Posts Tagged Exchange 2003

Webcast Series – Upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 – Part 1

Jan 20

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2010, Upgrade

Ever since Exchange 2010 is RTM, I have been advocating to upgrade directly to Exchange 2010 if it makes sense for your environment. As I discussed with administrators who manage Exchange 2003 environments, I received a very positive response from many who expressed their strong interest in skipping Exchange 2007 and upgrade to Exchange 2010.

Since I have had a lab that was designed for this purpose only, I decided to create a webcast series that will walk through the process of upgrading from Exchange 2003 environment to Exchange 2010 environment.

I am publishing Part 1 of multi part series here. I will be publishing more parts as time permits but no less than once a month. You can download the webcast here. The webcast works best when viewed in 1024×768 or higher resolution.

I also request that you provide your questions, comments and feedback to feedback@bhargavs.com. It will greatly help me improve future webcasts.

I hope this webcast series will help you learn Exchange 2010 upgrade process and you can apply the learning in real-world. Thanks and enjoy!

Tags: Exchange 2003, Exchange 2010, Upgrade, Webcast

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New Podcast from RunAs Radio

Dec 2

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2010, Upgrade

Recently, I had privilege of talking to Richard and Greg from RunAs radio. We discussed the features of the newly released Exchange 2010 and why businesses still running Exchange 2003 should jump right to the latest version and skip 2007 entirely.

I am sure the listeners will benefit from it. You can download the podcast from http://bit.ly/5fSqbp. Comments welcome.

Tags: benefits, Exchange 2003, Exchange 2010, podcast, Upgrade

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Exchange 2003 support and Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controllers

Sep 10

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007

When I originally wrote this post, Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controllers were not supported for Exchange 2003, however, in recent months the guidance from product team has changed and new support guidance now includes Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controllers as supported configuration.

Please refer to this article on Technet for more information.

MS Exchange Team recently published an article on Exchange 2007 Supportability Matrix. As I read more into it and look at the accompanying article on Technet, it is noteworthy that we talk about Exchange 2003 support as well.

I got questions from multiple customers I work with on this. As I realize many organizations are still in process of deploying Exchange 2007. Many have Exchange 2003 SP2 in production and majority of users are on Exchange 2003 mailbox servers.

This poses an interesting challenge. If an organization wants to move forward with Windows Server 2008 R2 (specifically – R2) Domain Controllers, they hit a huge roadblock. The supportability Matrix provides specific guidance around that and that means Exchange 2003 is not supported against Windows 2008 R2 Domain Controllers.

When I looked at Microsoft Support Lifecycle site for Exchange 2003, I noticed that Mainstream support for Exchange 2003 ended 4/14/2009. Given SP2 support note says support for SP2 will end at release of new Service Pack or end of Support Lifecycle of Exchange 2003 which is sometime in 2014, it still is important to note that when Mainstream support ends, only security fixes are provided for the product without any cost to customer.

It isn’t surprising that Exchange Product team may have decided to focus their efforts in developing features that customers asked for in current and future versions and not for the products that are in Extended Support phase of Lifecycle. I have no visibility in the effort of development and testing of any fix/service pack, features that goes into Exchange Server products but if I have to assume, I am sure it is huge for every possible combination they may have to test.

So to summarize, I know it is going to be painful to plan around the supportability of Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controllers. The best approach I can recommend is follow the published guidance and plan around migration to Exchange 2007 before you can upgrade all your domain Controllers to Windows Server 2008 R2 and raise Domain / Forest functional level.

Last but not least, do read the site disclaimer, the views presented here are of my own and not of my employer.

Tags: Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange Server

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Check Exchange 2003 vitals with PowerShell – Part II

Jun 12

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2003, Exchange Server, PowerShell

In continuation to my previous post “Check Exchange 2003 vitals with PowerShell”, I also have a code block that you can replace if you want to query all exchange servers in your environment dynamically with script instead of using text file as in the code I posted earlier.

In the code I posted earlier, the following lines read the file servers.txt.

1
2
3

# Read file and store server names in variable
 
$Servers = (Get-Content .\servers.txt)

Replace it with the following, which queries Active Directory for objectclass msExchExchangeServer and returns all servers found.

