Running Exchange 2000 can take quite a toll on your server’s performance. But how can you tell how much of a hit your server is taking or how well your Exchange 2000 server is performing overall? You have two choices: You can either listen to your users complain, or you can use Performance Monitor. Performance Monitor uses performance objects to keep track of what’s going on inside of your server. In this Daily Feature, I’ll show you the performance objects you need to track for Exchange 2000.

Your honor, I object!

In this Daily Feature, I am only going to discuss the performance objects you should track for Exchange 2000 uses. I am not going to go in depth about what performance objects are or how to use Performance Monitor. For a discussion of Performance Monitor, see the Daily Drill Down titled “Working with Microsoft Windows 2000’s Performance Monitor.”

Performance objects of interest
Performance objects track usage for such things as processors, network cards, memory, etc. Windows 2000 includes its own set of counters, but they don’t cover everything that Exchange 2000 does.

Fortunately, when you install Exchange 2000, it adds its own set of performance objects and counters. Each Exchange 2000 performance object has at least one associated counter. You can find each counter for the object by clicking the plus button (+) in Performance Monitor, selecting the performance object in the Performance Object list box, and then clicking Explain after choosing a counter from the Select Counters From List box. You can see the object name and monitored resource in Table A.

Table A
Performance Object Monitored Resource
MSExchangeADDXA Active Directory DXA Connector
MSExchangeAL Address List
MSExchange Chat Communities Chat Communities
MSExchange Chat Service Chat Service
MSExchangeDSAccess Caches Directory Service Access Caches
MSExchangeDSAccess Contexts Directory Service Access Contexts
MSExchangeDSAccess Processes Directory Service Access Processes
MSExchangeCONF Document Conferences
MSExchangeDcsMgr Document Conferencing Manager
MSExchangeT.120 Document Conferencing Protocol (Multipoint Control Unit)
EXIPC Epoxy Queues and Activity
MSExchangeES Event Store
FileReplicaConn File Replication Connector
FileRepSet File Replication Settings
Exchange Server HTTP Extension HTTP Extension
Exchange Store Driver (IIS) Internet Information Server Store Driver
MSExchangeIMAP4 Internet Message Access Protocol Version 4
MSExchangeIS Web Storage System
MSExchangeIS Mailbox Private Information Store
MSExchangeIS Public Public Information Store
MSExchangeIS System Information Store
MSExchangeIS Mailbox Mailbox Information Store
MSExchangeIS Public Public Folders Information Store
MSExchangeCCMC Lotus CC Mail
MSExchangeNMC Lotus Notes Message Center
MSExchangeMTA Message Transfer Agent
MSExchangeMTA Connections Message Transfer Agent Connections
MSExchangeMSMI MS Mail Connector Interchange
MSExchangeSA-RFR Exchange Referral Service
MSExchangePCMTA MS Mail Connector Mail Transfer Agent
MSExchangeSA-NSPI Proxy Name Service Provider Interface (Active Directory Integration)
NNTP Commands Network News Transfer Protocol Commands
NNTP Server Network News Transfer Protocol Server
MSExchangeGWC Novell GroupWise Connector
MSExchangeOledb Events Object Linking and Embedding database events
MSExchangeOledb Resources Object Linking and Embedding database resources
MSExchangePOP3 Post Office Protocol Version 3
MSExchangeSA Service Account
MSExchangeSRS Site Replication Service
SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
Exchange Store Driver (Store) Store Driver
MSExchangeIPConf Video Conferencing
MSExchangeWebMail Web Mail