Many small, medium and large businesses rely on Microsoft Exchange Server for their email, unified messaging and calendaring services. So keeping the environment running smoothly is a priority for many companies. Fortunately, there are several fairly straightforward ways to ensure that Exchange runs the way it is supposed to at all times.
One of the keys to managing Microsoft Exchange is to monitor all the critical processes and services running on it. For example, monitoring the average number of synch requests per second allows an Exchange administrator to ensure that mobile devices such as iPhones, Android and Windows smart phones are properly synched up with the Exchange server environment. Similarly, keeping an eye on the average number of current users enables administrators to schedule maintenance and upgrades in such a fashion as to cause minimum inconvenience for users.
In addition to monitoring synch requests and current users, it is also important to keep an eye on average response times. Response times measure how long a user has to wait in order to get a response to a Exchange server request. Long response times are usually an indication of performance problems and invariably lead to more calls to the help desk from frustrated users. Similarly, monitoring messages that are sent and delivered ensures that Exchange Server is delivering and receiving emails and messages like it should. Monitoring mail flow also ensures that a company’s email infrastructure is not being used as a spam relay. It’s also important to understand that by employing a monitoring solution for the exchange server you’re using, you may be able to avoid downtime issues and other problems. There are a few different companies like Pingdom, Paessler, and Dotcom Monitor who offer solutions like these. There URLs can be seen here:
- www.pingdom.com
- www.dotcom-monitor.com/microsoft-exchange-server-monitoring
- www.paessler.com/email_monitoring
Exchange Server administrators should also monitor LDAP query timeouts that result in authentication failures for HTTP users. LDAP timeouts per minute are usually a sure indication of a problem in the manner in which the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol interfaces with the underlying Active Directory. When monitoring an Exchange Server environment, administrators should make it a point to keep an eye on server memory, CPU utilization and disk space. All three factors are crucial to keeping Exchange running optimally. For example, low memory and low disk space can impact Exchange Server performance quite heavily. In some situations, low disk space could result in the Exchange mail store being corrupted thereby causing potentially long service disruptions. Monitoring CPU, disk and memory utilization metrics also provide good information on when it might become necessary to upgrade the hardware supporting the Exchange Server environment.
Exchange Server Tips and Tricks 