Re: [Exim] Very large mailing lists (Exim vs Isocor)

At 00:37 10/04/00 -0700, you wrote:
>In article <20000409235949.A507@???>,
>Ian Southam <exim@???> wrote:
> >On Sun, Apr 09, 2000 at 06:32:49PM -0400 Mitch Vincent wrote :
> >
> >> Not being developed anymore? Wow, I hadn't heard that (though I probably
> >> wouldn't have since I don't use it :- ) )
> >>
> >> Still, many, many people use Qmail when they need a fast MTA, it seems
> to be
> >> a workable solution even with it's bugs.
> >
> >Hello,
> >
> >True but, despite the fact that Exim is not designed for speed or
> scalability
> >really it does both quite well. I know a good few large ISPs using it
> and of
> >(Freeserve being one). It may well do the task (without the bugs).
>
>I've never quite got around to trying qmail (actually I think now I would
>try postfix if I was going to try something else) cause exim always just
>kind of does everything we need it to do. I've been using it since its
>first public release.
>
>We recently put a small exim server together for a commercial mailing list
>that sends out batches of messages two to three times a day. Up to 50,000
>messages at a time and they wanted them delivered in less than an hour. To
>do this they bought four(!!) low end sun boxes (before they talked to us,
>while they where trying to get things working with sendmail).
>
>Exim managed to deliver over 90% in about 15 minutes on one server. We did
>use a few tricks. For example limiting the number of recipients to about 500
>per message etc. And sorting so that all messages to the same domain where
>delivered once (big win for hotmail and aol etc).
>
>Basically exim on a mid range server (say dual pentium 700) with appropriate
>raid array should be able to handle a million messages a day without breaking
>into a sweat if a little care is taken in setting it up.


We used to run the Microsoft Exchange mailing list with approximately 2700
subscribers and 250-300 posts per day.

Originally we used Majordomo with Sendmail but the loadave on the poor delivery
machine went exponentially out the roof. We looked at Qmail but decided
against
as its architecture is one of "single delivery in a single process" which can
make it very resource hungry (both in terms of memory and TCP connections).

Exim has been used here successfully for nearly three years and we have found
it extremely fast, reliable and flexible.


Mike Tubby