inconsistent performance

[Richard Frovarp]

Simon Jones wrote:
> hello chaps,
>
> anyone have an idea why i'm seeing inconsistent performance on all 3
> of my gateway servers?  Nothing shows up errors in the maillog and
> MailScanner --Lint checks out ok but from time to time the machines
> will choke and i'll stack 2k and rising messages up in the hold queue.
>
> one day they'll work fine and the hold queue will be normal, then all
> of a sudden they'll start backing up.
>
> I have postfix reading from mysql for the relay_domains /
> relay_recipients and transport maps as well as logging to a seperate
> db on the same seperate db server for mailwatch.
>
> the mysql db has dual oppy's with 10gb ram so it's pretty beefy and
> doesn't seem to be maxed at all.
>
> the gateways run fairly heavy but are by no means topping out.  I've
> tried dropping max children and the batch processing settings but to
> no avail.
>
> any ideas would be really appreciated.
>
> thanks
>
> SMJ
>   
What about mail volume? Is it consistent across the days in question? 
Or, even if the numbers are the same, you might end up with bursty 
traffic on the days you backup, causing everything to fall behind. 
Botnets, mailing lists, all of that sort can drop traffic on you in one 
heck of a hurry at times.