Port25Solutions,Inc.

|EmailWhitepapers

TechnicalRequirementsfor
PowerMTA

1
2011, Port25 Solutions, Inc. This document contains confidential and proprietary information belonging to
Port25 Solutions, Inc. Not for release or distribution without permission. (v.2011-05-10-01)


Port25Solutions,Inc.|EmailWhitepapers
There are many variables that determine the maximum deliverability rate of PowerMTA,
many of which are outside of the control of the PowerMTA software. That being said,
here is how specifications of a server break down with regards to the impact on
PowerMTA performance.

OS
We have found that all other things being equal, Linux, Windows, and Solaris offer a
similar experience in their throughput. The 64-bit version of Linux offers the ability to
queue more recipients than the 32-bit counterpart. We only support versions of these
operating systems that are still supported by the OS vendor.

CPU
The CPU speed and the amount of processors relate most directly to the amount of
concurrent connections (inbound, outbound, and from the feeding application) that
PowerMTA can handle. More outbound connections, in most cases, translates to faster
email delivery. If youre looking to maximize the amount of throughput, and cost is not
really an issue, youll want to use the fastest multi-core processors (the more cores the
better) you can find. We have found that quad-core or dual quad-core CPUs work well
with PowerMTA.

RAM
The amount of RAM on a server relates directly to the amount of messages you can
queue to disk. Taking into consideration the low cost of RAM combined with the
benefits of PowerMTA, given the current and future planned feature set, 4GB is the
recommended configuration for maximum performance, efficiency, and scalability. This
will allow you to queue up approximately 3 million recipients at one time on the server.
4GB of RAM on a server is a limitation of the 32 bit OS, and not PowerMTA. Our 64 bit
solution allows for the use of more than 4GB of RAM, allowing more than 3 million
recipients to be queued at one time.

2
2011, Port25 Solutions, Inc. This document contains confidential and proprietary information belonging to
Port25 Solutions, Inc. Not for release or distribution without permission. (v.2011-05-10-01)


Port25Solutions,Inc.|EmailWhitepapers
HDD
In general, disk I/O tends to be the primary hardware bottleneck with customized email
messages vs. CPU or RAM with larger workloads, since every message hits the disk.
Because of this, spending money on a fast disk subsystem will allow for greater
scalability, and in general, yield higher performance returns. For strong performance,
SCSI disks are *highly* recommended (10000 or even 15000 rpm) and we highly
recommend running more than one disk, allowing you to put the mail spool onto more
than one spindle for greater scalability from day one. SSD drives are also recommended,
but may but cost prohibitive.
When running with more than one disk, you can spread the mail spool over your disks by
simply adding another "spool" directive/keyword in the PowerMTA configuration file. If
mirroring is required, we would recommend a hardware RAID system configured with
RAID 0+1 or RAID 1+0 for best performance. For volumes of mail greater than 150,000
per hour it is recommended to have a setup that allows for at least 100MB/s read write
operations.

Outbound Bandwidth
Without the appropriate amount of bandwidth, this is where you will see the greatest
bottleneck with delivering mail. To deliver 1,000,000 50k messages an hour would
require a 150Mb/seconds internet connection. To deliver 10,000,000 50k messages per
day (24 hours), you would need an internet connection of at least 70Mb/seconds. In both
cases it would be expected that only PowerMTA would be using the bandwidth, and it
would not be shared by other applications or servers. If needed, you could do some
additional calculations to determine the required bandwidth for other messages volumes
and sizes. See the following link for help in calculating bandwidth needs:
http://www.port25.com/support/support_bandcalc.php

Other Considerations
It is expected that for all of the above, PowerMTA is not sharing the server with any
other applications (database, feeding application, etc.). While all the above are within the
control of PowerMTA, your reputation as a sender, and subsequently your ability to
consistently send email to an ISP, are going to be the biggest factors in delivering email.
While we have tested PowerMTA in a lab environment using mutli-core CPUs, 8GB of
RAM, and a fast HDD setup that allowed us to send over 4 million 50k messages per
hour, you will most likely never get that kind of throughput in a real world environment.
There are too many unknown variables between the PowerMTA server and the remote
ISP to reasonably expect anything more than approximately 1 million messages per hour;
however, even 1 million per hour is a best case number if your machine and bandwidth
3
2011, Port25 Solutions, Inc. This document contains confidential and proprietary information belonging to
Port25 Solutions, Inc. Not for release or distribution without permission. (v.2011-05-10-01)


Port25Solutions,Inc.|EmailWhitepapers
can handle the load, and your reputation as a sender is well established as being in good
standing with all the larger ISPs (yahoo, aol, hotmail, gmail, etc.)

4
2011, Port25 Solutions, Inc. This document contains confidential and proprietary information belonging to
Port25 Solutions, Inc. Not for release or distribution without permission. (v.2011-05-10-01)