Exchange Clients Test
Monitoring the RPC activity to a Mailbox server and the responsiveness of the server to RPC requests can provide an indication of user satisfaction levels with the performance of the Mailbox server. Foreground RPCs happen during interactions of Outlook clients with the Mailbox server, and any slow down or failure of these RPCs will be directly visible to users of the Mailbox server. Background RPCs are caused by “behind-the-scene” activities internal to the Mailbox server.
This test monitors the performance of RPC activities on the Mailbox server.
Target of the test : A server configured with the Mailbox server role
Agent deploying the test : An internal agent
Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Exchange server being monitored.
| Parameters | Description |
|---|---|
|
Test Period |
How often should the test be executed. |
|
Host |
The host for which the test is to be configured. |
|
Port |
The port number through which the Mailbox server communicates. The default is 6001. |
| Measurement | Description | Measurement Unit | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
|
RPC attempts |
The rate at which RPC calls were attempted to the Exchange server during the last measurement period. |
Attempts/sec |
This metric provides an indicator of the RPC workload on the server. |
|
RPC failures |
This metric is the rate of failed RPCs to the Exchange server during the last measurement period. |
Failures/Sec |
Typically, this value should be low |
|
RPC successes |
The rate of successful RPC requests handled by the Exchange server during the last measurement period. |
Successes/Sec |
|
|
Foreground RPC failures |
This metric is the client-reported rate of failed foreground RPCs during the last measurement period. |
Failures/sec |
Typically, this value should be low.
|
|
Foreground RPC successes |
Shows the client-reported rate of successful foreground RPCs handled by the Exchange server during the last measurement period. |
Successes/Sec |
|
|
RPC success ratio |
This metric is the ratio of the foreground RPC successes to the total number of foreground RPCs attempted during the last measurement period, expressed as a percentage. |
% |
This metric is one measure of client satisfaction levels with the Exchange server. The closer this value is to 100, the better the client satisfaction level. |
|
RPCs with latency > 2secs |
Shows the client-reported rate of successful RPCs during the last measurement period with latencies > 2 seconds. |
Rpcs/sec |
|
|
RPCs with latency > 5secs |
Shows the client-reported rate of successful RPCs during the last measurement period with latencies > 5 seconds. |
Rpcs/sec |
|
|
RPCs with latency > 10secs |
Shows the client-reported rate of successful RPCs during the last measurement period with latencies > 10 seconds |
Rpcs/sec |
|
|
Fast RPC ratio |
This metric indicates whether client RPCs are happening fast or not.
|
% |
This metric is another key measure of client performance. This metric is computed as the ratio of successful client RPCs with latency less than 2 seconds to the total number of successful RPCs, expressed as a percentage. Hence, the value of this metric indicates the percentage of client RPCs that are taking more than 2 seconds. A value closer to 100 indicates better RPC performance. |
|
RPC Failed server too busy error rate |
Indicates the rate at which client RPCs failed (since the store was started) due to the server too busy ROC error. |
Errors/Sec |
The value of these measures should be 0 at all times. Non-zero values may indicate that RPC threads are exhausted or client throttling is occurring for clients running versions of Outlook earlier than Microsoft Office Outlook. |
|
RPC Failed server too busy errors |
Indicates the number of client RPCs that failed owing to the server too busy ROC error. |
Number |
|
|
Query processor threads |
Indicates the number of query processor threads that are currently running queries that are not optimized. |
Number |
Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0. A non-zero value is indicative of the existence of threads that are executing very slowly because they are running unoptimized/inefficient queries. |
|
Search threads |
Indicates the number of search threads that are currently running queries that are not optimized. |
Number |
Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0. A non-zero value is indicative of the existence of threads that are executing very slowly because they are running unoptimized/inefficient queries. |
|
RPC client backoff |
Indicates the rate at which the server notifies the client to backoff. |
Backoffs/Sec |
The Exchange server allows administrators to manage end-user performance by preventing client applications, such as Outlook for example, from sending too many Remote Procedure Call [RPC] requests per second to Exchange, causing the server to suffer in terms of performance. When Exchange determines that a client is having a negative effect on the server, it will send a "back-off" request to the client telling it to delay sending any additional requests for a specified time in order to reduce the performance effect on the server. If these back-off requests are sent by the server frequently, it could indicate that the Exchange server is being bombarded with RPC requests; this is a sign of a server overload condition. |
