Domino 6 IMAP performance

Level: Intermediate Do
Michael Gazda, Advisory Software Engineer, Lotus
03 Mar 2003
The Domino 6 IMAP server offers several message storage formats. This article reports on tests that measured the
effect of mail formats on server transaction counts, CPU usage, memory usage, and response time.
The Domino 6 IMAP server offers users multiple options for choosing the format in which to store messages in
their mail databases. The choice of format depends on a number of factors-user preferences, type of email system Us
used, and so on. However, the format you select can have a significant impact on performance. do
This Performance Perspectives column summarizes performance results we obtained testing each mail format. For
each format, we measured its effect on server transaction counts, CPU usage (both in terms of percentage and
total CPU minutes), memory usage, and response time. Our goal is to present you with data to help you Ra
determine which mail format is best for your environment.
This column assumes that you're an experienced Domino administrator.
IMAP mail storage options
An important component of IMAP performance is the format you choose for storing mail messages. You select this forma
places:

• The user's Person document

• The RouterAppendIMAPItems variable in the IMAP server's Notes.ini file

Selecting the mail storage format in the Person document

You set up a user for IMAP mail through the Person document in the Domino Directory by choosing IMAP in the Mail syst
completing the "Format preferences for incoming mail" field. This field offers three options:

• Keep in sender's format (the default)

• Prefers MIME
• Prefers Notes Rich Text

Note that by default, the IMAP server adds IMAP-specific elements to the user's mail file the first time the user logs in (u
already IMAP-enabled). Although this is a fairly quick operation, it does result in a small delay the first time users open t
avoid this, run the server command Convert -e on the users' mail files to enable them for IMAP. (Also note that if you cr
through registration, the IMAP server performs the same IMAP-enabling process when users first log in.) For more inform
conversion task, see the Domino Administrator help.
The best IMAP performance with Domino (both in terms of server resources and user response times) occurs when you
MIME option. When you choose this option, the router converts all incoming messages to the MIME storage format at de
messages are therefore stored in your mail file in MIME format. This lets the IMAP server quickly serve all information ab
(such as size) as well as the body of the document to an IMAP client because the document is already stored in the nece
the client to read.
However, when Notes documents are converted to MIME, they lose all Notes Rich Text (RTF) features, such as LotusScrip
collapsable sections. This is important for users who need to connect via Notes in the office (perhaps to interact with No
workflow applications that have RTF-only features), but who require IMAP access outside the office.
As noted previously, the other two mail format choices you can set in the Person document are Prefers Notes Rich Text (
sender's format (the default; in R5 this option was called No Preference). These options preserve Notes RTF features, bu
impact on a user's IMAP performance because Notes RTF documents are not stored in a format that allows the IMAP ser
document up to the IMAP client. So when an IMAP client either requests certain properties about a document (or reques
document), RTF-to-MIME conversion must occur on the server immediately following the request, but before the server
response. This is an additional layer of work, impacting both client response times and server performance. Additionally,
information is not stored in the user's mail database with a Notes RTF document, if the IMAP client requests the messag
must perform the RTF-to-MIME conversion again. With the best-behaved IMAP clients, this scenario causes a performanc
due to an increased frequency of RTF-to-MIME conversions, and with poorly behaved clients (where previously download
stored locally and therefore re-requested often), it can cause a very substantial degradation in server performance.
Setting RouterAppendIMAPItems
To provide two additional choices in mail storage format, Domino 6 introduced the Notes.ini parameter RouterAppendIMA
enter the following setting in your server's Notes.ini file:
RouterAppendIMAPItems=1
the router task performs a partial RTF-to-MIME conversion for all Notes RTF mail delivered to an IMAP-enabled mail file.
occurs, all essential IMAP header information for the message is calculated and permanently stored with the document i
database at delivery time. However, the message body itself is still stored in Notes RTF format, so features such as colla
maintained for Notes clients.
 About
Privacy Contact
IBM