Integration with Windows Management Instrumentation

Exchange System Manager is also a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) management application. WMI communicates with the Windows Management Instrumentation service (Winmgmt) to access dynamic Exchange system information. WMI is a subsystem of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, which provides a language-independent programming model to query and control management information in an enterprise environment. All WMI interfaces are based on Component Object Model (COM). Therefore, the communication between Exchange System Manager and Winmgmt is based on RPCs.

WMI is based on a three-tier model that includes management applications, the Common Information Model (CIM) object manager, and WMI providers.

The following figure illustrates the general architecture of WMI.

Three-tier WMI architecture

Management applications, which consume WMI data, are at the top of the WMI architecture. Exchange System Manager is an example of a WMI management application. You can also create custom applications and scripts to process WMI data. The management applications use one common API, WMI, to communicate with the CIM object manager in the middle tier. The CIM object manager provides the programmable object classes that represent the underlying information sources.

The CIM object manager is implemented in the WMI service in Windows Server 2003. The WMI service maintains its own database, named the CIM database, to track which WMI classes are available and which provider is responsible for supplying instances of those classes. The class definitions are stored in the CIM database. Static data can also be stored in the CIM database and retrieved without a provider. However, the WMI subsystem is designed to obtain dynamic information about a managed system, such as Exchange Server 2003. This is accomplished completely through WMI providers.

WMI providers are at the bottom of the WMI architecture. WMI providers access the CIM object manager through a set of standardized COM interfaces and act as intermediate agents between the managed system and the CIM object manager. WMI providers extract management information from the underlying managed system. They then map this information to object classes that the CIM object manager presents to the WMI management applications. Exchange Server 2003 includes many WMI providers and classes. For more information about these classes, see the WMI documentation in the Exchange SDK.

Exchange System Manager uses the following WMI providers:

• ExchangeDsAccessProvider   This WMI provider enables Exchange System Manager to communicate with the DSAccess component to view and set domain controllers and global catalog servers, which DSAccess uses to access Active Directory information. Exchange System Manager communicates with the ExchangeDsAccessProvider when you click the Directory Access tab in the Exchange Server 2003 server properties.

  The ExchangeDsAccessProvider is implemented in the Microsoft Exchange Management service (MSExchangeMGMT). If this service is stopped, the ExchangeDsAccessProvider is unavailable, and you cannot view or change the list of domain controllers and global catalogs that are used by DSAccess on that Exchange server. However, DSAccess does not require Exchange Management service to function. DSAccess continues to use the predefined list of domain controllers and global catalog servers or determines these dynamically. For more information about DSAccess, see Exchange Server 2003 and Active Directory.

• ExchangeMessageTrackingProvider   This WMI provider gives information about messages routed through the transport engine of an Exchange server that is enabled with message tracking. Message tracking is a feature that enables you to follow the paths of messages as they are transferred through your Exchange organization. By default, message tracking is disabled. You can select message tracking for each server from the server's General tab. With message tracking enabled, status information is written to daily log files, which are stored in the \Program Files\Exchsrvr\<servername>.log directory (for example, \Program Files\Exchsrvr\Server01.log). The log file name follows the scheme <YYYYMMDD>.LOG (for example, 20040321.LOG). Tracking log files are tabulator-separated text files that are shared for network access on all Exchange servers. The share name is <SERVERNAME>.LOG.

  You can analyze message-tracking information in a text editor when you open message tracking log files directly, or in the Exchange Message Tracking Center snap-in. Exchange Message Tracking Center is available as a stand-alone snap-in. It is available in Exchange System Manager, under the Tools node, and can also be used separately in custom MMC tools. In Exchange Server 2003, Message Tracking Center reads tracking information from the ExchangeMessageTrackingProvider on the local computer. If remote servers are used for the message transfer, the ExchangeMessageTrackingProvider on the local server communicates with the ExchangeMessageTrackingProvider on the remote servers. In this way, the message path is tracked from server to server across the Exchange organization and complete information is returned to Message Tracking Center.

  ExchangeMessageTrackingProvider is also implemented in the Microsoft Exchange Management service. If this service is not running on the local server running Exchange Server 2003, ExchangeMessageTrackingProvider is unavailable, and Message Tracking Center does not work. If the Exchange Management service is not running on a remote server running Exchange Server 2003, incomplete message tracking information might be returned. However, for backward-compatibility for Exchange 2000 Server, Message Tracking Center can also access the message tracking network shares directly, using the Windows Server 2003 Message Block (SMB) protocol.

The following figure illustrates how the Exchange providers and the Exchange Management service integrate with the WMI subsystem.

Exchange providers in the WMI subsystem