Exchange 2010 Back Pressure monitoring

Hi all,

I have been asked to look at monitoring this in Orion and it's the first i have heard of it as I don't know Exchange well. I have found the following details on the Microsoft web site but for me there isn't enough detail for me to know exactly what to monitor in SAM components: Understanding Back Pressure: Exchange 2010 Help

Basically I was looking to set up a SAM template for the monitoring in the monitored resource section. We have also tried running some Powershell scripts for finding out the back pressure issues but have not been successful in getting that working either or Appinsight for Exchange. We have an admin who runs PS scripts manually when they suspect an issue but that just gives him span shots so I thought it would be good to create a history in Orion and also use the Microsoft thresholds to help with warnings so we don't actually get into the Back Pressure issue. I am just having difficulty firguring out the best way to do it using Orion. We are monitoring a lot of components from a document a 3rd party wrote for this company and it's basically all the components in 2010 on the Microsoft pages but again doesn't cover all of Back Pressure.

Has anyone else had any success with this kind of monitoring?

PS I am too working for a 3rd party so I don't have much influence on the locals if you know what I mean.

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Accepted answers

zyontist

OK I have a template configured to our configuration of CAS/HUB servers for monitoring Back Pressure. I have 2 configs for Virtual and Physical as they are configured with different memory. The thresholds will depend on the size of your Disks and memory.

This example uses Disk size or 40GB

Memory for Virtual is 24GB

Memory for Physical is 32GB

Calculations made by using those figures in the Microsoft equations on TechNet web site. Understanding back pressure

You can then use these thresholds for alerts.

Back Pressure Monitor.apm-template

All comments

zyontist

Does anyone else use Powershell monitors? Is this question in the right place?

I have the powershell that the server person runs when they suspect Back pressure and I wanted to be able to use this in some way to produce an historical set of data to use for alerting when thresholds are met:

This is the code - is it possible to convert this into something SAM can use?

Get-ExchangeDiagnosticInfo [-server ${IP}]-Process EdgeTransport -Component ResourceManager -Argument verbose.Diagnostics.Components.ResourceManager.ResourceMonitors.ResourceMonitor | ft -a Type, Resourc*,*Pressure*

This then produces the following output:

type resourceUses currentPressure lowPressureLimit mediumPressureLimit highPressureLimit

---- ------------ --------------- ---------------- ------------------- -----------------

DatabaseMonitor Normal 10 94 96 98

DatabaseLoggingFolderMonitor Normal 27 92 94 96

VersionBucketsMonitor Normal 1 80 120 200

MemoryPrivateBytesMonitor Normal 3 71 73 75

MemoryTotalBytesMonitor Normal 65 84 89 94

BatchPointMonitor Normal 0 2000 4000 8000

SubmissionQueueMonitor Normal 0 1000 2000 4000

I am not a Powershell person so a bit lost here.

trilobite_rex

Bumping to get some eyes on this.

zyontist

Hi, I have found some event IDs I can report on but again this is too late as back Pressure has started and we would like to get alerts before it gets that far. I can't believe we are the only people interested in this or maybe there is another tool that people use to monitor it. Our server team use the powershell scripts but they are at the time and not historical.

Any pointers in the right direction would be great. I have tried getting the powershell script working in Solarwinds but not been able to due to lots of errors that I have nobody to help troubleshoot here.

trilobite_rex

What are the event ID's? Can't guarantee that I will figure something out but if we have more eyes on this, maybe we will be lucky,

zyontist

Thanks T Rex. I am working on a SAM template with all those components in as I know that'll keep the server guy here happy.

I found these for the transport service - Troubleshooting MSExchangeTransport Service Events: Exchange 2007 Help but from what I read they happen when it's too late and Back Pressure has started and we are looking to avoid that so having thresholds lower than the MS recommended ones so we can cut it off at the pass.

I'll post my SAM template when complete.

Some other MS TNt links I have been reading about this subject:

Understanding Back Pressure: Exchange 2010 Help

Understanding back pressure

zyontist

I now have another question as my template is nearly complete in SAM.

On MS site I am looking to monitor the follow:

Resource being monitored	Description	Troubleshooting suggestions	Default High value	Default Medium value	Default Normal value
Private bytes used	The PercentagePrivateBytesUsed parameter is used to monitor the percentage of private bytes used by the EdgeTransport.exe process. The monitor is checking to make sure that the private bytes used does not exceed a default private bytes limit. For x64 computers, this limit is equal to 75% of the total physical RAM, or 1 terabyte (whichever is less).***	The EdgeTransport.exe process consumes memory as the queues fill. Check the queues to make sure that there are not any issues. If there are issues, troubleshoot the queues with the Exchange Mail Flow Analyzer (found in the Exchange Toolbox).	75%	73%	71%

I have found Private Bytes for EdgeTransport.exe (Process(EdgeTransport)/Private Bytes) but there isn't a PercentagePrivateBytesUsed component only a Private Bytes which is the statistics in Bytes and not percentage so can't use the thresholds mentioned.

Just wondered if anyone knows where to find that or I can set up an alert using the Bytes and convert it to % there but I'd rather use the server monitor component.

It is similar with the Database Monitor and Logging Folder comes back with Bytes and not a %

trilobite_rex

objective c - Convert Bytes to Percentage - Stack Overflow

zyontist

This example uses Disk size or 40GB

Memory for Virtual is 24GB

Memory for Physical is 32GB

Calculations made by using those figures in the Microsoft equations on TechNet web site. Understanding back pressure

You can then use these thresholds for alerts.

Back Pressure Monitor.apm-template

trilobite_rex

I just applied it. Had to sort out where the mail.que was in our environment but it loaded up and is now collecting data. Thanks so much!!!

zyontist

Oh yes sorry should have mentioned that - here they use the Q drive for Queues.

I had to do the same as on the example I saw these:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\Queue\mail.que - for DatabaseMonitor

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\Queue\ - for DatabaseLoggingFolderMonitor

No problem it was a lot easier than messing around with Powershell.