Korey,
I think your conclusion is not 100% correct! Many others here in the forum
have found that SQL is a resource hog and have recommended it _not_ be
running on the same machine as IMail. Along with many other recommendations
for the hardware needs for the SQL machine. At least one user indicated he
had separate machines and over 50K users and had no problems with IMail or
SQL. That would seem to tell me, the ODBCUSER.DLL is OK.
And your further information about POP logins to domains with and without
SQL, seem to confirm that POP3 service is working fine. This would indicate
to me, that the problem is getting responses back from SQL, when POP3 asks
for them.
If you are happy with IMail DB, fine. If not, they I (using recommendations
sent by other forum members) would suggest you consider a separate machine
for SQL and another for IMail. It sounds like your current machine might
qualify for the SQL machine and maybe a less powerful one is needed for
IMail, but that may depend on the number of users you have.
Below is that other persons email:
Subject: RE: [IMail Forum] For those using MS SQL
I agree, SQL runs better on W2K, when properly configured! I have been
following the SQL thread here for quite some time and, frankly, there is a
LOT of mis-information going around. A couple of quick points if I may. This
is long but, I had to say it....
First, after Mike Nice was gracious enough to share his re-worked
ODBCUSER.DLL, external database use with Imail and SQL servers became a
reality. Thanks to Ipswitch for incorporating that code in recent releases.
While some work still could be done in the multi-threading area, it works as
is.
Second, the one biggest and most important performance issue when using
Imail with an external database and SQL is NOT the Imail box, it's the SQL
box and it's network connectivity.
I know, your saying "but I've got a Pentium 4 and a zillion megs of RAM,
etc..." and it still does not work.... Well, lets look at a few issues
shall we? First, never, never, never (did I make that plain enough?) run
SQL on the same machine as Imail, just don't do it, SQL running with Imail
will seriously degrade Imail's performance, that's just the nature of
database servers, they want it all... Let them have it all, run SQL on it's
own server, nothing else running with it.
Hows your network working? Are you running in a switched Ethernet
environment? You should be, 100mbs, full duplex. Do you monitor LAN traffic?
You should. If your still running 10mbs, half duplex through standard hubs,
UPGRADE! The Imail box and the SQL server can only process packets as fast
as they arrive. Remember, Ethernet trashes packets when they collide and has
to resend. The higher the collision rate on your LAN, the lower the overall
performance. Get a switch, buy some new 100 mbs cards and join the new
century...
How's your SQL box configured? A fast processor won't help if the RAM is
not there or, the I/O and disk access is slow. Avoid the temptation to buy
huge IDE hard drives, drive access time suffers, no matter what the
manufacturer says. Run SCSI, boot from IDE if you must but, use SCSI drives
for SQL and it's data. And about RAM, 500 plus megs, PC 100 or higher DIMMS,
no SIMMS, run at processor bus speed, especiall on the SQL box, period.
Beware of RAID! There are some cheap RAID controllers out there that will
severly slow performence in RAID 5 configurations. Sure its nice to have
RAID 5 but, count on the overhead to slow you down. Again, if you must use
RAID, spend the money for a quality controller.
Is your NT on W2K installation tuned for best performence? Foreground apps
should have minimum priority (performence boost) and background and server
apps should have maximum. Set up for maximum boost for "networking apps",
not "file sharing" and certainly not "load balancing"
Even if you have all the RAM in the world, increase your swap file size, NT
will still use it and bigger is better. A general rule of thumb is to double
whatever NT recommends.
Having run Imail servers since version 2 (i believe, long time ago) we have
found the software to be quite stable and resilant, if you give it a fast
environment to work in. If you have the means, test the time your SQL box
takes to authenticate a database request. Anything over 20ms is telling you
something is wrong! We have found that, SMTP AUTH especially, will fail or
severly degrade if it does not get an IMMEDIATE answer from the SQL server.
Consider this when pulling you hair out because users are getting a password
request box when sending mail using SMTP AUTH.
Oh, and how's your PDC performing? If it running over 25% utilization for
any 30 second period, upgrade it! Remember, an NT network is only as good as
all the machines that make it a network, PDC and BDC's included...
That's, it, flame away but these observations come from running Imail and
SQL in a 50,000+ user environment on all kinds of hardware and network
topology.
Robert J Fehn Sr. CEO, Senior Engineer
ProNet USA Inc. www.pro-usa.net
Daniel Donnelly
________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: "Korey Verlsteffen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] POP3 hangs w/external SQL database
> The machine is a quad xeon w/1gb of ram running Imail and SQL on the same
> machine. We decided to drop the SQL database and move the users to the
> Imail internal db since there are just too many problems with external
> databases and Imail. Problem solved.
>
> Just for the record I did notice that when users could no longer pop into
> the server I was able to pop into one domain that we had setup using the
> internal Imail db. While other domains on the same server using the
> external db could not. Doing some further pd when I opened a pop3 session
> all went well until I sent the pop3 login info for a domain using an
> external db, then the session would hang. If I opened another pop3
session
> and submitted a pop3 login for a domain using the internal imail db it
works
> perfectly. Looks like a problem with the odbc drivers that Imail uses.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Daniel Donnelly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 4:58 PM
> Subject: Re: [IMail Forum] POP3 hangs w/external SQL database
>
>
> > Korey,
> >
> > What are the numbers at the end of the connect response line? If the
last
> > one is more than say 5-10, then something is not closing down the pop3
> > connections.
> >
> > Is the SQL on the same machine? What is the hardware for the IMail
> machine?
> >
> > Others here have indicated that SQL uses all the resources it can get,
> > which, if on the IMail machine, might limit its access to resources and
be
> > the cause of your trouble.
> >
> > Daniel Donnelly
> > ________________________________________________________
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Korey Verlsteffen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2001 9:28 AM
> > Subject: [IMail Forum] POP3 hangs w/external SQL database
> >
> >
> > > Ok, here is the situation.
> > >
> > > My setup consists of a win 2000 server with Imail 6.06 all patches
> > included
> > > and SQL 2000. Imail is setup to use and external db with virtual
hosts.
> > The
> > > problem that I am having is that pop3 stops responding just about
every
> > > hour. A simple net stop pop3d32 and start brings imail back online,
but
> > > only for another hour or so. When this happens I can telnet to port
110
> > and
> > > I will get the standard response but it will not accept any commands.
> > Once
> > > this happens pop3d32.exe gradually consumes more and more cpu usage
> until
> > > its restarted.
> > >
> > > Any suggestions?
> > >
> > > Korey
> > >
> > >
> > > Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html
> > > to be removed from this list.
> > >
> > > An Archive of this list is available at:
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> > >
> >
> >
> > Please visit http://www.ipswitch.com/support/mailing-lists.html
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> >
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> >
>
>
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>
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>
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