JunkEmailFilter.com Uses Operating System Virtualization to Manage its Network of Servers
HERNDON, Va., November 15, 2007 – JunkEmailFilter.com works in the dangerous area of sorting through e-mail to filter out viruses and junk e-mails known as "spam," so that its clients receive only the e-mails they want to see. For higher levels of control and security, it uses open source virtualization software, known as OpenVZ.
"In our business, it's a necessity to have redundant systems in different locations in case bad things happen," says Marc Perkel, support manager at JunkEmailFilter.com. "People are dependent on us to get their e-mail through, so we cannot afford downtime."
The company has set up virtual servers with OpenVZ operating system server virtualization software and maintains backups so that, if necessary, a virtual server can be restored on another physical server and started up immediately.
There are four OpenVZ virtual servers on each of four physical servers that run e-mail server software, MySQL and SpamAssassin with virtual servers as large as 4 gigabytes.
"OpenVZ has almost no overhead, so we are giving up almost nothing in terms of performance to run virtual servers," says Perkel. "In our experience, OpenVZ has been compatible with most everything we run so it's one of those 'just works' solutions."
"We run different software programs in different virtual servers," says Perkel. "That way, one application isn't compromised if another application has an issue."
"With OpenVZ, we can also limit applications to specified amounts of memory and processing power, which allows us to tune our resources very precisely. If necessary, those can be adjusted on the fly," says Perkel.
The company has used OpenVZ software to create templates for different virtual servers, such as its VoIP phone system and SpamAssassin servers that process e-mail. Each virtual server is deployed on a physical server independent of others, which enables virtual servers to be moved among physical servers to balance workloads.
About JunkEmailFilter.com
E-mail filtering is easy to set up and doesn't require users to change their existing e-mail server. Instead of e-mail coming from the Internet directly to the user's e-mail server, it goes to spam filtering e-mail servers. There, it is stripped of viruses and spam and within seconds is passed on to the user's existing e-mail server. JunkEmailFilter.com is based in San Bruno, California. More information can be found at www.junkemailfilter.com.
