E-mail server major performance problems

[eugenevdm]

We have 1000s of processes like this:


30 15998 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10027 before-queue
30 15999 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10026 before-remote
30 16007 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10027 before-queue
30 16010 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10027 before-queue
30 16012 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10026 before-remote
30 16014 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10026 before-remote
30 16034 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10027 before-queue
30 16035 1 0 12:22 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/plesk-9.0/postfix-queue 127.0.0.1 10026 before-remote

Our mail server has crawled to a halt. How can I alleviate the load.