Before anything else, excerpt from sendmail.com: �Today, the majority of worldwide Internet Mail servers are powered by sendmail. In addition, 9 of the Fortune 10 and 84 of the Fortune 100 as well as 29 of the world's 36 largest Internet Service Providers rely upon Sendmail technology.�
>sendmail is old, has an old and antiquated >design. It is not _mature_. COBOL is old, but >it doesn't mean that it is mature. Hmm� It�s not the architecture or how sendmail is designed that I�m talking about. It�s how a software application has been tested and have been proven for what�s it worth. It means predictability. It means It can be relied upon. Companies don�t care if it�s monolithic or whatever, they buy solutions that works well, scalable and has support. And your example of cobol is inappropriate. It�s old and mature! Large banks, credit card companies like visa and mastercard, and airline ticket processing use cobol based applications on mainframes for more than a decade, even more. And it�s not mature? > Wrong. Sendmail is used by the big guys > because if you install solaris, hp-ux, or > aix, it is already there, pre-installed. > It's like asking, why use netscape or mozilla > on windows, if IE is already there and > pre-installed. Why even bother? That's a > big question, and unfortunately only a > handful that know of how MTAs really run can > actually answer that question of why you need > to junk sendmail over postfix/qmail. Ahh� You�re assuming things. They did not put sendmail just because they like it or it�s preinstalled. Companies don�t do that. If it�s not up to their needs they will replace it asap. System Administrators I know (and me) uses sendmail on the job because it has 24/7 tech support. You have a problem? Call them, they will help you fix it. Have a big project which needs recommendations, tuning and scalability? They will do consulting for you. Hiring a consultant (And mind you, they are really *experts*! And very helpful too.) is a lot cheaper and faster to implement something for a few days than doing it yourself for a couple of weeks. It benefited us a lot, and that is the biggest advantage. And besides, you don�t pay a cent for this, your employer will pay for it. You say you�re a small company? Then $99 i think will get you a front end gui to configure sendmail. It�s money well spent which goes to an open source software company. They will even change the code of sendmail to help you with your needs! Remember, Sendmail is open source. Open source software company that tries to make money. > Postfix was developed with the support of > IBM. That enough for you? And yes, you are > right. For them to be widely used, they must > be incorporated in major linux distros and > unix distros as well. Okay, note that IBM supports the development of postfix, but IBM does *not* give technical helpdesk via phone/e-mail/on-site support for postfix. Qmail and Exim, no support too. The most critical part of the puzzle for postfix/qmail/exim to be used by corporations is simply not there. > Oh yes as a unix sysadmin it must be clear to > you which technology works better than > others. That's what you're being paid for! > In the search for such technology it should > be plainly obvious why sendmail is old and > antiquated technology, which should be > retired. Hmm�. Check out www.sendmail.com to be enlightened on what it can do. Sendmail being antiquated may be true a couple of years ago but not today. It has Enterprise solutions for any size of company, small/medium/large. > You should read the performance benchmarks of > postfix and qmail, and read why sendmail is > not used by major mail hubs. I think you have read the quote from sendmail.com above. to rephrase: Corporations using sendmail in the US: 90% of top fortune 10 84% of top fortune 100 80% of the world's largest ISP uses sendmail As for sendmail performance, qmail/exim is fast hands down for small/medium load, but for high e- mail loads, sendmail tends to shine(Just like slowlaris, will only shine for multiprocessors.) with the right config of course. Think about this example: Earthlink. The 2nd largest isp in the Uinted States, uses sendmail. 15+ million messages come and go through their mail server. I could give you more, especially private companies. But I have signed an NDA, so I can't divulge. I�m not kidding! :) Would you be willing to tell earthlink to tell them to use qmail/postfix/exim for their needs because sendmail old technology and antiquated? I don�t think so. Bottomline here is that, all mta's that I have tried and tested are all good: Postfix/qmail/sendmail/exim. Again, different mta for diff. solutions. But for enterprise mail server, I won't hesitate recommending sendmail. Almost all of PLUG hates sendmail. Only a few likes it. I hope this clears up the misconception about sendmail. regards, --- Andre M. Varon, CSA http://andre.lasaltech.com _ Philippine Linux Users Group. Web site and archives at http://plug.linux.org.ph To leave: send "unsubscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the Linux Newbies' List: send "subscribe" in the body to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
