Exchange Monitor

Exchange Monitors monitor connectivity and quality of service between mailbox endpoints in your Microsoft Exchange Organization. Exchange Monitors send heartbeat messages from a source mailbox to a destination mailbox, and notify you if the message is not received within the specified quality of service threshold, or not received at all.

Important
You should not use Terminal Services to configure an Exchange Monitor. As documented in Microsoft Knowledge Base article 303221, MAPI is not Terminal Services-compliant. As a result, when you configure an Exchange Monitor using Terminal Services, the MAPI profile created by ELM is deleted in the background, and that breaks the Exchange Monitor. When this happens, you will see the following error message:
 
 Send Exchange Monitor Message returned: 0x80040203
 DoMonitor failed with return code, 0x80040203
 
To correct the problem, you must delete any existing Exchange Monitors, and recreate them without using Terminal Services. You can use a remote ELM Console, an ELM Console local to the ELM Server, or remote control software such as VNC or PCAnywhere to configure the Exchange Monitor; however, you cannot use Terminal Services.

In addition to testing mail delivery, Exchange Monitors can generate events when the configured mailboxes are unavailable to MAPI clients. If you install a MAPI client on your ELM Server after ELM has been installed, you must restart the ELM Server service.

Creating an Exchange Server Monitor requires that the MAPI subsystem be installed on your ELM Enterprise Manager Server. This is accomplished by installing one of the Exchange Server clients on your ELM Server. Any version of Microsoft Outlook will work, and Microsoft Knowledgebase 306962 details how to create MAPI profiles without installing Outlook.

In Windows XP/2003/2008, you must set the Exchange client as the default E-mail client in Control Panel | Internet Options | Programs | E-mail. In Windows Vista and newer, you must set the Exchange client as the default E-mail client in Control Panel | Internet Options | Programs | Internet programs | Set your default programs.  If you do not do this, you will receive an error message that no default mail client was configured.

You may create multiple Exchange Monitors to perform end-to-end MAPI-based monitoring between all servers in your Exchange Organization. However, you cannot span multiple Exchange Organizations. There is a one-to-one mapping between ELM Servers and Exchange Organizations. An ELM Server is required for each Exchange Organization containing servers you want to monitor.

Exchange Monitors use three mailboxes:

Administrative Mailbox

•Administrative Mailbox - Used to establish a MAPI session with an Exchange Server in your Organization. No email is sent to or from this mailbox; it is used for session purposes only. Click the ellipsis button (...) to select a mailbox for the ELM Server administrator profile. This will display the Exchange Global Address List (GAL). Select the mailbox you want to use from the GAL and click OK.

Exchange Monitor Source and Destination Mailboxes

In order to monitor Microsoft Exchange Server via MAPI, the ELM Server transmits small email messages from a mailbox on one server in your Exchange organization (the Source Mailbox) to another mailbox on another server in your Exchange organization (the Destination Mailbox). If the message is not received by the Destination Mailbox within the specified quality of service threshold, or not received at all, the enabled Actions will be executed.

•Source Mailbox - This mailbox is where heartbeat messages originate. Click the ellipsis button to select the Source Mailbox.

•Destination Mailbox - This mailbox is where heartbeat messages are sent. Click the ellipsis button to select the Destination Mailbox.

Messages sent between these two mailboxes are automatically removed. Regular maintenance on the end-point mailboxes you use is not necessary. However, there is no guarantee that every message will be auto-deleted. Therefore, you should periodically look in the source and target mailbox to verify that all messages have been removed.

•Set the quality of service threshold in the Warn if QoS slower than field.

•To generate a warning each time the quality of service threshold is not met, check the box at Execute configured Action(s) for every failure. To be notified only the first time the quality of service threshold is exceeded, uncheck this box.

Note
Unlike other Monitor Items, the Exchange Monitor is not assigned to a specific Agent. This means that you do not need an Agent installed on the Exchange Servers containing the three mailboxes listed above.

Actions

•Failed (Error) 5542 - The Exchange Monitor has detected an error condition. The conditions can be:

•Exchange Monitor could not logon the Administrator mailbox.

•Exchange Monitor could not access the message store.

•MAPI services are unavailable.

•Success (Informational) 5544 - The Exchange Monitor has detected a success condition. The conditions can be:

•Exchange Monitor could logon the administrator mailbox.

•Exchange Monitor services were restored.

•Quality of Service (Warning) 5543 - The Exchange Monitor has detected a quality of service condition.

•Error 5545 - The Exchange Monitor could not logon the Administrator mailbox.

•Error 5546 - The Exchange Monitor could not access the message store.

•Informational 5547 - The Exchange Monitor could successfully logon the administrator mailbox.

•Error 5548 - MAPI services are unavailable.

•Informational 5549 - The Exchange Monitor services were restored.

Monitory Category

Displays the Monitoring Categories to which the Monitor item is assigned. Click to select or deselect Monitoring Categories. Click New to create or Properties to Edit Monitoring Categories.

Agents

Displays the Agents to which the Monitor item is assigned.  Click to select or deselect individual agents. Click New to deploy an agent or Properties to View/Edit an existing agent.

Schedule

Displays the Scheduled Interval and Scheduled Hours settings which control the frequency for the Monitor Item.

Scheduled Interval tab

Specify the interval at which the monitoring, polling or action is to occur. Depending on the Monitor Item type, Items can be scheduled in interval increments of Seconds, Minutes, Hours and Days. The Scheduled Interval is relative to the top of the hour or top of the minute. For example, if a Scheduled Interval is configured for 10 minutes, the Monitor Item will execute at hh:10:00, hh:20:00, hh:30:00, hh:40:00, hh:50:00, h1:00:00, etc. If a Scheduled Interval is configured for 15 seconds, the Monitor Item will execute at hh:00:15, hh:00:30, hh:00:45, hh:01:00, hh:01:15, etc.

Scheduled Hours tab

Select the days and/or hours this item is active. By default, the schedule is set to ON for all hours and all days. Mouse clicks toggle squares between ON and OFF. Clicking on an individual square will toggle the active schedule for that hour. Clicking on an hour at the top of the grid, or on a day of the week at the left of the grid will toggle the corresponding column or row. Keyboard equivalents are the arrow keys and the space bar.