Open Source Case Study: Mail Server

• Client running external mail router:

  • Collect and route mail for ~2000 users
  • Sendmail running on NT server
  • Routing mail to internal departmental Exchange servers

• Problems with current solution:

  • Spam filtering software cost $10k/year
  • No virus scanning
  • Mail taking up to 4 days to be delivered
  • No redundant fail-over

Notes:

This particular client had an NT server running as their primary mail server.
It acted as a mail distribution router for several internal Exchange servers.
As well as running a proprietary Mail Server, it also ran a licensed Spam filtering
application that required an annual licensing fee for 2000 users.
The server was relatively powerful but could not handle the current mail load
of 120,000+ emails/day. First time delivery of mail would sometimes be backlogged
for more than four days.
The current mail server was also a stand-alone server with no fail-over or redundancy.