On 12 Feb 2009, at 15:13, Kenneth Kalmer wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> This is my first post, please be gentle as I risk ridicule. I've been
> lurking here for several months now, learning from others.
> Disclaimer, I
> have yet do do more with couch than updating and running the tests.
No worries, we don't bite (...usually :).
> How would couch fair as a backend for a mail delivery system (in
> concept)?
Two words: Perfect match.
> Considering you need high availability and very fast IO. Documents
> (email
> messages) will be created and deleted very often, some almost
> instantaneously.
>
> Couch has some great attributes that makes it sound worth exploring
> further:
>
> * Fast lookup of documents
> * Awesome replication for business continuity (especially in a low-
> latency
> environment like GIG-E)
> * Scales horizontally
> * Ability to pull entire mailbox for user as one result, or at least
> bundle
> X emails together in one response
>
> I can't recall seeing any thread on here in recent history
> discussing high
> document deletion rates, which is effectively the case when people
> pop their
> mail.
A deletion is effectively a set-deleted-flag operation. Compaction
then takes
care of getting rid of the file.
> Normal filesystem-based storage of mail has other issues:
>
> * Messages often smaller than ethernet jumbo frames, so limited
> throughput
> (couch can overcome this by bundling messages in a single response)
> * Mostly limited by disk IO and clever tricks around solid state
> drive usage
> or stripping excessively fast disks
>
> Lets assume nothing about existing mail stores, except that
> filesystem ones
> don't scale will, and I don't even want to consider the possibility of
> raping an RDBMS for this.
>
> Everything is exploratory, the thought just crept into my mind a
> couple of
> days ago and I'd like to bounce the idea around with everyone for fun.
>
> Thanks for all the hard work, and everyones patience with newbies and
> attackers alike.
Hey, thanks for the nice words :)
Hmm, not too much information. Let's see, if you have any more specific
questions, just send a follow up :)
Cheers
Jan
--
|