Manually Configuring Client Access Server Synthetic Transactions

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Applies To: Exchange Server, Operations Manager 2007 R2

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack supports a number of synthetic transactions that run on Client Access servers and perform transactions against the Client Access server itself and also the back-end Mailbox servers within the same site as the Client Access server. Examples of these transactions are to check Exchange ActiveSync, Outlook Web Access, and Web Services connectivity. The transactions are implemented using Windows PowerShell cmdlets built into the Exchange 2007 product. Documentation for the Client Access server synthetic transactions supported by the management pack can be found here:

Note

By default, all Client Access server synthetic transactions are disabled.

Note

To use the Client Access server (CAS) synthetic transactions, you must first perform the steps outlined in the Configuring Exchange Servers to Support Client Access Synthetic Transactions section. You must do this on each agent-managed Mailbox server that you want to use in the Client Access server synthetic transactions.

To manually configure an agent-managed Client Access server to perform an OWA Internal Client Access server synthetic transaction to another mailbox server within its site

  1. Go to the Object Discoveries section under the Authoring node in the Operations console. Ensure that your console is not scoped to a subset of management pack objects.

  2. Change scope to targets that start with “Exchange 2007 Synthetic CAS.” (Eight classes appear, representing the different CAS synthetic transactions.)

  3. Right-click the Exchange 2007 CAS OWA Internal Transaction Discovery and click Overrides, click Override the Object Discovery, and then click For a specific object of type: Exchange 2007 Client Access Role. The Select Object message box appears.

  4. Select the Exchange 2007 Client Access server you want to use to run the transactions, and click OK.

  5. The Override Properties dialog box appears.

  6. Change the Target Servers parameter. It accepts a semicolon-separated list of destination Mailbox servers to test against. Note that the destination Mailbox servers must be in the same Exchange organization and site as the Client Access server. Note also that you must enter the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the target servers.

  7. Choose a destination management pack to save the override (making sure not to use the default management pack), and click OK.

A discovery will now run that generates a new instance of a Client Access server perspective. (This discovery runs every 24 hours by default.) To check that the perspective was created, go to the CAS Synthetic Transactions State view, which will show all instances of all discovered CAS perspectives. You can enable other Client Access server synthetic transactions in a similar way.

Changing the Manually Created Client Access Server Synthetic Transactions

If you want to change the timeout and frequency of the manually created Client Access server synthetic transactions, follow the instructions below.

Note

You can change the Client Access server synthetic transactions created by using templates through the template wizard. See How to Configure Client Access Server Synthetic Transactions Using the Exchange 2007 Client Access Server Monitoring Template.

To change the manually created Client Access server synthetic transactions timeout and frequency

  1. Go to the Rules node in the Authoring section of the console. Search for classes that contain “connectivity” and scope the console to the seven classes that appear, representing the different CAS synthetic transactions.

  2. If you want to change the settings for the timeout and frequency of the OWA Internal Transactions, for example, right-click the Exchange 2007 Test OWA Connectivity Internal Collection rule and click Overrides, click Override the rule, and then click For all objects of type: OWA Internal Connectivity.

  3. Change the Interval Seconds and Error Latency values to the desired ones (being sure not to save the overrides in the Default Management Pack).

  4. Perform the same steps on the Exchange 2007 Test OWA Connectivity Internal Monitor.

    Note

    Be sure to use the same Sync Time, Allow Unsecure Access, Log Level, Timeout Seconds, Trust Any SSL Certificate, and Interval Seconds values for the rule and monitor. This ensures that the synthetic transaction will run only once. If you use different overrides for the rule and monitor, the synthetic transaction will run multiple times: once for collecting performance data and once for collecting state information.