Instead of having one huge mail store, I advise you to divide, and so rule your Exchange
Organization. Management
really is the keyword. Creating multiple storage groups will greatly
improve your control over the Exchange 2007 server mailboxes.
Smaller stores mean that backup completes faster, and that restores
are easier to manage.
Fewer users will be affected should you need to take one store offline.
Each store can have its own policy for mailbox limits.
If you have multiple disks, dividing a single store into storage groups will improve performance. Note that all stores in one storage group share the same log file.
Instead of having lots of small Exchange 2007 servers, buy one
powerful machine and configure multiple Storage Groups.
The big news for Exchange 2007 storage groups is that the standard
edition now has no database limit. If you remember, in Exchange 2003
it only grow to a maximum of 75 GB. However, even better news is the
increase in storage groups for the Enterprise versions, you can now have up
to 50 mailbox stores per server.
Exchange Server 2007 has a new feature called Local Continuous
Replication (LCR) for your mailbox storage group. One consequence of enabling
LCR is that you can only have one database in each
store. The idea is to reduce the recovery time for data-level
disasters. LCR works by enabling a quick switch to a second online
copy of the data.
Exchange Mailbox Store
One option you may wish to implement is
the Journal Recipient. Exchange 2007 Server can automatically copy
every message, what you do is create a special account, and then 'wire up'
the mailbox store to this Journal Recipient.
It could not be easier to move a mailbox store, just right-click the store
and the wizard will guide you through the process to re-house the database.
Mailbox Limits
When you configure mailbox limits, they
never seem to work. This is because they take at least two hours to
take effect. You can enforce a limit immediately by restarting
Microsoft Exchange Information Store service. Rebooting the Exchange
2007 server would have the same effect, but restarting the service is a more
intelligent and satisfying solution.
Errors when you mount a
database
If you get error messages when you mount a database
store, the simple solution is to apply Exchange 2007 Server SP1. In
the event logs you may see evidence such as ID 7011, 7034, 9518, or 9519.
It is possible that these are false positives, and in fact, Exchange 2007
mounted the database without any loss of data.
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Exchange
Server 2007 sets limits on the number of server objects that MAPI clients
can open. This is a classic trade-off, if you allow Microsoft Outlook
client to open unlimited numbers of objects on the server, then a few
thoughtless uses can hog the server. If you choke down the number of
objects any one client can open, then you will get lots of Event 9646,
indicating that a MAPI client has opened too many objects on the Exchange
2007 server.
As so often these cases, there is a registry setting where
you can change the defaults:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ParametersSystem
You need to create a sub-key called: MaxObjsPerMapiSession
Next, right-click the MaxObjsPerMapiSession that you just created, click
New, and then click DWORD Value objtMessage. In the 'Value' data box,
type the new maximum number of objects, say 500.
If you are interested, you could research then add more values, for
example: objtStream, objtACLView, objtRulesView, objtFXSrcStrm,
objtFXDstStrm, or objtCStream.
'Windows could not start the
Microsoft Exchange Information Store on Local Computer.'
Check the application event log for Event ID messages 1121 and 5000. The
root cause is most likely caused by 'Mr Nobody' deleting the default E-mail
Address policy, and then creating a new default policy.
The solution to this error 'Windows could not start the Microsoft
Information Store', lies with ADSI Edit (not Regedit). What you need
to do is set the attribute msExchPolicyOrder = 2147483647. This how to
navigate to the correct property:
Right-click the E-mail Address Policies name, and then select
Properties.
Find the msExchPolicyOrder attribute, and then click Edit.
Set the value of the msExchPolicyOrder attribute to 2147483647.
General Solution to Store Problems
Restart the
underlying Exchange 2007 service:
In Services snap-in, in the details pane, locate the Microsoft Exchange
Information Store service.
Alternatively, use a PowerShell command:
restart-Service "Microsoft Exchange Information Store"
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After launching the Exchange Management Console and looking around, you
may find it quicker and easier to type a few PowerShell commands rather than
keep drilling down via the GUI. Here are a few of the many PowerShell
commands to configure your Exchange 2007 stores and storage groups.
mount-Database
Example: Mount-Database -Identity ExchSrv\MgrDatabase There is also
a sister command: dismount-Database.
set-MailboxDatabase has more parameters, for example, you can 'wire up'
email journaling. There is also a family of MailboxPermission
commands, which use the verbs add, get or remove.
Statistics
Two more interesting cmdlets are: get-MailboxFolderStatistics and
also get-MailboxStatistics.
move-DatabasePath This command requires more
parameters, I would favour the GUI unless you are for ever moving mailstore
databases.
Guy Recommends: SolarWinds' Free Bulk Mailbox Import Tool
Import users from a spreadsheet, complete with their mailbox. Just provide a list of the
users with the fields in the
top row, and save as .csv file. Then launch this FREE utility, match
your Exchange fields with AD's
attributes, click and import the users. Optionally, you can
provide the name of the OU where the new mailboxes will be born.
There are also two bonus tools in the free download, and all 3 have been approved by Microsoft:
Bulk-import new users and mailboxes into Active Directory.
Just like its predecessor, each Exchange 2007 store is associated with
its own database file, but shares the storage group's log files. When
you install Exchange Server 2007, it creates a storage group named First
Storage Group as well as a mailbox store. Thereafter, you can create
additional stores, and modify the parameters associated with a store.
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Here is a
free tool to monitor your Exchange Server.
Download the utility, then inspect your mail queues, monitor Exchange server's
memory, confirm there is enough disk space and check the CPU utilization.