Tuning Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam on Sun Servers with CoolThreads Technology 
by Alan Yoshida, Ramin Moazeni, and Steve Gaede
June 2009
This Sun BluePrints™ article provides background information on Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam (SBAS) software and CoolThreads technology-powered servers, the configurations used for performance measurements, the challenges presented by benchmarking anti-spam software, and the actual steps used to tune the hardware/software combination to achieve the reported performance levels. This article was originally published in October 2006 and reflected performance on the Sun Fire / Sun SPARC Enterprise T2000 server. It has been updated to reflect more recent measurements comparing a Sun Fire / Sun SPARC Enterprise T1000 and T2000 servers to a Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server using virtually the same tuning parameters. It goes further, comparing how the combination of tuning and the use of Solaris™ Zones partitioning technology gives the four-socket Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server an even greater edge in the fight against unsolicited email.
Contents
- Tuning Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam on Sun Servers with CoolThreads Technology
- A potent combination of technologies
- Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam
- UltraSPARC T1 and T2 processors
- Delivering high mail filtering performance
- A potent combination of technologies
- How this article is organized
- A unique match of technologies
- CoolThreads technology-powered servers
- UltraSPARC T1 Processor-Powered Servers
- UltraSPARC T2 Processor-Powered Servers
- UltraSPARC T2 Plus processor-powered servers
- Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam
- CoolThreads technology-powered servers
- Test configuration
- Systems under test
- Sun Fire / Sun SPARC Enterprise T2000 server measurements
- Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server measurements
- Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server measurements
- Load generator configuration
- Systems under test
- Your mileage may vary
- Tuning SBAS on the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 Server
- Performance Comparison
- Increasing service threads
- Deterministic finite automata (DFA)
- Integrating multi-threaded malloc
- Raising the number of open files
- Measuring SBAS on the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server
- Tuning SBAS on the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server
- Solaris Zone configuration
- Performance comparison
- Increasing service threads
- Integrating multi-threaded malloc
- Raising the number of open files
- Measuring SBAS on the Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server
- Summary
- Performance improvements through tuning
- Performance improvements with each processor generation
- About the authors
- Acknowledgments
- References
- Ordering Sun documents
- Accessing Sun documentation online
Alan Yoshida is a Staff Engineer in the ISV Engineering group at Sun Microsystems. As the lead engineer for the Symantec relationship within MDE, Alan's primary responsibility is helping to make sure that Symantec products run well on Sun platforms.
Ramin Moazeni is a Member of Technical Staff in the ISV Engineering group at Sun Microsystems. He has been working with independent software vendors on performance engineering and in porting of their applications onto Sun platforms.
Steve Gaede is a technology consultant and writer who has lent his engineering and technical marketing expertise to various projects at Sun Microsystems since 1994. He works through PointSource Communications and his technically-focused company, Lone Eagle Systems, Inc.
The authors would like to thank Symantec its support from configuration and tuning suggestions to the body of email used in the tuning process. In particular, thanks to Tom Anderson, Jason Grauel, Matt Hartwell-Herrero, and Matt Steele. Thanks as well to Suzanne Zorn for providing additional material on the UltraSPARC T2 processor and the Sun servers and modular systems that support them.
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