On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 06:55:39AM +0200, Jaques Cochet wrote:
> Does increasing the number of cores on the same hardware platform add
> performance to a Postfix system or it is better to run several Postfix
> systems on different machines?
Yes, but only if the CPU is the bottleneck. Typically this happens when
you use CPU-intensive Anti-Virus or Anti-Spam content filters or milters.
Multiple messages will be scanned in parallel, and additional concurrency
will help, provided the disk or network is not bottleneck.
> If the second choice is better, is it
> logical to run Postfix on different VMs (using ESX for example),
> let's say on something like 12 cores?
VMs will just make your life worse. Only needed if you need different
O/S versions for the various software components, but be prepared for
pain with timing and subtle resource allocation issues.
> I will use Postfix for email
> scanning (using Mail scanner) and relay and also for mail delivery.
Don't use "Mailscanner". There are other A/V scanners out there that
are not incompatible with Postfix, Mailscanner is not one of them,
unless its architecture has substantially changed recently.
--
Viktor.
