On Fri, 10 Feb 1995 12:12:00 EST Bill Verity <[log in to unmask]> said:
 
>I've been  trying to follow these  discussions but I'm still  not clear.
>Would our running  the TCP/IP product help our load?  Most of our BITNET
>traffic goes  out over BITNET-II  which is  in fact the  Internet lines.
>RSCS is rarely saturated. The SMTP machines are the ones that can't keep
>up.
 
To answer these  questions it helps to separate the  "core node" function
of  PSUVM with  its "traffic  producer" function.  That is,  on the  same
machine you are running a LISTSERV that is used both as a core router and
to deliver mail for PSU's own mailing lists.
 
The core function only makes sense if  you are running your server in NJE
mode. That is,  you cannot act as  a switchboard for NJE  jobs unless you
run your server in NJE mode. One could probably work out a setup based on
a specially configured LTCP where you would receive jobs from your region
via NJE, and use  SMTP to deliver them to the  other core nodes involved.
This however would not be a good use of your or the receiving core site's
resources. If as a central NJE switchboard  site you need to cut 7 copies
of a job and send them to other core sites, it is more cost effective (on
VM) to do that using NJE. The idea  of LTCP is to (1) decrease the use of
this switching function  by reducing the number of  such switching "hops"
from  the current  LISTSERV-NJE setup,  which is  based purely  on BITNET
topology, and (2) move the switching functions to cheap workstation or PC
systems.
 
As a producer  of traffic for PSU's  own lists, it would  however help if
you switched to  the version LTCP that  is about to be  released, the one
with the change to stop using  BITNET altogether. It would not help PSUVM
itself,  since on  VM  a NJE  delivery  is less  expensive  than an  SMTP
delivery, but  it would help  the other core  sites because you  would no
longer  be sending  them jobs  via  NJE for  the traffic  that PSU  lists
generate. In general,  as traffic producers migrate to LTCP,  the load on
the core will be reduced.
 
Finally, as a delivery engine it would help if you ran a copy of the unix
(or VMS) LISTSERV on a cheap workstation-class system and configured your
VM LISTSERV to direct all Internet  messages to that machine. This trades
the current set of SMTP messages,  with all the queuing and delivery done
on VM,  with "leaner"  SMTP messages  that have just  one recipient  on a
local, well connected machine. Your SMTPs  would be able to deliver these
messages  immediately and  would not  accumulate  a queue  on their  191.
Having only  one RCPT  TO: to  process would also  speed up  the delivery
compared to  the current  setup, so  the spool  queues would  probably go
away.
 
  Eric