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Subject: Re: pop-before-smtp (was Re: FreeInet and checking mail?)
From: Brad Knowles (blkskynet.be)
Date: Wed Jun 07 2000 - 07:48:07 CDT

At 11:16 AM +0200 2000/6/7, Brad Knowles wrote:

> The problem is that POP/IMAP servers cannot *POSSIBLY* be
> anywhere *NEAR* as fast and efficient at the process of handling
> message submission and message transmission (even internal
> message transmission to a separate set of servers that actually
> communicate with the outside world), as programs like sendmail
> and postfix can be.

        My humblest apologies. I now understand that to support the
features of the Unified Messaging System that we're in the process of
building on behalf of one specific customer, we have to support
uploads via IMAP, because that is how the fax-to-e-mail and
voicemail-to-e-mail conversion processes function.

        I had no idea the depths of total friggin' cluelessness that went
into the IMAP protocol design. I have a new-found and very
deep-seated loathing and hatred for Mr. Mark R. Crispin.

        Contrariwise, the computer vendors ought to love him -- this
means they get to sell more ultra-high end servers (like Sun
Enterprise 4000, 6000, and 10000) as people mistakenly try to support
the same number of users per machine as they used to.

        Companies that specialize in helping to build highly scalable
mail systems ought to either love him or hate him, depending on
whether you (or they) think it is actually technically possible to
build IMAP-based mail systems that will be physically capable of
scaling to handle millions of users.

        Companies that sell disk storage (such as EMC) should also love
him, as more and more people start bumping into the 50MB/mailbox (or
whatever) limits that are set by the service provider, and have to
buy more and more disk space to handle fewer and fewer users -- you
gotta support those uploads, you know.

        Finally, those companies that sell modems and access or network
infrastructure equipment should also love him, as service providers
will now have to have a modem/user ratio that is much closer to
one-to-one than the old twenty-to-one or ten-to-one ratios they used
to be able to get away with.

        It would seem that the cost per mailbox is destined to go up by
at least an order of magnitude, if not two orders of magnitude. 

--
   These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy
======================================================================
Brad Knowles, <blkskynet.be>                || Belgacom Skynet SA/NV
Systems Architect, Mail/News/FTP/Proxy Admin || Rue Colonel Bourg, 124
Phone/Fax: +32-2-706.13.11/12.49             || B-1140 Brussels
http://www.skynet.be                         || Belgium