Mail Flow Test

The Mail Flow test periodically emulates a user on Domain Exchange Online by configuring a valid email ID of the O365 MAIL SENDER for sending mails to the receiver and by configuring a valid email ID of the O365 MAIL RECEIVER for receiving mails from the sender. In the process, the test reports metrics revealing the health of the both mail sending and receiving functions.

Using the metrics reported by this test, administrators can find quick and accurate answers to the following performance queries related to the mail sending and receiving operation of Domain Exchange Online:

Did authentication to the email service fail?
Was any latency noticed when connecting to the email service?
Is the sender's mailbox accessible? Was the eG agent able to send the emulated email from the sender's mailbox successfully? If not, what could have caused the failure?
Is the receiver's mailbox accessible? Was it able to receive the emulated email successfully? If not, what could have caused the failure?
Is email transmission slow? If so, what could be slowing down email transmission - is it because of a delay in connecting to the email service? or is it because Domain Exchange Online is processing outgoing email traffic slowly?
Is email reception slow? If so, what could be slowing down email reception - is it because of a delay in connecting to the email service? or is it because Domain Exchange Online is processing incoming email traffic slowly?

Target of the test : Domain Exchange Online

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Office 365 tenant being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters	Description
Test period	How often should the test be executed
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured. By default, this is portal.office.com
Port	The port at which the specified Host listens to. By default, this is NULL.
Tenant Name	This parameter applies only if you want the eG agent to use Azure AD Certificate-based Authentication for accessing and monitoring an O365 tenant and its resources. Azure AD certificate-based authentication (CBA) enables customers to allow or require users to authenticate with X.509 certificates against their Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for applications and browser sign-in. When monitoring highly secure Office 365 environments, you can configure the eG agent to identify itself to a tenant using a valid X.509 certificate, so that it is allowed secure access to the tenant and its resources. By default, the value of this parameter is none. This means that, by default, the eG agent does not use certificate-based authentication to connect to an O365 tenant. On the other hand, if you want the eG agent to use this modern authentication technique to securely access a tenant's resources, you should do the following: Enable Azure AD Certificate-based authentication for the target O365 tenant; this can be achieved manually, via the Office 365 portal, or automatically, using Powershell scripts we provide. For the manual procedure, refer to Manually Enabling Certificate-based Authentication For an Office 365 Tenantunder Microsoft Office 365. For the automatic procedure, refer to Automatically Fulfilling Pre-requisites in a Modern Authentication-Enabled Environmentunder Microsoft Office 365. When enabling certificate-based authentication, an X.509 certificate will be generated for the target tenant. Configure the Tenant Name parameter with the name of the tenant for which certificate-based authentication is enabled. Using the tenant name, the eG agent will be able to read the details of the X.509 certificate that is generated for that tenant, and use that certificate to access that tenant's resources. To determine the tenant name, do the following: Log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center as an administrator. Under Setup, click on Domains. Find a domain that ends with .onmicrosoft.com - this is your Microsoft O365 tenant name.
O365 Sender	Configure the email ID of the O365 MAIL SENDER in the O365 Sender text box. For best results, make sure that you provide the email ID of a valid mailbox on Exchange Online.
O365 Receiver	You need to indicate whom the email should be sent to. For that, enter the email ID of the O365 MAIL RECEIVER against O365 Receiver text box.
Domain, Domain User Name, Domain Password, and Confirm Password	These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server. In this case, in the Domain text box, specify the name of the Windows domain to which the eG agent host belongs. In the Domain User Name text box, mention the name of a valid domain user with login rights to the eG agent host. Provide the password of that user in the Domain Password text box and confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of these parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.
Proxy Host, Proxy Port, Proxy User Name, and Proxy Password	These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server. In this case, provide the IP/host name and port number of the Proxy server that the eG agent should use in the Proxy Host and Proxy Port parameters, respectively. If the Proxy server requires authentication, then specify the credentials of a valid Proxy user against the Proxy User Name and Proxy Password text boxes. Confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. If the Proxy server does not require authentication, then specify none against the Proxy User Name, Proxy Password, and Confirm Password text boxes. On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of any of the Proxy-related parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.
Number of Messages	Specify the number of messages this test should send over Domain Exchange Online, as part of the emulation. By default, this parameter is set to 1.
RTT Limit (in mins)	You need to specify maximum allowed value for round trip time in RTT Limit (in mins) text box. This is the time taken by mail transfer agent from sending the mail and receiving it. If round trip time of any mail exceeds the RTT limit, the DD for Average round-trip time measure will show the delay.
DD Frequency	Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time the test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD Frequency.
Detailed Diagnosis	To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option. The option to selectively enabled/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled: The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement

Description

Measurement Unit

Interpretation

Sender Connection/Authentication status

Indicates whether/not the email service authenticated the emulated email.

