Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!adm!AI.CLIVE@MCC.COM
From: AI.CLIVE@MCC.COM (Clive Dawson)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: trying multiple addresses
Message-ID: <11846@brl-adm.ARPA>
Date: 16 Feb 88 14:31:36 GMT
Sender: news@brl-adm.ARPA
Lines: 29


	     Trying every possible IP address for a host which fails to
	respond on its "primary" IP address is a recipe for performance
	disaster for any background mailer with a large workload.  We're
	talking about thousands of messages/day, friends, not a piddly couple
	of hundred.

Yes, Mark, I know what large workloads are.  Considering that 

	a) this discussion deals with multi-homed hosts which
	   comprise only about 5% of the total host population, and
	b) the success rate for first delivery attempts exceeds 95%, and 
        c) once a message is in the retry queue the average number of
	   retries is greater than 1,

I would appreciate it if you would elaborate on just how this
"performance disaster" you predict will come about, especially for
sites using the algorithm we've discussed in the last few messages.

I'm glad to see you acknowledge that only "most" of these problems are
host-table related.  OK, let's eliminate these from consideration.
What do you propose that we do about the rest of the problems which
are not host-table related?  You seem to be resigned to the idea that
they should just be ignored because there are so few of them.  If
this is true, then a solution which only affects THESE FEW can hardly
cause a performance disaster.

Clive
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