exchange 2003

HashSlinging

Hi Guy's n GAL's,

My Outlook users are getting very poor response times when they access the global address list on exc2003. This has been happening and getting worse for the last couple of weeks, the public folders also seem to be responding poorly.

Any ideas greatly received.

ColmOT [MSFT]

How responsive is email?

Is it a dedicated Exchange Server or does it host other processes?

How is it configured?

HashSlinging

email and everything else is fine. its a mid range server, xeon processor with 2 gigs of ram. acting as a PDC with exchange.

One thing that concerns me is the standard logging is taking up a lot of disk space and i've to move these log files to a different location each week, know how to turn standard logging off and circular on.

ColmOT [MSFT]

If there are a lot of logons and logoffs etc that will affect perf. Also, the number of users will be a factor.

Also, if DNS isn't correctly configured it'll affect stuff too.

I haven't worked on Exchange since Exchange 2000, but a quick scan of
http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?InCC_hdn=true&Catalog=LCID%3D1033%26CDID%3DEN-US-KB%26PRODLISTSRC%3DON&QuerySource=gASr_Query&Product=exch2003&Queryc=performance&Query=performance&KeywordType=ALL&maxResults=25&Titles=false&numDays=&InCC=on
returns some likely candidates worth a perusal!

Capt'n Midnight

You can use Echange Cached mode to setup a local .OST for each use on their PC. This will contain the GAL, the address book loads instantly - downside is that updates can take bloody ages to replicate name changes etc.

If you have outlook 2003 you can also cache public folders in the OST

Log files - your backup program should be marking these off as being backed up and exchange should then remove them. It used to work on exchange 5.5. [mini rant]M$ get something to work properly so you rely on it, and the next version they change the rules again..[/mini rant]Circular logging means only ~20MB ? of email can be recovered since the last backup under some recovery methods do you have a lot of internal email...

I would think it is safe to delete any log files older than the last backup of the information stores - can anyone confirm this ?

Yeah had that DNS thing too, check both names of the server can be resolved - both Name and Name.Domain.TLD and do a start run \\name and \\name.domain.tld to convince your self you are talking

If the name.domain.tld points to the external address every handshake to the server will take 10-30 seconds longer

HashSlinging

I stopped backing up the log files as there massive and im low on system disk space. exchange dosent seem to be deleting them, im using ntbackup am i missing something here...

Regarding cache mode, I tried using that and it worked but then people were reporting that mail stuck in their outbox wouldnt send. even if I set it to send recv, every 5 mins.

Thanks for the replys..

Capt'n Midnight

not sure if changing the archive attribute would fool exchange into deleting them , ( attrib *.log -a ) or maybe ntbackup to a file and keep overwriting it, (save the ntbackup job and task schedule etc)