Updated Exchange 2003 MP released version 6.0.6387.0
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/opsmgr07.aspx?SCPProdID=3
This is a pretty major update - and it looks to address the biggest issues with the Exchange 2003 MP.... most notably reducing Self Tuning Threshold noise, SSL enabled alerts, Report fixes and added report descriptions to make them easier to run, fixes to Mail flow, etc...
Note: You will need to take a look at the overrides you have put in place for the existing MP. If you have already addressed some of these issues fixed below - you may want to consider deleting your overrides that deal with these updates, and re-tune if necessary.
The following list includes all of the changes contained in this update of the Exchange Server 2003 Management Pack.
· Removed Exchange front end service state monitors that would cause duplicate alerts to be generated.
· Updated the KnowledgeBase for Performance Collection Rules for Mail flow receiver, Exchange Mail Flow Monitor (Sender Part) and Exchange Mail Flow Monitor (Receiver part) to clarify how these should be configured.
· Updated the alert description for ExBPA alerts to direct the administrator towards the ExBPA events view since more than one issue may have been found, while only one alert is generated.
· Changed the scripts for the Exchange Mail Flow Monitor (Receiver Part) so that setting the number of Max missed runs override now works, enabling users to set a threshold for when mailflow alerting should occur.
· Documented supported overrides for Mail Flow monitoring in the Exchange Server 2003 Management Pack guide. For more information, see the “How to Configure Mail Flow Monitoring” section of this guide.
· Changed the top level display name of the folder in the Operations Manager 2007 console to be “Exchange Server 2003”. Note that all Operations Manager 2007 console users will need to clear the console cache for this to display correctly.
· Changed the Collect_Message_Tracking_statistics script so that it generates an alert if it can’t access the message tracking logs.
· Added logic to collect event 9950 from the Check_Mailbox_Store_Status.Monitor, enabling users to find which store was dismounted.
· Removed the override from the “SSL Should be Enabled” monitor specifying the list of servers to be excluded from the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) check. Added documentation in the Exchange Server 2003 Management Pack Guide for how to handle this scenario. For more information, see the “How to Configure SSL Monitoring” section of this guide.
· The sensitivity of all Self Tuning Threshold rules and monitors in the management pack was lowered, increasing the threshold at which the monitors alert.
For this management pack version, the following Self Tuning Threshold monitors have been disabled and replaced with static “consecutive samples over threshold” monitors:
· MSExchangeIS\RPC Averaged Latency
· MSExchangeIS Mailbox\Send Queue Size
· SMTP Server\Remote Retry Queue Length
· SMTP Server\Local Queue Length
· SMTP NTFS Store Driver\Messages in the queue directory
· MSExchangeIS Transport Driver\TempTable Current
· SMTP Server\Remote Queue Length
Note: The Self Tuning Threshold monitors above are still in the management pack, but disabled by default.
For more information, see the “How to Configure Self Tuning Threshold Monitors” section of this guide.
· Updated several display strings and alert messages in the management pack.
· Removed the reference to the Backwards Compatibility Management Pack. Removed the Exchange Server Configuration Report, as this was dependent on collecting Backwards Compatibility Management Pack properties.
· Updated the Active Client Logons by day report to display the correct data.
· Updated the Exchange Information Store Usage report to display the correct data
· Updated the Exchange Message Transfer Agent (MTA) Usage report to display the correct data.
· Updated the MTA Work Queue Length by day report to display the correct data.
· Updated the Top 100 public folders by message count report to display the correct data.
· Updated a number of scripts that collect data mainly for reporting purposes to correctly collect data if the managed server running Exchange uses locales other than US English.
· Updated the monitor checking the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) Log CheckPoint Depth so that it collects the correct counter and can alert appropriately.
· Updated the KnowledgeBase for the Outlook Web Access Logon Failure performance collection rule to clarify its behavior and available overrides.
· Updated the Disk Space Monitor to generate warning or error alerts depending on the condition, also changed it to a 3-state monitor. For documentation of this monitor, see the “How to Configure Disk Space Monitoring” section of this guide.
· Updated the Exchange Topology Discovery script to generate less data. Removed discovery of the AdminGroup and RoutingGroup instances, which were not used in the topology diagram. Added an override to the Topology Discovery script to control whether Routing Group connectors should be discovered or not. The default value for this override is “true”.
· Updated the Exchange Server 2003 Management Pack Guide with instructions for monitoring the MTA service on clustered servers running Exchange. For more information, see the “How to Configure Exchange Server Clusters to be Monitored” section of this guide.
· Updated report descriptions in the management pack.
· Updated the management pack guide to new format.
