Microsoft 1 Store and ESE Tuning

Microsoft Exchange 2000 Operations — Version 1.026

reduced to 10,000, SMTP will refuse any inbound mail after the queue reaches 10,000

messages.

You may need to alter the following registry entry if the Exchange 2000 computer is

running out of memory because the number of incoming messages is too great for the

server to process:

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◆Location. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Mailmsg

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◆Parameter. MaxMessageObjects (REG_DWORD)

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◆Default setting. Not present but defaults to 0x186a0

Store and ESE Tuning

Due to advances in the store process, the Exchange information store requires very little

manual tuning. However, better performance can be achieved with good implementation

and configuration.

Online Store Maintenance

The store requires periodic online maintenance to be run against each database. By default,

each database is set to run online maintenance between the times of 1:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M.

Online maintenance performs a variety of tasks necessary to keep the store in good health.

These include, but are not limited to, the following:

◆Checking Active Directory to determine if there are any deleted mailboxes.

◆Removing any messages and mailboxes that are older than the configured retention

policy.

◆Performing online defragmentation of the data within the database.

All of the operations performed by online maintenance have specific performance costs and

should be understood in detail before implementing an online maintenance strategy.

Active Directory Checking

This consists of a Windows 2000 Active Directory service lookup for each user in the

database. The more users you have in each database, the more Active Directory searches

(using Lightweight Directory Access Protocol [LDAP]) will be made. These searches are

used to keep the store in sync with any Active Directory changes (specifically to check for

deleted mailboxes). The performance cost of this task is negligible on the server running

Exchange but can be significant for domain controllers, depending on the number of users,

number of databases, and the online maintenance times of each database. In a corporate

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