Is the Exchange Information Store Performing Normally?

Applies To: Exchange Server, Operations Manager 2007

The Exchange Server 2003 Management Pack provides numerous Microsoft Windows NT Performance-based threshold rules to help you monitor the availability and performance of your Exchange environment.

The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service and associated databases are important components in Exchange 2003. Exchange Server 2003 stores user mailboxes and public folders in messaging databases. Microsoft Exchange Information Store service maintains these databases, and it is vital to monitor this service to be informed about potential problem sources before they can affect the availability of the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service.

The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service relies on Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) to work with the actual database structures. Messaging databases are managed in storage groups and include transaction log files, a MAPI-based database file, and a streaming database. ESE uses transaction log files to store transactions that have been committed to memory, and it stores them in a persistent file without the overhead of performing a complex database operation. This approach ensures that no data is lost if there is an unexpected server shutdown. Later, transactions from the transaction log file are committed to the MAPI-based database file. For messages in Internet format that are received through the SMTP transport service, Exchange uses a streaming database to store the messages without the overhead of converting them to MAPI-based format. This is done later if a MAPI-based client, such as Microsoft Outlook, requests the message.

When monitoring the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, you must also monitor ESE, because memory, transaction log files, and messaging databases make up the database. All these parts must be considered when planning administration and maintenance.

The following table lists the monitors that enable Operations Manager 2007 to provide performance data about Exchange Information Store instances: