Cyrus IMAP and MySQL mailboxes (Building load-balancing cluster)

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> Yes, I know how failover cluster works. But what if one server
> (active) can't process such a load? Suppose, we plan to have 100 000
> users working actively with mail. I understand that it is possible to
> use one monstrous server to take all of the load, but I am interested
> in load-balancing solution on relatively inexpensive servers. 

(a) SANs are not that expensive.
(b) SANs are *WAY* *WAY* more reliable than *ANY* storage solution you
can build yourself for the same amount of money.  If you really don't
believe that you need to lay of smoking the good stuff.  And (b.1) - if
you have that many users but can't afford a SAN...
(c) Then there is Cyrus replication and there is GFS.  There was long
thread on Cyrus IMAP, HA, & GFS just back in October.


> And what
> about slow anti-viruses for 100 000 users' mail? Or to use
> load-balanced front-ends connected to single SAN and connected to
> anti-virus load-balanced cluster? :-)

It doesn't require a cluster to load balance SMTP,  traditional and well
established technologies will do that for you.  Setup multiple SMTP
servers and publish multiple MX records.