Troubleshooting Basics in Exchange Server 2010

One of the primary responsibilities of Exchange Administrator is to ensure proper flow and recoverability of message data. This can only be achieved with few administration tasks instead of doing maintenance, monitoring and queue tracking in case of failure. It is better to monitor if services and processes are functioning normally or not, rather than disaster to happens and then troubleshoot.

Few administration tasks are more important than maintenance, monitoring, and queue tracking. You must maintain Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 to ensure proper flow and recoverability of message data. You need to monitor Exchange Server to ensure that services and processes are functioning normally, and you need to track Exchange Server queues to ensure that messages are being processed.

We can find several tools in the Exchange Management Console to troubleshoot messaging problems. These tools include:-

1. Mailflow Troubleshooter can help us in troubleshooting message delivery delays, non-delivery reports, problems with Edge Transport server synchronization. We can also find the lost messages from this tool.

2. Performance Troubleshooter helps in troubleshooting performance issues related to delays while using Office Outlook and Remote Procedure Call (RPC) dialog box appearing frequently in Microsoft Outlook.

Following power shell cmdlets can be used to obtain detailed information about current configuration of the Exchange Server:-

· Get-TransportServer command displays configuration details for servers with the Hub Transport Server or Edge Transport server role

· Get-UMServer command displays configuration details for servers with the Unified Messaging server role

· Get-ExchangeServer command displays the general configuration details for Exchange servers

· Get-ClientAccessServer command displays configuration details for servers with the Client Access server role

· Get-MailboxServer command displays configuration details for servers with the Mailbox server role

We can also use the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer(ExBPA) tool to gather and check Exchange configuration information. ExPBA tools scan lots of things like:-

· Permissions check Exchange BPA performs a health check and then samples the performance for over a 2-hour period.

· Organizational health check Exchange BPA performs a full scan of the organization, checking for errors, warnings, non default configurations, recent changes, and other configuration details.

· Baseline configuration checks Exchange BPA checks for configuration settings that turn from baseline values. This allows you to compare the settings on a baseline server with settings on other servers and report the differences.

· Connectivity tests Exchange BPA tests network connections and permissions on each Exchange server.

Other useful cmdlets for checking the Exchange organization include:

· Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity Performs a full synchronization against a specified mailbox to test the configuration of Exchange ActiveSync.

· Test-EcpConnectivity Verifies that the Exchange Control Panel is running as expected.

· Test-EdgeSynchronization Verifies that the subscribed Edge Transport servers have a current and accurate synchronization status.

· Test-ExchangeSearch Verifies that Exchange Search is currently enabled and is indexing new e-mail messages in a timely manner.

· Test-FederationTrust Verifies that the federation trust is properly configured and functioning as expected.

· Test-FederationTrustCertificate Verifies the status of certificates used for federation on all Hub Transport and Client Access servers.

· Test-ImapConnectivity Verifies that the IMAP4 service is running as expected.

· Test-IPAllowListProvider Verifies the configuration for a specific IP allow list provider.

· Test-IPBlockListProvider Verifies the configuration for a specific IP block list provider.

· Test-IRMConfiguration Verifies Information Rights Management (IRM) configuration and functionality.

· Test-Mailflow Verifies whether mail can be successfully sent from and delivered to the system mailbox as well as whether e-mail is sent between Mailbox servers within a defined latency threshold.

· Test-MapiConnectivity Verifies server functionality by logging on to the mailbox that you specify.

· Test-MRSHealth Verifies the health of an instance of the Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Replication Service.

· Test-OutlookConnectivity Verifies end-to-end Microsoft Outlook client connectivity and also tests for Outlook Anywhere (RPC/HTTP) and TCP-based connections.

· Test-OutlookWebServices Verifies the Autodiscover service settings for Outlook.

· Test-OwaConnectivity Verifies that Outlook Web App is running as expected.

· Test-PopConnectivity Verifies that the POP3 service is running as expected.

· Test-PowerShellConnectivity Verifies whether Windows PowerShell remoting on the target Client Access server is functioning correctly.

· Test-ReplicationHealth Verifies all aspects of the replication and replay status for a Mailbox server in a database availability group.

· Test-SenderId Verifies whether a specified IP address is the legitimate sending address for a specified SMTP address.

· Test-ServiceHealth Verifies whether all the Windows services that Exchange requires on a server have started.

· Test-SystemHealth Collects data about your Exchange system and analyzes it.

· Test-UMConnectivity Verifies the operation of a computer that has the Unified Messaging server role installed.

· Test-WebServicesConnectivity Verifies the functionality of Exchange Web Services.