I know Imail can be scaled successfully. A large regional ISP in my area runs Imail and claims to have over 200,000 subscribers and allows unlimited email addresses per subscriber. I have seen that they have several boxes for SMTP and POP3 each, and they run webmail. I have been considering how to run Imail in a load balance situation, and so far can only come up with one solution. If you use an external DB and a file server or NAS for the Data storage, it may be possible to fool mutiple servers into believing that they are by themselves. I want to try it out, but do not have the resources currently to set it up. (i.e. stuck in single server mode) The side benefit should be that you can load balance all services as long as you don't switch servers mid session.
Anyone else have any other Ideas, or maybe have tried this? BTW, still running 6.x, not quite ready for 7.x and I run fairly stable still. Chuck Frolick ArgoNet, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Sanford Whiteman Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2002 1:21 AM To: Joe Wolf Subject: Re[2]: [imail] Ipswitch sucks Joe, > Instead of trying to write your own, etc. the answer is FreeBSD > running QMail. ...and some janky webmail for *nix? I have tried several, and they all felt designed by techies for users who don't mind sloppy form post handling, cache expiry, and debug errors thrown right into the user's browser. People go to Imail because their primary experience is with Win32 and because Ipswitch bills Imail as an integrated system. But yep, it's a fact, proven over and over, that Imail's single-server, single-vendor integration claim falls apart under several different load vectors. This is not documented anywhere but on the lists, and there's definitely been dereliction of duty on their end, much of which they've admitted. But it's my opinion that those running carrier-class, for-profit (and that includes WM as a loss leader) installations should never try to scale up before they scale out. It amazes me sometimes that people try to run an ISP off one server, trying to wring that last cent of functionality out of Imail's very low cost. Even when I put in free and/or open-source mail systems for new service providers, I *mandate* that they start out with a midrange load balancer and a two-server farm and build their apps to scale from day one. If they ask if they can run webmail on the same boxes, I'll turn it on, sure; since they're starting out distributing users across two different webmail hosts, the third and subsequent ones don't freak anybody out. If the system is architected so that they can keep adding new pizza boxes, with no diminishing returns, everybody's stays happy. Whenever someone is told they need a single box, ever--and I do sympathize with people who have inherited systems, and bosses, that already think that way--that's one promise they don't soon forget. With all that said, I do wonder with you why Terrence is trying to keep Imail under the circumstances, given that he clearly has a multiplatform, even Unix-leaning skill set. Sandy ______________________________________________________________________ The HKSI-IMail Admin List is hosted by........ Humankind Systems, Inc. Questions, Comments or Complain like Hell.. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Message Archive... http://www.tallylist.com/archives/index.cfm/mlist.4 To Manage your Subscription......... http://humankindsystems.com/lists __________ Information from NOD32 1.220 (20020302) __________ This message was checked by NOD32 for Exchange e-mail monitor. http://www.nod32.com ______________________________________________________________________ The HKSI-IMail Admin List is hosted by........ Humankind Systems, Inc. Questions, Comments or Complain like Hell.. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Message Archive... http://www.tallylist.com/archives/index.cfm/mlist.4 To Manage your Subscription......... http://humankindsystems.com/lists
