On Nov 16, 2004, at 2:05 PM, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> [ On Monday, November 15, 2004 at 19:35:52 (-0600), JupiterHost.Net
> wrote: ]
>> Subject: [exim] exim capabilities fo 10-30 K email accounts
>>
>> I was wondering about deploying exim on a server that would handle
>> 10-30
>> thousand ISP customer's accounts.
>>
>> I realize exim can likley handle this, but I was wondering what kind
>> of
>> server you'd all recommend (1,2 or 4 processor? ram? HD space?)
>
<snip>
> We considered Apple's G5 Xserve, but it's comparatively _very_
> expensive
> even though it's very small and very fast and 64-bit. NetBSD doesn't
> run on it either and though OS X is great it's an unknown for my
> client.
> Apple has designed their servers to go very fast doing relatively few
> tasks, while a big mail server needs relatively little CPU but does
> lots
> of tasks simultaneously (not necessarily something a "fast" CPU does
> well) and of course it does _lots_ of I/O. Apple's design is much
> closer to the SMP/mainframe-like architectures of the likes of the
> bigger Alphas or a big Sun enterprise-class server, but it's not
> scalable in its tiny 1U box and must be clustered to go far.
I tend to agree with the majority of this, but given your situation, a
G5 Xserve would do the trick, especially with an Xserve RAID attached
to it. Using that hardware with the packages at
<
http://maxo.captainnet.net/installs/mailserver/index.html> to run the
servers, you'll be fine. It's a very nice suite of packages running
exim, clamav, spamassassin, Courier-IMAP (and I think also POP), MySQL
backend, and a web based administration.
OS X Server also includes Squirrelmail so you can have a webmail
interface for your users. Not to sound too much like an Apple fanboy,
but the system is really nice and priced very well, especially for
government (and contractors). I could put together that entire system
with 2GB RAM, maxed out FC Xserve RAID, and dual G5s for about 15-16
grand, as opposed to over 18,000 for the general public. Schools get
even better pricing. It's well worth a look.
-Michael
---------------------------------------
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your
smile can be the source of your joy.
--Thich Nhat Hanh
