quentin Campbell]

The point Sylvain makes about having multiple mail relays to provide
reliability through redundancy cannot be emphasised enough.

The load sharing and failover is simply done using equal value DNS MX
records and round-robin. You do even better if the machines can be
distrbuted around different buildings.

And of course this architecture allows you to take down one machine to
update OS/applications without impacting the service.

You should also use RAID 1 (mirroring) on your disks; again this
provides reliability through redundancy. The cost of the extra disk(s)
is almost marginal. If you can have dual SCSI controllers then so much
the better.  

Quentin
---
PHONE: +44 191 222 8209    Information Systems and Services (ISS),
                           University of Newcastle,
                           Newcastle upon Tyne,
FAX:   +44 191 222 8765    United Kingdom, NE1 7RU.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Any opinion expressed above is mine. The University can get its own."  

>-----Original Message-----
>From: MailScanner mailing list 
>[mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Sylvain Phaneuf
>Sent: 07 March 2005 09:42
>To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>Subject: Re: Sizing machine for mailscanner
>
>I will start with what I have learned from this maillist when I asked
>the same question about 4 months ago. I will leave the more subtle
>details to the real experts on this list.
>
>Two slightly smaller boxes instead of a biggist one to do load shaing
>and have a failover system if problems occur. Great to for upgrades,
>etc. Mail flow continues on the 2nd box when you take the 1st off line.
>Round robin DNS is great.
>
>We have two identical boxes, getting a load average rarely >1 with
>approx 40k mesages a day in total (probably 30k in 8 hours in day time)
>with MS, SA and 2 anti-virus:
>
>P4, 2.8 GHz
>1 GB RAM
>32GB HD
>
>Nothing beefy, but does the job very well.
>
>Sylvain
>
>
>===========================================================
>Sylvain Phaneuf --- Systems Manager   | phone : +44 (0)1865 221323
>Clinical School Information Management Services Unit  (IMSU)
>Medical Sciences Division
>University of Oxford                                  |   email :
>sylvain.phaneuf at imsu.ox.ac.uk
>Room 3A25B John Radcliffe Hospital      |   fax :  +44 (0) 1865 221322
>Oxford   OX3 9DU   England
>===========================================================
>
>>>> kte at NEXIS.BE 07/03/2005 09:04:15 >>>
>If I get about 10000 mails /day in about 8 hours. What kind of machine
>do I need I i turn mailscanner + spamassassin + 3 antivirus programs?
>
>Thanks Koen
>
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