Instead of Exchange 2010 having one huge mail store, I advise you to divide,
thus rule your Exchange
Organization. Management
really is the keyword. Creating multiple stores will greatly
improve your control over the Exchange 2010 server mailboxes.
Exchange 2010 Standard Edition supports up to five
databases. While Exchange 2010 Enterprise Edition
supports 100 databases.
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.
Instead of having lots of small Exchange 2010 servers, buy one
powerful machine and configure multiple Stores.
Exchage 2010 Store Files
Exchange database (.edb) This file type holds the
actual mailbox data. They're accessed by the Extensible Storage Engine
(ESE) directly and have a B-tree structure designed for quick access.
Access is claimed to be up to 4 times quicker than Exchange Server 2007.
Transaction log (.log) These files record database
operations such as creating a message. Committed operations are later
written to the.edb database itself. Each database has its own set
of transaction logs.
Checkpoint (.chk) As the name suggests, these file
record when an operation is successfully saved to the database on the
hard disk. The benefit is that Exchange 2010 can use .chk to
automatically replay log files into an inconsistent database when
recovering from a service interruption, starting with the next unwritten
operation. The .chk files are placed in the same log location as the
.log files.
Exchange 2010 Storage Groups Removed
The big news for Exchange 2010 storage groups is that they have been
decomissioned, mainly because of difficulties in restoring a single store in
a disaster recovery emergency.
Guy Recommends : SolarWinds'
Free VM Monitor
The great feature of this new this new version of SolarWinds VM Monitor is that it
checks Windows Hyper-V. Naturally, it still works with virtual machines on VMware ESX Servers. VM Monitor is an nifty
desktop tool that not only tests that your server is online, but also
displays the CPU and memory utilization for each node.
It's easy to install and to configure this virtual machine monitor, all
you need the host server's IP address or hostname and the logon info.
Exchange Server 2007 introduced 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.
Move a Mailbox
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
server would have the same effect, but restarting the service is a more
intelligent and satisfying solution.
Exchange 2010 SP1 introduces a new New-MailboxRepairRequest cmdlet to detect
and repair mailbox corruptions.
Server Stops Responding to a MAPI Client
Exchange
Server 2010 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
2010 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 2010 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"
Guy's Challenge - Download
this free device backup utility
(CatTools)
CatTools is a free program for backing up configuration settings on
hardware devices. Here is Guy's challenge. If you
download CatTools, then it will not only take care of backups, but
also it will show you something new about the hardware on you
network. I could give you a money back guarantee - but CatTools is
already free! Thus, I just make a techie to techie challenge, you
will learn more about your network if you:
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 2010 stores.
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, complete with mailbox from a spreadsheet. Just provide a list of the
users with the fields in the
top row, and save as .csv file. Then launch this FREE utility and 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.
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.
