Mail servers have to cope with the explosive growth of Internet users by providing an acceptable quality of service. Performance evaluation and capacity planning of mail servers are crucial issues to be addressed. Workload characterization represents the basis of all these studies. This paper deals with a detailed characterization of the workload of mail servers. Our approach is experimental, that is, based on the analysis of measurements collected on various mail servers. By applying statistical and numerical techniques, we obtain models able to capture and reproduce the behavior of mail server workload. Some of the results of our studies will be used for the definition of the workload of SPECmail2000, a SPEC standardized benchmark aimed at testing the ability of a system to act as a. mail server.
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