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are listed in the table below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
Success	1
Failed	0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether/not the email service authenticated the emulated email.

Send mail availability

Indicates whether/not the sender's mailbox is accessible over the network.

Percent

If the value of this measure is 100%, it implies that:

The eG external agent has been able to successfully connect to the email service, and;

The eG external agent has been able to successfully send emails with the configured email ID of the sender's mailbox;

A value 0 is reported if:

If the eG external agent is unable to connect to the email service;

If the eG external agent successfully connected to the service, but failed to access the mailbox of the configured sender for sending the email.

If this measure reports the value 0, then you can use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to ascertain the reason for why the email service/mailbox is unreachable.

Sent messages

Indicates the number of emails that were sent.

Number

If the value of this measure is 0 or lower than the value configured for the NUMBER OF MESSAGES parameter of the test, it is a cause for concern. This is because, it indicates that the test failed to send a few/all the mails it was expected to send during the measurement period.

Failed messages

Indicates the number of failed messages

Number

An unusually high value for this measure is indicative of fault in connecting to the email service. A poor network link between the eG external agent and mail service could contribute to connectivity issues.

Avg time to send messages

Indicates the average time taken to send messages.

Seconds

A low value is desired for this measure. A consistent increase in the value of this measure can denote a problem when the email service is sending emails.

Total send time

Indicates the total time taken for sending the emails.

Seconds

Receiver Connection/Authentication status

Indicates whether/not the email service authenticated the emulated email.

The values that this measure can report and their corresponding numeric values are listed in the table below:

Measure Value	Numeric Value
Success	1
Failed	0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate whether/not the email service authenticated the emulated email.

Receive mail availability

Indicates whether/not the receiver's mailbox is accessible over the network.

Percent

If the value of this measure is 100%, it implies that:

The eG external agent has been able to successfully connect to the email service, and;

The eG external agent has been able to successfully check whether/not emails from the sender are received by the receivers though the receiver's email ID, and report the count of such emails;

A value 0 is reported:

If the eG external agent is unable to connect to the email service;

If the eG external agent successfully connected to the service, but failed to access the configured mailbox, check for the email ID of the receiver, and/or report the count of such emails.

If this measure reports the value 0, then you can use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to ascertain the reason for why the email service/mailbox is unreachable.

Received messages

Indicates the number of emulated emails that were received by the mailbox.

Number

The value 0 for this measure could be a cause for concern, as it indicates that the mailbox did not receive any emulated emails during the last measurement period. While this could hint at a problem in mail reception, it could also just mean that the Office 365 Mail Sender test (mapped to the Office 365 Mail Sender component) probably did not send any messages to the receiver during the period in question.

Avg time to receive messages

Indicates the average time taken to receive messages.

Minutes

A low value is desired for this measure. A consistent increase in the value of this measure can denote a problem when the email service is receiving emails.

Avg round-trip time

Indicates the average time taken to connect to the service, access the configured mailbox, and check the mailbox for messages.

Minutes

If the value of this measure is abnormally high, it is a clear indicator of slowness in mail reception. In such a situation, You may want to compare the value of the Time taken to connect measure with that of the Avg time to receive messages measure, to diagnose the source of the slowness - is it owing to a delay in connecting to the email service? or is it because the email service is slow in processing incoming mail traffic?

Max round-trip time

Indicates the high watermark of round-trip time.

Seconds

An unusually high value for this measure could be indicative of a sudden/sporadic increase in the latency of the mail receiving activity.

Time since last mail received

Indicates the time that has elapsed since the last mail was received.

Minutes

If the time between two emails is abnormally high, it could indicate a problem in the email service, which is either delaying email reception or causing mailboxes to not receive emails at all.

Total receive time

Indicates the total time taken for receiving the emails.

Seconds

Out of order emails

Indicates the total number of emails that were out of order.

Number