OT - Scalable email server solution needed

Francisco Reyes lists at stringsutils.com
Sat Apr 8 21:11:06 UTC 2006


Duane Whitty writes:

> My appologies in advance for the OT post.
> This probably more appropriately belongs on ISP@ but
> there doesn't seem to be much traffic there.

Although there isn't much traffic, people to read it, and so far the advice 
I have gotten from that list is pretty good.

> business.  Right now I have Sendmail configured
> and I was about to install Courier-IMAP.  My
> concern is future scalability.

What volume are you looking to handle?
How many users?

>  I'm not sure sendmail
> is the right back-end MTA.


I am more of a Postfix kind of person, but can't imagine that you would have 
a performance issue because of using sendmail. However you need to give 
details such as how many machines you plan to use, what configuration in the 
machines, how many users, how many domains.. and anything you can specify.


> I'm considering Exim or POSFIX.

I personally find Postfix easy to use, learn and very stable.

> Is there anyone on the list who might be serving many
> business customers each with many users who would
> be willing to share their insights or opinions on this?

Until you give more info about your volume it's hard to give you any good 
information.

I find Postfix to be very scalable, easy to use and maintain.
I find Courier to be easy to use and maintain, but not necessary easy to 
scale.. HOWEVER, I am talking about THOUSANDS of email accounts.. so unless 
you reply saying that you will have large volumes.. in the thousands, 
performance may be a non issue.


The hardware you use will also have a significant impact.. the architecture 
(ie single machine vs multiple machines splitting functions such as MX, 
outboud mail, webmail, mail storage.. ) 


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