[Dovecot] Redundant shared mail store?

Jasper Bryant-Greene jasper at albumltd.co.nz
Mon Oct 30 23:58:25 UTC 2006


Joshua Goodall wrote:
> Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote:
>> Hi guys
>>
>> I'm about to embark on a project replacing a legacy single mail server
>> running proprietary software with a cluster of Dovecot servers. We
>> clearly need a shared mail store for these servers, but we are not
> happy
>> with simply using a server running NFS as this becomes a single point
> of
>> failure.
[snip]
> I recommend a pair of NetApp filers (e.g. 2 x 3020c) exporting NFS from
> shared disk shelves in their high-availability mode.  This is a hybrid
> of the two options, except a) it's a fully supported and stable NetApp
> configuration, b) they're sharing disk storage, c) you're not hog-tied
> to GFS, d) it's the best NFS implementation in the world (you can even
> trust the fcntl locking), e) it's really fast, f) NetApp's onboard
> snapshots and other funky software bits will make you wonder how you
> lived without them, g) the HA actually works.
> 
> I have a six-digit userbase with mailboxes in this configuration.

Thanks for replying - our budget won't stretch to that sort of device,
and it's possibly overkill in terms of storage capability (our mail
currently fits in 100GB easily) but we do like the redundancy/HA features.

Are there any options with similar redundancy/high-availability
capabilities but more in the mid-range market?

-- 
Jasper Bryant-Greene
Director
Album Limited

jasper at albumltd.co.nz
+64 21 708 334 / 0800 425 286
http://www.albumltd.co.nz/


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