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External MTA performance. If appropriate, determine the performance of the
MTA sending incoming email to your MTA, and the performance of your
gateway MTAs and message store.
The characteristics of messages sent and received can impact performance. Key
parameters to identify are:
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Average message size
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Number of messages with attachments
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Average attachment size
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Types of attachments
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Percentage of virus-infected messages in the email traffic
■
Types of end-users (ISP or enterprise)
Settings that affect performance
The choices you make when configuring Symantec Mail Security appliances affect
their performance.
Filtering performance considerations
If a message has more than one recipient, each with different group policies, then
the Scanner may need to bifurcate the message (split it into one or more messages)
for modification prior to delivery. Bifurcated messages resulting from many group
policies may degrade performance. Use group policies as necessary but be aware
that using a large number of policies can affect performance.
Control Center performance considerations
The Control Center is used to start and stop servers; view logs and reports; set
configuration options; backup, restore, and reset system software; and consolidate
statistics, report data, and logs. Consider the following regarding its configuration:
■
Number of Scanners - The number of Scanners a Control Center collects logging
and statistics from can impact the Control Center's performance. As you add
Scanners to a Control Center, monitor the Control Center's performance to
ensure that it does not degrade to unacceptable levels.
■
Log level - The higher the log levels, the more data the Control Center must
consolidate over the network. Consider keeping log levels relatively low unless
you are troubleshooting. You can also set logs to be expunged more frequently.
■
Scheduled reports - Schedule reports for times when utilization is low.
Understanding system requirements
Factors that affect performance
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