It's based on heuristics, like SpamAssassin, but claims to be 30 times faster.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [June 18, 2007]

Based in Košice, Slovakia, anti-spam provider COMDOM software had a high profile first customer: the Slovakian Air Force. Since then, the company has expanded, focusing on customers who have a large number of customers but need an inexpensive, efficient, Linux-based solution.

The company offers its products to ISPs and universities priced per CPU rather than per user.

Big ISPs, says Reza Rajabiun, COMDOM software director of North American sales, do not have they incentive to deploy more efficient software because they can afford to keep adding servers. But mid-sized ISPs—and universities—cannot afford to keep adding servers.

So what makes COMDOM software different for the dozens if not hundreds of other anti-spam providers? "Our differentiation is speed and optimization," says Rajabiun. "Relative to SpamAssassin (which everyone knows is not too fast) we are over 30 times faster. We are 15 times faster than commercial products."

SpamAssassin is getting too bulky, says Rajabiun. "It's too big a bundle, a result of the spam wars."

Other features include:

• Load balancer support
• Recovers from anomalous states
• Blacklist, whitelist, and greylist for each user or domain

Features that improve efficiency include:

• Nonblocking architecture
• One instance of the software per CPU
• Dedicated software engine for compiling patterns for the Bayesian filter

System requirements
The software runs on any Linux build based on the 2.6 kernel. It is compatible with 32 bit and 64 bit CPUs. It requires 50 MB of hard drive space and 256 MB of RAM. On the SpamAssassin tests, the company used the following hardware to test both COMDOM software and SpamAssassin:

• CPU: Intel Pentium M processor 1.7 GHz with 2048 KB L2 Cache
• Motherboard: G5M100-N (Intel 855GME Chipset)
• LAN 1: Intel 82562EM, LAN 2: 82551QM
• RAM: 2 x 1GB DDR 400
• HDD: 120GB ATA Disk Seagate ST3120026A

Serving the world
The company is interested in reaching out to developing nations and to universities around the world. They can contact the company for cheap and sometimes even free copies of the software. "We want to help the world. We want to get this technology out there," says Rajabiun.

Pricing and availability
The product is available now. Pricing is published on the website.

The product is priced at 5,000 Euros per CPU, roughly $6,500.

—End