You can run VM on machines that are a couple years old, and can find them fairly cheap on Ebay or Craigslist. A couple of Dell 2650's, 2850's, or 1850's will run a couple of VM's with no problems.
Depending on the amount of mail you are expecting and rack space availableity, you could probably do the load balancing, DNS and mail server all on a single Dell 2650 at each location, using VMWare ESXi, Zen, or pretty much most of the common VM's. The 2650's can be had pretty easily for around $200 - $300 w/drives. 2U of rack space at each location and you're done. If you need 1U's, go with the 1850's. Maybe $300 - $500 each, and only 1U. If it's still too much, then, yea, go with just the DNS Round Robin option. Michael J. Colvin NorCal Internet Services <http://www.norcalisp.com/> www.norcalisp.com <http://www.norcalisp.com/> _____ From: Scott Hughes [mailto:sonicscott9...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 2:32 PM To: qmailtoaster-list@qmailtoaster.com Subject: Re: [qmailtoaster] Opinions Please Michael, As a small company, we haven't gotten into VM systems as of yet. I want to but the price of those machines is still a bit on the high side - especially with brand name servers (Dell, HP, etc). Thanks to everyone for all the input on this idea! Scott On 5/24/10 4:07 PM, Michael Colvin wrote: I would do both. :-) I would have redundant load balancers, at two different locations, that balance the loads between multiple servers at their respective locations. Then, use DNS (Also redundant at multiple locations) to round robin between the two locations. :-) Considering using VM for the DNS and Load Balancing portions, and perhaps the QMailToaster portion too, you could probably pull it off with one or two machines at each location. Michael J. Colvin NorCal Internet Services <http://www.norcalisp.com/> www.norcalisp.com <http://www.norcalisp.com/> _____ From: Scott Hughes [mailto:sonicscott9...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, May 24, 2010 1:43 PM To: qmailtoaster-list@qmailtoaster.com Subject: [qmailtoaster] Opinions Please I am considering setting up a second QMT server using Jake's replicated server tutorial. These servers will be in two different cities for maximum redundancy. If I remember correctly, Jake mentioned setting up DNS round robin to balance the two QMT servers. My question is this: Is DNS better for load balancing, or would it be better to utilize a load balancing program like 'balance' (http://www.inlab.de/balance.html) ? Or does it really make a difference for this application. I would be balancing IMAP (993) / SMTP (25) / POP3 (110). Thanks, Scott
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