Well, what kind of budget are you looking at for this?  As cheap as
possible, or does the client actually have some cash to burn?  I don't
recommend going cheap because if their traffic grows as much as you say it's
going to, going cheap is going to be a problem later when you need to scale
the system.  

What is doing the sending into the mail cluster?  Another mail server, or an
app that generates the email?  Can it be made to hold open multiple
connections, or does it open a separate connection for each message?  Can it
talk to a list of IP's, or just to one?  Can you run multiple apps in
parallel, having each one point at a different mail server?  By doing this,
you eliminate the need for some other sort of load balancing unit.

I suggest a cluster of FreeBSD boxes running postfix, but it's unclear how
you plan to load balance the mail coming into the cluster.  More details.
:)

Jay
-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Kline
To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org
Sent: 1/9/2002 11:37 AM
Subject: Re: [TCLUG] High Volume Mail Relay

No, absolutely not.  (Though this is not the first time we have been
accused 
of that)  Because of non-disclosure agreements, I am not allowed to say 
exactly what we do, but rest assured, that every piece of mail being
sent is 
expected by the recipiant.  

Jay

On Wednesday 09 January 2002 10:53 am, you wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Jay Kline wrote:
> > I am doing some research to set up a high volume SMTP relay server
for
> > a company.  As of right now, they average roughly 4000 7K messages
per
> > minute during the work day (a total of about 1 million messages per
8
> > hour work day).  By the end of the year, their estimates are to be
> > sending 12 times that.  As this is outgoing mail only, local
delivery
> > really isnt a big deal, we have one incoming server set up for that,
> > and is handling just fine.
>
> Please tell me these guys aren't spammers?
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