Spamassassin is slow - any tips or good commercial alternative?

[Koopmann, Jan-Peter]

>I run an email server (Exim) which uses Mailscanner in combination with

>ClamAV and SpamAssassin. The server scans about 15,000 emails per day. 
>SpamAssassin currently seems to take 5-10 seconds to scan even the
smallest 
>email, which is unacceptable for us.

May I ask why? Is it because your mail system is getting into load
trouble? Or is the delay itself on legit mail the problem? I would like
to know how an additional 5-10 seconds on an async communication medium
like e-mail that was never designed for real-time in the first place
could be a problem.

If it is a load problem you should try to reduce the amount of mail
reaching SpamAssassin in the first place. RBLs come to mind. Or (since
you asked for a commercial solution) have a look at BarricadeMX from
FSL. BMX will greatly reduce the amount of mail reaching your MTA.

Yet on the other hand, if the 15.000 mails a day that your server scans
are mostly ham, this will not help. So please enlarge a bit on the
problem itself.

Regards,
  JP