[olug] mail servers - can sendmail handle this?

[Ryan Stille]

I recently setup a web server at work running CentOS (redhat enterprise 
clone).  It comes with sendmail installed.  The only thing I changed in 
the sendmail configuration was to send all mail through our dedicated 
mail server.  I have very little experience with sendmail and had to 
lookup how to do that.

On one of our other (Windows) web servers is a web application that 
sends out a large number of emails, 10,000 emails at one time, and about 
1500 emails that have a 500Kb newsletter attached at a separate time.  
This is causing slow downs as the application server spools up the 
emails and hands them to the dedicated mail server.

The idea is to move this app to the new linux web server, and have it 
hand off the emails to the localhost to be delivered.  My question is - 
is a default sendmail installation up to this task?  I've pretty much 
heard nothing but complaints about sendmail.  My only other experience 
is with qmail, although I've never gone through a qmail installation 
before.  If I need to switch to a different MTA (or is it an MSA?) I 
would like to stick to one that can be installed as an RPM.

Comments welcome.
-Ryan