>My 2 cents:
>If you really think you will be growing large, yes, Imail can handle it. You
>would normally want to use a database (SQL, MySQL, Oracle, whatever) because
>you want to keep other info about your users (Birthday, Date signed up,
>etc). Now a nice way to set this up is to have a backend system that houses
>the DB as well as the mail files.
If you're shooting for scaleabiltiy, you DON'T want your mailboxes on
the same box as your authentification/applications database. And you
don't want your mailboxes on the same controller+drive as the mail
queue. All three of those databases are "disjoint" and shouldn't be
made to compete for the same physical storage channel. ok, we are
talking about huge mail systems.
>Then as far as scalability, you can have
>multiple systems running the Imail web messaging that access the same mail
>store/db.
Have you done this? afaik, there's no load sharing between Imail
boxes. If you have 3 webmail servers, a user has to log on to the
Imail server where his mailbox is. ie, he doesn't have a webmail
account but a webmail1, webmail32, webmail3 account. As long as a
user's account is tied to a specific Imail box as it is now, such a
multi-box solution is not transparently scaleable, a pain to manage
and a pain to use.
What is exciting is this week's Imail list discussion about HTTP
redirection. Now if one box (not necessarily an imail box) could
allow all webmail users to log onto webmail.domain.com, be
authenticated, and then "HTTP redirected" to the specific Imail
webmail, webmail2, webmail3 where that user's mail was located. I
don't know whether the HTTP redirection from an non-Imail box could
transparently pass the authentification status to the Imail box.
Probably better to wait and see how/if Ipswitch does the equivalent in Imail7.
>Now you are VERY scalable. You can easily begin this architecture
>on a single machine and plan on rolling stuff out as you grow.
Imail7 will the first opportunity for Imail web messaging to be
load-sharing and multi-box, which is not the same as saying ipswitch
will offer that in Imail7. But you're right, the only scalelable web
mail solution is multi-box.
Len
http://BIND8NT.MEIway.com: ISC BIND 8.2.2 p5 & 8.2.3 T6B for NT4 & W2K
http://IMGate.MEIway.com: Build free, hi-perf, anti-spam mail gateways
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