This really has nothing to do with PEM, but I could not resist...
Rex Buddenberg writes:
Probably the biggest functional difference between the
envisioned DMS applications and conventional e-mail is
that DMS is intended for organizational as well as personal
messaging. Consider the scale-up problems of, say, CentCom
during Desert Shield where command(_at_)centcom(_dot_)mil might be getting
several tens of thousands of messages a day. Few user agents
are equipped to internally route, account for, and tickle for
replies for this kind of volume.
Really? I'm actually somewhat amazed to hear this. We routinely deal with sites
handling message loads this large or larger on a single system. If several <=
2(0000) we rarely have any trouble dealing with the load. Maybe our software is
extra-special-good, but I've always assumed that our competition can handle
comparable loads with similar facility.
In our experience real problems start in the 40,000 to 50,000 messages/day
range. At this point we start running into performance curve knees in the
underlying disk structuring methodologies in common use today. We're actively
tracking the development of log structured and, to a lesser extent, log based
file systems to deal with these issues. Some redesign at the MTA and UA level
will probably be needed to take maximum advantage of these systems (they have
very different performance characteristics), but we're preparing to deal with
this situation as it unfolds. We're hoping to approach 100,000 messages/day
with this technology underneath.
(The MH guys are happy to handle 300 messages a day).
Wow. This is *tiny*. I'm not a user of MH, but my impression was that it could
handle this load with ease.
A lot depends on what you mean by "handle", of course. If each message
requires repeated substantial processing involving ancillary disk space there
could be
some real issues to contend with.
(This problem may be solved gratis for the military; I
understand that president(_at_)whitehouse(_dot_)gov is having a similar
problem;-).
Well, there are any number of major issues in handling mail for this particular
organization, but to the best of my knowledge performance isn't one of them.
(I'm actively involved in providing at least some of the software used by this
particular setup.)
Again, I apologize for using the pem-dev list for this discussion. Perhaps
there needs to be a list devoted to discussion of performance issues in email.
Ned