This template contains basic performance counters and services for monitoring Exchange 2007 and 2010 Mailbox Role. This template is designed to work out of the box and does not require any additional configuration. If you need more detailed monitoring you should use it in combination with the Exchange 2007 (2010) Mailbox Role Counters (Advanced) template.
Prerequisites: RPC and WMI access to the Exchange server.
Credentials: Windows Administrator on the target server.
Monitored Components
These performance counters and services are based on the following information:
- Monitoring Mailbox Servers: Exchange 2007 Help, "Microsoft TechNet":
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201689(EXCHG.80).aspx - Mailbox Server Counters: Exchange 2010 Help, "Microsoft TechNet":
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff367871.aspx
Service: Exchange Active Directory Topology
Provides Active Directory topology information to Exchange services. If this service is stopped, most Exchange services are unable to start. This service has no dependencies.
Service: Exchange Information Store
Manages the Exchange Information Store. This includes mailbox databases and public folder databases. If this service is stopped, mailbox databases and public folder databases on this computer are unavailable. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start. This service is dependent on the RPC, Server, Windows Event Log, and Workstation services.
Service: Exchange Mail Submission Service
Submits messages from the Mailbox server to Exchange Hub Transport servers. This service is dependent on the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service.
Service: Exchange Mailbox Assistants
Performs background processing of mailboxes in the Exchange store. This service is dependent on the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service.
By default this service is stopped.
Service: Exchange Monitoring
Allows applications to call the Exchange diagnostic cmdlets. This service has no dependencies.
By default this service is stopped.
Service: Exchange Service Host
Provides a host for several Exchange services. On internal server roles, this service is dependent on the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service. On Edge Transport servers, this service is dependent on the Microsoft Exchange ADAM service.
Service: Exchange System Attendant
Forwards directory lookups to a global catalog server for legacy Outlook clients, generates e-mail addresses and OABs, updates free/busy information for legacy clients, and maintains permissions and group memberships for the server. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start. This service is dependent on the RPC, Server, Windows Event Log, and Workstation services.
Service: Exchange Replication Service
Provides replication functionality for mailbox databases on Mailbox servers in a database availability group (DAG). This service is dependent on the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory Topology service.
RPC Averaged Latency
Indicates the RPC latency, in ms, averaged for all operations in the last 1,024 packets. For information about how clients are affected when overall server RPC averaged latencies increase, see “Understanding Client Throttling Policies” at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd297964.aspx.
Should not be higher than 10 ms on average. To determine if certain protocols are causing overall RPC latencies, monitor MSExchangeIS Client (*)\RPC Average Latency to separate latencies based on client protocol.
Messages Queued for Submission
Shows the current number of submitted messages not yet processed by the transport layer.
Should be below 50 at all times. Should not be sustained for more than 15 minutes.
This may indicate connectivity issues to the transport server.
Database: Log Threads Waiting
Shows the number of threads waiting for their data to be written to the log to complete an update of the database. If this number is too high, the log may be a bottleneck.
Should be less than 10 on average. Regular spikes concurrent with log record stall spikes indicate that the transaction log disks are a bottleneck. If the value for log threads waiting is more than the spindles available for the logs, there is a bottleneck on the log disks.
Slow Findrow Rate
Shows the rate at which the slower FindRow needs to be used in the mailbox store.
Should be no more than 10 for any specific mailbox store. Higher values indicate applications are crawling or searching mailboxes, which is affecting server performance. These include desktop search engines, customer relationship management (CRM), or other third-party applications.
RPC Latency average (msec)
Shows the average latency, in ms, of RPC requests. The average is calculated over all RPCs since exrpc32 was loaded.
Should be less than 100 ms at all times.
Replication Receive Queue Size
Shows the number of replication messages waiting to be processed.
Should be less than 100 at all times. This value should return to a minimum value between replication intervals.
Client: RPCs Failed:Server Too Busy
The client reported a number of failed RPCs (since the store was started) due to the server too busy ROC error.
Should be 0 at all times.
RPC Requests
Indicates the overall RPC requests currently executing within the information store process.Should be below 70 at all times.
Database: I/O Database Reads Average Latency
Shows the average length of time, in milliseconds, per database read operation. Should be 20 ms on average. Should show 50 ms spikes.
Database: I/O Database Writes Average Latency
Shows the average length of time, in milliseconds, per database write operation. Should be 50 ms on average. Spikes of up to 100 ms are acceptable if not accompanied by database page fault stalls.
Portions of this document were originally created by and are excerpted from the following sources:
Microsoft Corporation, “Technet Library,” Copyright 
2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Available at
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691338.aspx and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201689%28EXCHG.80%29.aspx
