Re: [exim] any recent published benchmarks

On Thu, 20 May 2010, Graeme Fowler wrote:
> Subject: Re: [exim] any recent published benchmarks
>
> On Thu, 2010-05-20 at 14:20 -0400, Dave Lugo wrote:
>> I've been asked regarding how much mail exim
>> can handle per day.
>
> Ugh. Thorny question.
>

Yup :)

>> Are there any benchmarks out there that I can
>> look at?
>
> I'm not sure, but...
>
>> Yes, I know I can run my own (and I have); I'd
>> just like a few more data points if they're
>> available.
>
> ...the problem (for you, in terms of data) is that there is no
> "standard" configuration of Exim on a given "standard" piece of
> hardware.
>

Yup :)

> Exim scales pretty well and (like most MTAs) is usually limited by the
> hardware it runs on. Unfortunately it seems only the big boys bother to
> shell out time and money for SPEC tests (see
> http://www.spec.org/mail2001/results/ ,
> http://www.spec.org/mail2009/results/mail2009.html ) and they throw some
> serious hardware at it.
>
> I think a more pertinent set of questions would be:
>
> 1. How many messages/day do you *want* to handle?

I've asked, and I've been told that information is
not available to me.

> 2. On what sort of, and how many servers?

recent x86, I'd expect quad-code, 4GB ram

> 3. What storage do you have available?

fast local disk

> 4. Do you need to relay (authenticated senders, for example)?

nope

> 5. What format do you store lookup tables in?
> 6. How many users do you have?

two in one shot: none, mainly used as border relay
behind postini

> ...
> N. The Nth question. Probably "are you running inline AS/AV?", or
> something... and so on, and so forth.
>

Likely not.

> Unfortunately, as you can see, the answer to your original question is
> "it depends". I'm sure there are people on the list who can offer you
> some raw data from their systems, but given the infinitesimal likelihood
> of their systems being anything like yours, that data might as well be
> cheese :)
>

That's what I've told my manager, I'm just doing my due-diligence :)

I did a benchmark a few weeks ago - one server as detailed above, sending
to a sink connected on local LAN, 100K items, came to millions of items
per day.

But, I was asked to see if there were any other benchmarks I could
cite to the customer.

> FWIW at work we now deliver something like 60 messages/min when averaged
> over a year; we've dumped enormous queues after planned backend outages
> at rates well in excess of 10 times that without the servers getting
> overloaded. [caveat: Google now handle our student mail so our average
> load has gone down].
>
> Sorry that's not a more definitive answer!
>

S'ok, it was an appropriate answer, given the
slim info I provided.

Thanks!


> Graeme
>
>
>

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  Are you the police?  . . .  No ma'am, we're sysadmins.
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