# From: Ned Freed <NED(_at_)sigurd(_dot_)innosoft(_dot_)com>
# This really has nothing to do with PEM, but I could not resist...
#
# 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.
#
I'm sure Ned's code is amazingly efficient, but Rex was talking about a UA
handling that volume of traffic, not an MTA.
A couple of points:
(1) I'm not talking about *my* code, as you put it. I'm talking about
commercial software developed by dozens if not hundreds of people over the
past ten years. I'm just one out of many developers, that's all.
(2) Nowhere did I say that I was talking about MTAs in isolation, and it is
nothing short of a strawman argument to assume that I did. An MTA capable
of handling a gazillion messages/day isn't very useful unless you have
adequate MS, UA, and usually gateway technology to back it up.
That being said, I must confess that I find the challenge of providing
highly scablable MTA-level services to be much more of a challenge than
providing highly scalable UA and MS-level services. I'm frankly amazed that
this is so, but it is. There are a variety of reasons for this observation
that I don't propose to get into here.
Ned