Configuring Alerts, Monitors, and Notifications with ESM
Before you configure an Exchange monitor with ESM, you must select a server that will be responsible for running the monitor. If you can spare the hardware, configure a dedicated Exchange server for monitoring purposes. A production Exchange server with a large number of mailboxes shouldn't monitor itself. If the Exchange monitor runs on a production server and the server crashes or hangs, the server won't be able to send a notification message.
To configure an Exchange email notification, run ESM and click Tools, Monitoring and Status, Notifications, New Email notification. In the E-mail tab of the resulting Properties dialog box, you can choose to monitor the local server, all the servers, any server in the routing group, or a custom list of servers (among other options).
You can configure an Exchange email notification to go to one user, a set of users, or a distribution group. For the best results, use a distribution group that includes key personnel who have the necessary administrative permissions to resolve any problems that might arise. The mailboxes in the distribution group should be on different Exchange servers so that if one server has a mail-delivery problem, mailboxes on other servers will still receive any alerts.
You can also configure ESM script notifications. A script notification is like an email notification except that a batch file or an executable program performs the notification instead of an email message. To set up a script notification, run ESM and click Tools, Monitoring and Status, Notifications, New Script Notification. Next, supply a path to a batch file or an executable that Exchange will invoke if notified. The script could call a pager or send an SMS message.
Before configuring an ESM email or script notification, you need to decide which resources Exchange should monitor on a per-server basis. Run ESM, navigate to a server, right-click the server, select Properties, and select the Monitoring tab. Next, click Add and choose a component.
Monitoring Services and Virtual Memory
Exchange 2000 includes another tool, the Default Microsoft Exchange Services monitor, that tracks core Exchange services, as Figure 4 shows. To shut down a server or stop Exchange services for scheduled maintenance, you can go to the Monitoring tab of the server's Properties dialog box and select the Disable all monitoring of this server check box to prevent alerts from being triggered.
Add the following services to the Default Microsoft Exchange Services monitor if these components and protocols are running on your server:
- Microsoft Exchange Event
- Microsoft Exchange IMAP4
- Microsoft Exchange POP3
- Microsoft Exchange Management
- Microsoft Exchange Site Replication Services
- Microsoft Search
Also add any services that third-party products such as antivirus software or fax connectors use.
To monitor the SMTP and X.400 queues on a server, right-click the server and select the Monitoring tab. Click Add and select SMTP Queue Growth. You can set thresholds for Warning and Critical states for backed up messages, as Figure 5 shows. Exchange monitors can also check available virtual memory over a period of time. Figure 6 shows Virtual Memory Thresholds settings. You can set thresholds for the percentage of virtual memory available before a Warning or Critical state occurs.
Other useful Exchange monitoring tools include WinRoute and MailQ. WinRoute displays information about the link-state of all connections and is available in the Exchange 2000 CD-ROM's \support\utils\I386 folder. MailQ publishes mail-queue information to a Web browser. MailQ, which is part of the Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Resource Kit, uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) providers to access and display queue information. For more information about WinRoute and MailQ, see Donald Livengood, "How to Use WinRoute and MailQ," May 2002, InstantDoc ID 24434.
The monitoring tools that ship with Win2K and Exchange 2000 do have some shortcomings. Nevertheless, these tools are flexible and offer a low-cost alternative to third-party monitoring solutions.