Hey Everyone,
Based on the hardware you posted and what we’re seeing, the scan times you’re reporting are within what we would expect and do not indicate a performance issue.
SpamFoo performs a substantial amount of local model processing for every message, including generating multiple embeddings used by its spam detection and classification models. That processing is necessary to maintain detection and classification accuracy.
The Xeon Silver 4110 is an older processor, so a few seconds of processing time for this type of CPU-based inference is not unexpected. The scan-time metric also should not be viewed in isolation as an indication that SpamFoo is negatively affecting SmarterMail.
SpamFoo is designed to perform this processing within a controlled resource footprint. It limits processing concurrency, maintains a relatively small memory footprint, and performs the model inference locally without requiring additional external processing.
What ultimately matters is whether mail flow is being delayed, queues are continually growing, or SmarterMail itself is becoming less responsive. If none of those things are occurring, then there is no performance issue to address here.
Based on the information provided so far, what you’re seeing appears consistent with the workload SpamFoo is performing and the hardware available.
You guys did bring up some interesting topics to discuss with the SpamFoo team though regarding performance. So I will bring those up at our next meeting with them.
Kind Regards,
Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.