Exchange Server 2007: Monitor Your Exchange Environment (part 1)

There are two sides to monitoring—the manual side and the automatic side. Obviously, as a busy administrator you want to automate the process as much as possible. To accomplish that, you have to first determine what you really need to watch and then manually configure the software to monitor and report on itself.

Note

Microsoft uses a methodology called the Microsoft Operations Framework to control the process it calls lifecycle management. This includes a great deal of time and planning along with mediation on the cycle and how you can maintain your infrastructure. Within the plan, Microsoft includes schedules you can use to help monitor Exchange. Go to the TechNet site at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266969(EXCHG.80).aspx and note that there are daily, weekly, monthly, and as needed tasks to care for. You can print operations checklists too, or tweak them to make them your own.

Some of the tools you can use to assist you include the following:

• Performance Monitor

• Event Viewer

• Performance Troubleshooter

• Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM 2005)

• Systems Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Let’s consider the use of each one.

Performance Monitor

The Reliability and Performance Monitor (which is the new tool introduced to us in Windows Vista, used for performance monitoring in Server 2008) is still a fine tool for checking out our Exchange situation. However, there is a Performance Monitor option from within the Toolbox that is already set up with all the needed objects and counters.

To use the EMC’s preconfigured Performance Monitor, perform the following:

1.	Open the Exchange Management Console (EMC).
2.	From the Navigation Tree, select Toolbox.
3.	Scroll down to the Performance tools, select Performance Monitor, and then, from the Actions pane, select Open Tool.
4.	Here you can see (in Figure 1) the preconfigured options, some of which are server-oriented, such as Processor (% Processor Time) and Memory (Pages/sec). Others relate to the MSExchange Store Interface, the Information Store, the IS Mailbox, the Transport Queues, and the Transport SMTP Send and Receive. Figure 1. The Exchange Server Performance Monitor.
5.	If the screen appears too busy, you can deselect the checkboxes for the counters you do not need.
6.	If you want to add new counters, you can click the plus button and choose the objects and counters you need.

Later in this chapter, we discuss what Microsoft is pushing for your Exchange monitoring tool—MOM 2005. One of the necessary features to any monitoring tool is the capability to alert an administrator when there is a problem. That problem can be something as simple as your server reaching low disk space, and you want to know about it as soon as possible.

However, even if you do not have MOM 2005 and don’t intend to purchase it and use its features in your environment, you can still use Performance Monitor to alert you to Exchange-oriented issues.

Server 2003 Perfmon Alerts

You can create alerts for many different reasons. Here is just one example.

To place an alert for disk space issues (through either the normal Performance Monitor or the Exchange Server Performance Monitor) on a Server 2003 system, perform the following steps:

Server 2008 Perfmon Alerts

You can create alerts for many different reasons. Here is just one example.

To place an alert for disk space issues (through either the normal Performance Monitor or the Exchange Server Performance Monitor) on a Server 2008 system, perform the following:

1.	From within the Monitor tool, locate the option in the Navigation pane called Performance Logs and Alerts.
2.	Expand out the Performance Logs and Alerts.
3.	Expand Data Collector Sets.
4.	Select and then right-click User Defined.
5.	Choose New and then Data Collector Set to open the wizard.
6.	From the opening screen, shown in Figure 2, you can input a name (perhaps Low Disk Space), and then choose Create Manually (Advanced). Click Next. Figure 2. Creating a Data Collector Set to monitor performance counters on disk space.
7.	When asked, “What type of data do you want to include?” select the Performance Counter Alert radio option. Then click Next.
8.	When asked, “Which performance counters would you like to monitor?” click Add.
9.	Choose the Exchange server from the Select Counters From Computer drop-down.
10.	From the Available Counters list, select LogicalDisk.
11.	Then select % Free Space or Free Megabytes as the counter. Choose Add, and it will be added to the Added Counters section, as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3. Creating a Data Collector Set to monitor performance counters on disk space.
12.	When ready, click OK.
13.	Then you can choose to alert when above or below a certain limit.
14.	Click Next and Finish.
15.	To configure the alert you want to occur, select your new Data Collector Set and then click Properties from the Actions pane.
16.	On the Alerts tab, you should see the configuration for the collector set already.
17.	Select the Alert Action tab and choose to write an entry to the application event log. (Note we discuss the Event Viewer in the next section.) You can also start another Data Collector Set if the alert criteria is met.
18.	Select the Alert Task tab to choose a Windows Management Interface (WMI) task and arguments to run if the criteria are met.
19.	When you are finished, click Apply, and then click OK.