Tom Hancock wrote:
We are strongly considering deploying a Postfix/Dbmail email solution.
We will have 4 servers that will be running postfix, dbmail, and other
ISP related applications. They will use a backend server for the
database storage. The backend server will be running MySQL for Dbmail
storage and NFS for some other applications. I do not envision NFS
being heavily utilized. We currently have approximately 2500 email
accounts that get spam/virus filtered through Postini.
What hardware requirements would you recommend for the backend MySQL/NFS
server? In particular I am interested in CPU and RAM requirements.
Well, never skimp on the RAM because it's dirt cheap. If you have a
budget, get more ram up to the point when it is economically feasible
after you've selected the rest of the hardware.
For the database, I'd use some 2-way dual core solution, Opterons really
shine in this area (and there are price cuts coming in one month for the
275 model).
Front end machines could be some 1-way dual core with dual gigabit
NIC's. Since the dual cores don't really cost any more than a reasonably
fast single core, I'd go for them in any server installation.
DBMail spawns like apache prefork so it will take full advantage of
extra cpu's in system without expensive context switching.
For storage on the db server, you can choose the expensive way and take
some biggie scsi disks and put them on reasonable raid (not raid5) and
have a second raid-0 for transaction logs etc.
If you want to go into more economic way, take a look at western digital
server edition sata hd's, they're qualified for 24/7 operation. For the
fast raid0 partition, take 2 or more from the new 10krpm 150G series.
They do fly.
Have another el cheap db server doing just replication for backup purposes.
--
br,
Tommi
