Posted by Don Kruse on Apr 28, 2011 in server, Troubleshooting | 0 comments
The firm I support has a problem with email; Like some people have a problem with alcohol or shoes. The users I support either think they need multiple copies of every email messages that is related to every client or they are required to receive and save copy after copy until their mail folders are over-flowing with redundant messages. To add insult to injury the process works like this: The legal assistants get copied on EVERY message that comes into the attorneys they support. So long story short this causes a problem for the mail server because it has trouble keeping up with indexing so many folders that are near or over 10,000 messages (items). And yes I have argued with the shareholders and legal assistants that there are better ways to do this but they just aren’t ready to make any big changes.
Based on my experience with various servers, file systems, 32-bit vs. 64-bit, and available RAM every server is going to have some upward limit on how many individual items it can reasonably index in a given amount of time. The result of having numerous mail user’s folders that have crept up to 10,000 or beyond means that the Kerio Connect system can fall behind simply because it hasn’t finished indexing. If it can’t index it can’t add new messages to that user’s folder and so on (somewhat similar to a cascade failure).
We are running Kerio Connect on a fast Intel Xserve with a RAID 5 with 7,200 RPM SATA drives. Now we could change the drives to a RAID 0 to speed things up a bit but that’s not an option right now (actually I am giving serious thought to putting in a flash-based boot drive for the OS and Kerio Connect and have the data on the RAID) or we could find some other method of speeding up disk access but I feel these mostly are workarounds. The server just isn’t that slow.
The one thing that must happen is that each user’s mail folders must be kept under 10,000 messages and so I established a policy with a 5,000 message limit (this gives us some cushion). After the break are the details of how I am using a shell script, Lingon, and Splunk to help us efficiently keep track of each user’s mail folder contents.
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Posted by Don Kruse on Oct 18, 2006 in mac | Comments Off
Probably not but below is a sampling of the comments I’ve received so far. You can vote for your favorite sysadmin too:
http://www.sysadminoftheyear.com/
“Don is able to maintain control of the machines, while the machines maintain their control of us.” – JH
“Don can do it all and faster than anyone else.” – EB
“Don is a well versed IT guru who has successfully facilitated an office of attorneys using solely apple products for their IT needs. I ibelieve this alone would qualify, but will continue anyway. Don and our other IT manager Tim, set up a system of inter-office I chat so ground breaking and secure that our firm was contacted by the department of defese on how they did it.” – AKS
“For amazing IT developments, hard work and being so easy to work with, Don should be your sysadmin of the year.” – BRS
“Without Don’s magical talent with our system our world would come to a complete stop!!!! He is the best!!” – LCS
“He is extremely helpful and is always willing to take the time to solve a problem. We are a big firm with multiple branch offices – he services them all. He has a “can do” attitude and will not stop until an answer or a problem is solved. He is pro-active about solutions and always keeps abreast of recent changes and developments in software and hardware to improve our daily life. He is also an all around good guy who appreciates coffee and the occassional donut. He takes his commitments seriously to our firm and his family.” -AS
“Always quick to fix the problem… need I say more?” – SS
“Best keep the “computer compromised” guys and gals in line man arround” -JLS
“Don not only fixes our computers, he can help me figure out my iPod.” – SM
“Because he is the all knowing super geek !” – KW
“Don is exceedingly helpful both at work and at home. He is always patient with his coworkers, at a law firm, not many of them really understand what goes on with a server, it’s not a tech firm but a family law firm. He often travels to the branch offices peppered throughout Oregon and Washington, for he is the server guru for the entire company, wherever they may roam, and strives to make everyone feel supported even if they are not a part of the main office. He works until a problem is solved. This often means for me, his wife, that dinner is delayed, or a weekend day is a work day, but he cares about his job even outside of regular work hours. He is constantly working to create better solutions on his own initiative, and never waits for someone else to tell him what to do next. And after all those long hours at the law firm…he still comes home and will cheerfully help me out with my computer if it is being fussy. He makes my life easier by keeping the home system running smoothly, and it’s a joy to watch his hard work affect and improve the worklives of others around him. Sure, I am biased, but he really does give his best both at work and at home in terms of being the resident super server geek. I love my geek!” – CLSK
“Because he is my own personal SPAM blocker!!!” – AG
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