On Fri, 6 Jan 1995 22:38:05 -0600 Winship <[log in to unmask]> said:
 
>If I need a really quick answer  for things like query, scan etc. I will
>tn3270 to our error  account. Since it is at UBVM I  get the answer very
>quickly (local users get priority).
 
Actually, the difference is that local users don't go via SMTP, and IBM's
SMTP software is  a dog. It's an interested case  for us computer freaks,
actually, because in spite of being  a dog, it uses algorithms that scale
up. So you need about 5 times more cycles and I/O than you should to make
a delivery, but then if you throw in 10 times as many cycles, you can get
about 10 times as much work done. The IBM tradition - a bigger box solves
your problem. Many other SMTPs are  just the opposite. They're very fast,
but then at some point you start needing 10 times as many resources to do
twice as  much work. So  you can  buy the largest  box there is,  and you
still can't get past  a certain capacity. The only solution  is to run 10
smaller boxes in parallel and figure  a way to somehow spread the traffic
between them. In some cases it's easy, in others it's next to impossible.
 
  Eric