# Get Exchange Servers from Active Directory
 
function GetExchangeServers()
{
	# Set variables to connect to Active Directory, searching Configuration Naming Context
	$root= New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry("LDAP://RootDSE")
	$configpartition = [adsi]("LDAP://CN=Microsoft Exchange,CN=Services," + $root.configurationNamingContext)
 
	# Set variables for search criteria
	$search = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectorySearcher($configpartition)
	$search.filter = '(objectclass=msExchExchangeServer)'  
 
	# Perform Serach, this will return all Exchange Server objects
	$ExchServer = $search.FindAll()
 
	# Output Name property of each server object stored in ExchServer array
	$ExchServer | foreach {$_.properties.name}
 
	# Comment the line above and uncomment the line below if you want to search specific Exchange servers by name
	# The example filter below will only output servers that have MBX in their name (i.e. MBX01, SRVMBX45 etc.)
	#$ExchServer | foreach {$_.properties.legacyexchangedn -match "MBX"}
}

You will also have to replace the lines:

1 2	# Get vitals for each server stored in $Servers array $Servers \| %{getVitals}

with the following:

1 2	# Get vitals for each server stored in $Servers array GetExchangeServers \| %{getVitals}

Comments welcome.

Tags: Exchange 2003, PowerShell

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Check Exchange 2003 vitals with PowerShell

Jun 12

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2003, Exchange Server, PowerShell

I have written recently about Free System PTEs and /PAE usage in Exchange 2003 mailbox servers.

I set out to write a PowerShell script that will run against given list of servers and report back certain vitals including boot.ini settings, SystemPages registry setting and current performance data for Free Sytem PTEs and Pool Non-Paged Bytes.

The output csv can be used as a checkpoint for server health and can be used for reporting matrix. The script can easily be modified to add more performance counters and registry checks as necessary.

# Read file and store server names in variable
 
$Servers = (Get-Content .\servers.txt)
 
# Write header in output file
 
# Store header in variable
$headerLine = 
@"
 
Server Name,Boot String,3GB,PAE,UserVA,Basevideo,SystemPages,Free System PTEs, Pool Non-Paged Bytes
"@
 
# Write header to file
$headerLine | Out-File .\results.csv -Encoding ASCII -Append
 
function getVitals()
 
{	
	# Set server to connect to
	$Server = "$_"
 
# Read SystemPages from servers
 
	# Set Registry Key variables
	$REG_KEY = "System\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Session Manager\\Memory Management"
	$VALUE = "SystemPages"
 
	# Open remote registry
	$reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine', $Server)
 
	# Open the targeted remote registry key/subkey
	$regKey= $reg.OpenSubKey($REG_KEY)
 
	# Read and Store SystemPages value in variable
	$SystemPages = $regkey.getvalue($VALUE)
 
	# Close the Reg Key
	$regKey.Close()
 
# Read Boot.ini from Servers
 
	# Store Boot.ini contents in variable
	$iniContent = Get-Content "\\$Server\c$\boot.ini"
 
	# Store Boot string and values in variables
	$bootString = $iniContent[4] -replace ","," "
	$userva = ($bootString -split " " | foreach {if ($_ -match "userva") {$_}} | foreach {$_ -replace "/userva=",""})
 
	if ($iniContent[4] -match "3gb") {$3gb="Present"} else {$3gb="Missing"}
	if ($iniContent[4] -match "PAE") {$pae="Present"} else {$pae="Missing"}
	if ($iniContent[4] -match "basevideo") {$basevideo="Present"} else {$userva="Missing"}
 
# Read System Pages and NPP values from Performance Counters
 
	# Read performance counters
	$freeSPTEs = (Get-WmiObject Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Memory -ComputerName $Server).FreeSystemPageTableEntries
	$poolNPBytes = (Get-WmiObject Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Memory -ComputerName $Server).PoolNonPagedBytes
 
# Write data to file
 
	# Store result string in a variable
	$result = "$Server,$bootString,$3gb,$pae,$userva,$basevideo,$SystemPages,$freeSPTEs,$poolNPBytes"
 
	# Write results to file
	$result | Out-File .\results.csv -Encoding ASCII -Append
 
}
 
 
# Get vitals for each server stored in $Servers array
$Servers | %{getVitals}

Tags: Exchange 2003, PowerShell

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Why should I use /PAE on my Exchange 2003 servers?

Feb 25

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2003, Exchange Server

Many times I come across the configurations where the servers physically have 4GB memory installed but OS does not see it all. OS usually reports between 512 to 768 MB less!

Running Exchange 2003 on such server with recommended memory tuning parameters as documented in my previous post, makes it even worse because doing this starves the system of available memory. Available MB is the counter to watch on such systems along with Free System PTEs.

So, what causes this to happen? Is it not ok to use the memory tuning in such configurations?

The answer is, why is the system not reporting correct memory and what can you do to address that.

Typically only system above 4GB requires the use of /PAE switch in order for OS to see correct amount of memory by loading PAE kernel. Why would it work in a system with only 4GB RAM installed? The answer lies in PCI-Express based chipsets and how they use MMIO. Microsoft Exchange Team has published a detailed article explaining this.

If you are used to the original guidance of not using /PAE switch on your Exchange 2003 servers, it is time to reconsider.

