> Hey all. What do you guys see out there that most companies use to
> process SMTP traffic at the front-end?
Never mind what "most" companies use. What's important is which
deloyments, worldwide, are actually up to their respective tasks--i.e.
are not continually disappointing their end users at one level or
another.
For example, you're using Solaris, a secure OS very popular with, for
example, huge financial enterprises. Exim is highly configurable--then
again, so are most *nix-based MTAs compared to Windows-based MTAs--and
also has the customary advocacy from the Slashdot set. Yet your
servers are choking, likely because they are not rightsized for their
load. You mention CPUs and memory, but not disk I/O; I hope the
"pretty bright" guys did not similarly ignore the importance of DASD
and cache (CPU and RAM are important on boxes also doing content
scanning, but disk is _always_ important). Just goes to show you--the
architect makes the system, not the other way 'round.
> Is it mostly UNIX-based solutions or Linux-based?
There are many more messages received at *nix-based MXs worldwide than
at Windows-based MXs. But that doesn't mean that just throwing a new
OS and MTA on the same box solves anything--witness your current
issues. Chances are, you should move for PostFix or qmail on fresh or
improved hardware, since your admins will likely gravitate toward a
*nix in any case.
> Are Windows-based solutions popular too?
Again, "popular" is a difficult word. My feeling is that many, many
more MS deployments at the MX are _accidental_ than *nix MX
deployments--in the sense that what drives the deployment is an issue
far removed from MX performance, such as "We need Exchange for collabo
and our admin/architect didn't realize that it's a database server on
top of an MTA" or "Our <name of Windows-based mailbox suite> has
essential hosting functions built-in and with easy config, and I don't
know how much of my vital resources are being sucked up by loss-leader
webmail, causing the box to delay or drop SMTP transmissions, so I
fiddle with other stuff" or "We're a small Windows shop experiencing
mailbox server slowdowns, so so we turned on MS SMTP on our web server
and made that our MX." Etc, etc.
So, if that made any sense, my point is that the number of Windows MX
deployments sized deliberately for the MX function is a small fraction
of the overall Windows MX deployments. The "popularity" of Windows at
the MX could thus be said to be very, very low. But in the right hands
and on the right hardware, even if if PostFix and qmail code is
tighter, MS SMTP and other Windows-based MTAs can really cruise. But
this is probably not worth bringing up to Solaris folks, since they
tend to be in a partsan league of their own (IME, arguing with those
that defend Sun as if they're not demonstrably as predatory as
you-know-who is more painful and head-spinning than arguing with
open-source fanatics).
--Sandy
------------------------------------
Sanford Whiteman, Chief Technologist
Broadleaf Systems, a division of
Cypress Integrated Systems, Inc.
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