Re: Very huge email service
On Wed, Nov 24, 1999 at 05:42:41PM +0100, Russell Coker wrote:
Sorry about the long quotes...
> >I know I'm gonna be bashed to hell for my statements on this.
>
> ;)
Which isn't as fun a statement as I had hoped it could be, too many
people are too radical wrt Linux, unfortunately.
> >> Does anyone had to configure mail servers to serve 30 millon users,
> >> with smtp and pop3, if so can you give any clue , because i dont know
> >> from where to start.
> >
> >If I had to build this as a central system I wouldn't use Linux for the
> >storage systems, I'd probably look into Hitachi or similar disksystems
> >with a SPARC running Solaris (or several of them running in tandem)
> >and some Veritas volume management.
>
> Last time I worked with a serious Sun machine it could only do 59MB/s
> sustained disk throughput. This was an E6500 with Fiber Channel SCSI talking
> to an A5000 disk array containing UltraSCSI drives. It had Veritas File
> System and Volume Manager. I am certain that Linux could do better with less
> hardware.
Unfortunately I'm afraid the bottleneck wouldn't be the filesystem (add
boxen vertically, and hash the maildirs out onto several filesystems).
The problem with using Linux for NFS servers is the slowness of userspace
NFS and instability of knfs (the places I've seen knfs under high load
has suffered from repeated breakdowns, I'd love to help debugging this,
but I have too much work on the network side, and have just started
CCIE certification, so I don't have much of that ever needed time).
Of course you could add Linux boxen with userspace NFS, but you'd need
a lot...
> >Another solution would be a bunch of Network Appliance boxen, with
> >their own microkernel and NFS.
>
> NetApps work.
That's what I've heard, though I've never used them.
Of the people I recall using them, I can mention Yahoo! and Netscape
mail (my bad if that's not correct).
> >Between these I would run a Gigabit Ethernet, using one of the fast
> >giga switches (No names mentioned, no names forgotten ;)
>
> Do we even have any fast Giga network cards?
Sorry, meant Giga on the backends, Fast on the frontends.
> >All this would be a costly solution, but I think it will be able
> >to scale properly.
>
> The system we're talking about will cost less than $1 per user. When a
> government is paying it shouldn't be a problem.
You're right, but this seemed like a public offer (don't know the
correct English word for this, and my dictionary is too old. What I
mean is: The state throwing this together, different providers giving
an offer, the cheapest wins)
> >Another solution, which has already been proposed is a geographical
> >split of the machines.
Which btw would add more administration.
--
Med venlig hilsen / Best Regards
Andreas Plesner Jacobsen (System Administrator) / World Online Denmark A/S
Peter Bangs Vej 26, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
Tlf. (+45) 38 14 70 00 - Fax (+45) 38 14 70 07
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