[Mailman-Users] big lists, big messages

[Tib]

On Sun, 13 May 2001, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:

> On 5/13/01 12:22 AM, "Tib" <tib at tigerknight.org> wrote:
> If the piece of email is sponsored and has advertising, it's a HUGE problem.
> As was the original poster's note on this stuff.

If you're running on a 384k dsl then the only advertising is the stuff you put
up yourself because it's your server.

> Um, Tib -- I've actually done this and measured it. Have you? You ignored
> pretty much all of the data in my message while responding to JC -- and you
> still sound like you're guessing at this stuff. Have you actually run
> servers in both configurations and measured response like I have? Because my
> numbers say you're wrong.

Well your numbers aren't my numbers, so of course they'll say I'm wrong, and if
that's all you're intent on proving then feel free to flame/shoot down every
one of my comments to me rather than wasting everyone elses time with it.


> No, it won't. There's a huge peak in the few hours after delivery, which
> drops radically after that and stretches out over about ten days or so.
>
> > It all boils down to a matter of how you want to use your server.

> And whether you want to pay for peak load capacities on your web server or
> the lower, spread out push capacities on your e-mail.

I would think this would be a bit the opposite. For your mail server to push
anything it has to look up records on the domain it's going to send to (which
for 10k users I would assume to be a lot of domains), rather than just firing
back a response to an ip for a data request (and will only lookup and put
resolved host names into your log only if you tell it to do so). Again it would
seem to me that the webserver would have an easier time with the load than the
mail server.

> Again, I have to ask. Have you actually done this with large lists? I'm
> curious if your numbers disagree with mine, or if you don't have numbers to
> back up what you're saying. I'd like to know if the data I've gathered may
> or may not be typical. If you've done it, what size lists?

What I have:
A personally built server (PIII 500, 256mb memory, 30g hd)
a 1.1 sdsl line
5 fully hosted domains
23 users (maybe a third of which are decently active for mail and web demands)
5 email lists running on mailman, the largest of which is about 300 users.
mrtg to keep track of bandwidth usage
basic algebra

Do I run a newsletter like the original topic of this thread was about? Nope.
Am I guessing a little about traffic and how it could happen if changed to the
way I talked about? Yep. I say a little because I used to work for a company
that was completely based off of this kind of newsletter and traffic, to the
tune of about 8 million addresses, 200 mail servers, and about that many web
servers. Dealing with systems on two vastly different scales (millions of users
at my old company, and a handful at my own server - versus 10k towards the
middle of the spectrum) turn experience into best guesses. I have never maxed
out my bandwidth with list traffic, so my comments are /estimates/ of numbers
and /estimates/ on behaviors of people based on myself as being 'joe average'.


<EOL>
Tib