For high volume and sensitive environments, it is desirable to deploy the Архива solution in a configuration that offers high availability and high performance. Using Архива's inbuilt routing engine, it is possible to configure the product to receive smtp/milter traffic on a particular port, archive the emails and then forward it on to a nearby server. This simple configuration opens up the possibility to daisy chain two or more servers such that email data is replicated to all servers.
A load balancer (such as nginx) can be used to spray SMTP traffic evenly across all servers. In this way, the throughput of the solution is increased considerably. Furthermore, the fault tolerance of the solution is markedly improved due to the fact that redundancy is applied to all server and storage components.
If any server goes down, the load balancer will forward traffic to the other servers in the chain. Once more, when the faulty server is restored, the other servers in the chain will immediately begin to forward catchup traffic so that the restored server is brought up to date with all missing emails.
For optimal performance, it is recommended to install two 1 GB ethernet cards in each server. One interface is used for receiving traffic from the load balancer, the other for forwarding traffic to a nearby server. In this way, contention between receiving and forwarding traffic is eliminated.
It is also possible to configure load balancer to balance Архива console (HTTP/S) traffic across multiple servers. Although, to preserve user session state between requests, it is advisable to enable sticky mode. Sticky mode ensures that users are kept on the same server as they were initially assigned.
Licensing: To implement the standard high availability configuration, it is necessary to obtain an additional high availability license for each additional server. This high availability license is offered at reduced rates. Please contact Архива sales for pricing information.
Next Steps
- Setup hardware as depicted in the diagram (in most cases, two servers will suffice)
- Install and configure Архива in an identical manner on each server
- For each server, add a new routing configuration in Configuration->Routes. The route should receive traffic from the load balancer, archive and then forwards to the next redudant server in the chain.
- Install and configure a load balancer such as Nginx to spread SMTP/milter traffic evenly across both server
- (Optionally) Configure the load balancer to balance HTTP/S console traffic between each of the servers