The services offered by Microsoft Exchange Server are among the most powerful and dynamic out of any business support environment. While many businesses utilize Microsoft Exchange as a means of streamlining internal and client communications, the effectiveness of this solution is only as effective as its performance and availability. Email downtime can severely alter the foundational levels of business operations. Therefore, continual Exchange Server monitoring is essential when it comes to addressing concerns. Comprehensive Exchange Server monitoring is dependent on the usage of this platform; however, there are several key metrics to provide consistent and effective monitoring.
The Four Pillars of Exchange Server Monitoring
While each of these factors contains numerous subcategories of monitoring, when it comes to implementing an effective solution, each of these pillars must be tended to:
- Queue Expansion - If you find the queue of sending or receiving messages is growing at a faster rate than it shrinks, it may be a sign that a connector is malfunctioning; resulting in queue growth. Monitoring solutions must manage Exchange Server queues to detect this accumulation and identify the source of its growth.
- Available Disk Space - The space available on disks is an essential component of a fully functioning experience. Exchange Server infrastructure is largely based on disk availability. Therefore, as your Exchange begins to grow, having ample disk space is vital. Monitoring solutions must monitor available space and alert administrators when storage limits are being approached.
- CPU Usage Rates - Have you noticed high CPU usage rates from your Exchange Server? If so, it may indicate a lack of resources available to execute requested functions. This could prove detrimental to the fluidity of Exchange Server functionality and performance. A monitoring solution must alert administrators when CPU utilization becomes This allows necessary resource expansion to happen before performance issues affect end-users.
- Virtual Memory Availability - This is one of the most important pillars, as low virtual memory can result in a complete lack of functionality on Exchange Servers. The inability to perform actions and events could prove detrimental to business operations. Exchange Server monitoring alerts administrators when virtual memory becomes dangerously low. Some services available to monitoring web applications offer more available memory, while others offer less available memory. You can compare some of these various services on sites like Web-Application-Monitoring and Honkiat.
While the aforementioned pillars are essential to the performance of Exchange Servers, the actions needed to accomplish these monitoring goals differ based upon your implementation and utilization methods. Regardless, Exchanges of any size must adopt a comprehensive monitoring solution as a proactive way to maintain full functionality.