[imp] Help Req. : Sizing a Horde\IMP system for 12,000 users

[Martin Searle]

Hi,

I work for the University of Kent in the UK and we are looking to
replace our current Email client with a horde\IMP webmail system. I
have been asked to research what sort of machine(s) is required to run
the system, it maybe that a clustered approach would be better ?.

Our current Horde IMP system shows excessive strain with about 2-3,000
users logged in its a Sun Blade 100, 384mb, 9gb disk machine, which
granted is not a very powerful piece of kit, it runs IMP v2.2.6. We
have apache and Solaris 9 on the machine. This machine serves
off-campus users mainly although some internal users have switched to
it exclusively.

Our current email system handles approx. 60,000 outgoing emails per
day from a variety of clients.

We do have a limited budget and we would like to continue to use Sun
hardware. So does anyone have any thoughts or have first hand
experience with setting up a system to handle more than 10,000
concurrent users ? My gut reaction is too look at clustering and use
spare space on existing servers.

Thanks for any help in advance,

Martin Searle
Computing Service
University of Kent
Canterbury, UK.

--
Martin Searle BSC(hons) Comp. Sci.,
Computing Officer (Computing)
Room S18, Cornwallis South,
RYA Club Racing Coach