Server Consolidation using VirtualMTAs by Fred Tabsharani @tabsharani

There comes a time in the course of every company when cost-cutting is required, whether due to budgetary constraints, in-house consolidation, or just a simple desire to save money. Innovative email deliverability technology such as VirtualMTAs can help in this process by consolidating servers, reducing manpower, and streamlining email flow.

In a typical email delivery environment especially organizations that do not use commercial MTAs, servers may be required to control large volumes of mail.  These servers tend to not be user-friendly: they can be difficult to configure and hard to manage.  An example of this setup is as follows: 

In the above example, three servers are used to deliver email to the various ISPs.  This added machinery increases costs to any business or organization.  Innovative email software made especially for ESPs and enterprises can consolidate these MTAs (Mail Transfer Agents) via VirtualMTAs, creating an easy-to-manage solution that also rapidly reduces costs.  

Some of the benefits of using such solutions for server consolidation include:

• Reduced cost of ownership

• Reduced downtime with fewer points of failure

• Increased deliveries by having greater control over the delivery process

Using the VirtualMTAs, the environment now would look like the following:

Through the use of its VirtualMTAs, your delivery software engine can now make one server look like hundreds of individual servers.  Each of these servers can be fully customized to have its own settings including: 

• Unique IP address 

• Unique hostname 

• Individual per domain settings (e.g. connections, messages, intervals) 

Additionally, these VirtualMTAs can be pooled together for resource sharing. When configured in this fashion, VirtualMTAs can handle higher priority emails faster than other email; thus, this feature is especially useful for priority message streams like password resets. 

Why utilize one IP per server when you can easily control deliveries through hundreds of pooled IPs?  

With this discovery, your organization should consider a comprehensive evaluation with a software product (MTA Vendor) specifically designed to manage an increasingly complex email delivery landscape.