As organizations refresh their old hardware and are not ready yet to deploy Exchange 2007, they tend to follow their documented build process and overlook the impact of new hardware components on the memory. When they notice it, it is usually because they have a problem with the server and they dig deeper.

So go look at your Exchange 2003 servers and see if they are reporting less memory than actually installed. Maybe it’s time to use /PAE in boot.ini!

Tags: Exchange 2003

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Free System Page Table Entries in Exchange 2003

Feb 25

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2003, Exchange Server

When troubleshooting performance of Exchange 2003, most overlooked performance counter is Free System PTEs. Very simply put PTE is basically an I/O partition table.

Why is PTE important?

If a system is running out of PTEs, it can cause system hangs, sporadic lockups, general unresponsiveness. All is bad for a server running enterprise messaging.

Why is it more apparent in Exchange 2003 servers? It is due to the fact that the underlying 32-bit architecture memory limitations and resource requirements of Exchange 2003. There is published guidance on memory tuning and affects of various configurations on System PTEs. The Microsoft KB articles are 325044, 815372 and 311901.

Simply put, most Exchange 2003 servers have 4GB memory installed and /3GB switch configured in boot.ini. This significantly reduces system PTEs. The balance is shifting to provide more resources for Exchange to run smoothly at a cost. If not tuned properly, this can backfire and put your server at a risk ok being unhealthy and prone to crashes.

What can you do to fix this?

Follow the best practices documented in the Microsoft KB articles above. I have listed some obvious steps below:

Remove unused drivers. Drives reserve System PTEs. If not used, removing them can free up PTEs for system usage. The amount of PTEs depends on driver.

Remove display drivers and install System VGA driver shipped with Windows version you are running. This can be as significant as 15000 PTEs from my testing and real world results. Also, use /basevideo in boot.ini (with system VGA driver) which can free up additional ~1000 PTEs. Using /basevideo with OEM video driver can actually use more PTEs.

Tune /userva values. In most cases /userva=3030 should be sufficient. You can tune it in steps and try /userva=2970 and /userva=2900. Understand that this is a balancing act. I suggest don’t change it from 3030 if not needed.

Make sure SystemPages registry entry is set to 0 if you are running Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later.

Use /PAE switch in boot.ini if you are running Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later. (Why use /PAE switch is a subject for a different post)

Always test your configuration in lab before deploying it to production.

If any of the above steps are not clear, refer to KB article 815372.

What is healthy for Free System PTEs counter?

If System PTEs are lower than 5000, the server is in critical condition and you should address the situation immediately.

If System PTEs are above 5000 and below 10,000, there is some memory tuning necessary.

If System PTEs are in 10,000-15,000 range, it is healthy (this is subjective statement, other factors must be considered, we are talking about memory and System PTEs specifically and there may be issues with disk, processor which are not being considered in this post).

If System PTEs are above 20,000 you may be treading Exchange performance for System Performance. Verify that the configuration items mentioned above are correctly set.

Error c10308a2 when remotely adding e-mail address to users

Jan 27

Posted by Bhargav in Exchange 2003, Exchange Server

We encountered an error today at my client site. When an administrator tried to add an e-mail address to mail-enabled user from their workstation using Active Directory Users and Computers, the encountered an error c10308a2.

The error is documented in KB article 905809.

My client was confused after looking at the article and needed some help interpreting the information and find out what he needed to do to fix the issue.

We first assigned the permissions to Service Control Manager as mentioned in Method 1. This is essential of the Network Trace shows the errors when call to Service Control Manager fails.

After this, the error persisted. Which indicates that user does not have permissions to access msExchangeSA service. The figure below shows the error as captured by Network Monitor.

At this point, you need to follow Method 2 mentioned in KB article. You can either create a new GPO or edit an existing GPO that applies to your Exchange servers. Once user or group the user is member of is assigned read permissions to System Attendant service, and GPO is effectively applied to the exchange servers, administrative user should be able to successfully edit or add e-mail addresses to mail-enabled users.

If you are interested in learning what happens behind the scenes when you add an e-mail address to a user account, Ben Winzenz has wrote an article about it at The Microsoft Exchange Team Blog.

One more thing. If Network trace shows LDAP payload as encrypted, it may not help you understand what is going on within LDAP queries.

Ben shines again here and has written an article about how to disable LDAP encryption and signing on an Exchange server.

Quote of the day:
I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Robert McCloskey

Tags: Exchange 2003

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Posts Tagged Exchange 2003

Webcast Series – Upgrade Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 – Part 1

New Podcast from RunAs Radio

Exchange 2003 support and Windows Server 2008 R2 Domain Controllers

Check Exchange 2003 vitals with PowerShell – Part II

Check Exchange 2003 vitals with PowerShell

Why should I use /PAE on my Exchange 2003 servers?

Free System Page Table Entries in Exchange 2003

Error c10308a2 when remotely adding e-mail address to users

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