[Dovecot] architecture to handle 1000 messages per second?

[Michael]

On Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:09:33 Bob Eastbrook wrote:
> Can anyone describe an architecture which can handle 1000 IMAP or POP
> messages per second?  Ideally, it would be hosted in the cloud and
> additional instances could be launched to handle additional load.
>
> Bob

The Courier IMAP server is a fast, scalable, enterprise IMAP server that uses 
Maildirs. Many E-mail service providers use the Courier IMAP server to easy 
handle hundreds of thousands of mail accounts. With its built-in IMAP and 
POP3 aggregation proxy, the Courier IMAP server has practically infinite 
horizontal scalability. In a proxy configuration, a pool of Courier servers 
service initial IMAP and POP3 connections from clients. They wait to receive 
the client's log in request, look up the server that actually holds this mail 
account's mailbox, and establish a proxy connection to the server, all in a 
single, seamless process. Mail accounts can be moved between different 
servers, to achieve optimum resource usage.

http://www.courier-mta.org/imap/