Microsoft 1 Capacity Management

Microsoft Exchange 2000 Operations — Version 1.012

Chapter Sections

This chapter covers the following procedures:

◆Capacity management

◆Availability management

◆Performance tuning

◆Hardware upgrades

After reading this chapter, you will be familiar with the requirements for capacity and

availability management in an Exchange 2000 environment and the steps necessary to

ensure that the requirements of your SLA are met.

Capacity Management

Capacity management is the planning, sizing, and controlling of service capacity to ensure

that the minimum performance levels specified in your SLA are exceeded. Good capacity

management will ensure that you can provide IT services at a reasonable cost and still meet

the levels of performance you have agreed with the client.

This section will help you meet your capacity management targets for an Exchange 2000

environment.

Of course, whether an individual server reaches its SLA targets will depend greatly upon

the functions of that server. In Exchange 2000, servers can have a number of different

functions, so you will need to ensure that you categorize servers according to the functions

they perform and treat each category of server as an individual case. In particular, do not

consider servers purely in terms of the number of mailboxes they hold.

When you are looking at the capacity of a server running Exchange, consider the

following:

◆How many mailboxes are on the server?

◆What is the profile of the users? (Light, medium, or heavy use of e-mail; do they use

other services, such as video-conferencing?)

◆How much space do users require for mailboxes?

◆How many public folders are on the server?

◆How many connectors on the server are on the server?

◆How many distribution lists are configured to be expanded by the server?

◆Is the server a front-end server?

◆Is the server a domain controller/Global Catalog server? (generally not recommended)

Generally, the more functions a server has, the fewer users that server will be able to

support on the same hardware. To gain the maximum capacity from your servers, consider

having servers dedicated to a specialized function. In many cases your planning will have

Contents

Main ii Contents Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Capacity and Availability Management 11 Change and Configuration Management 37 Chapter 4 Enterprise Monitoring 53 Chapter 5 Protection 71 Chapter 6 Glossary 97 Support 89 Page Page Page Introduction Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) Page How to Use This Guide Efficiency, Continuity, and Security Figure 1.2 Efficiency Continuity Security Chapter Outlines Planning and Deployment Service Level Agreements Features Performance Recovery Support Related Topics Page Capacity and Availability Management Capacity Management Page Page Availability Management Service Hours Service Availability Minimizing System Failures Decreasing Single Points of Failure Increasing the Reliability of Exchange 2000 Minimizing System Recovery Time Performance Tuning Making Changes to the Registry No Performance Optimizer Optimizable Features Tuning Considerations Upgrading from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 Tuning the Message Transfer Agent (MTA) Tuning SMTP Transport Mailroot Directory Location SMTP File Handles Page Store and ESE Tuning Online Store Maintenance Online Backups Choosing the Correct Maintenance Strategy Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) Heaps Store-Database Cache Size Page Log Buffers Tuning Active Directory Integration Page Tuning Outlook Web Access (OWA) Page Hardware Upgrades Page Change and Configuration Management Prerequisites Change Management Defining Change Type Step 1 Request for Change Is Submitted to Change Manager Step 2 Change Manager Assesses the RFC Step 3 Change Is Passed to IT Executive Committee for Approval Step 4 Change Is Passed to the Change Advisory Board for Scheduling Step 5 Change Is Passed to the Change Owner Step 6 Change Process Evaluation Minor and Standard Changes Scripting Minor and Standard Changes Security Software Control and Distribution Documentation Configuration Management Tools for Configuration Management Configuration Management and Change Management Configuration Items Page Page Page Defining Configuration Items Configuration Management and Exchange Maintaining the Configuration Management Database Change Management Ownership Security Backup Exchange System Policies Administering System Policies Page Enterprise Monitoring Prerequisites Performance Monitoring System Monitor Exchange 2000 Objects and Counters to Monitor Service or Resource Performance Object Information Store Counters SMTP Server MSExchangeMTA and MSExchangeMTAConnections MSExchangeIM Virtual Servers MSExchangeAL Windows 2000 Objects and Counters to Monitor Table 4.2 Subjects and Associated Objects and Counters Subsystem Object Counter Exchange Comments Subsystem Object Counter Exchange Comments Centralized Monitoring Event Monitoring Event Viewer Log Files Centralized Event Monitoring Availability Monitoring Monitoring and Status Tool Adding Services to the Default Configuration Monitoring Resources Notifications Status Disabling Server Monitoring Centralized Availability Monitoring Client Monitoring Page Page Protection Chapter Start Point Chapter End Point Protection Against Hacking Firewall Operations Maintaining Firewall Availability Ensuring That Only the Correct Traffic Passes Through the Firewall Monitoring Against Hacker Intrusion Dealing With Security Breaches Anti-Virus Measures Staying Current Dealing With Virus Infection Blocking Attachments at the Client Page Disaster Recovery Procedures Backing Up Page Offline Backup Disk Imaging Restoring Recovering Individual Messages Recovering Lost Mailboxes Recovering Exchange Stores and Storage Groups Full Exchange Server Recovery Recovering Exchange After Active Directory Failure Alternate Server Recovery Recovery Testing Page Page Support Providing Support for End Users Reducing End User Support Costs Page Problem Reporting Dealing with User Problems Notifying Users Exchange Problem Management Page Page Glossary