The Exchange Logon Simulator Test

How often should the test be executed. The default is 15 minutes.

If this happens, the test will fail after logging an error to that effect in the <EG_AGENT_INSTALL_DIR>\agent\error_log file. To avoid this, it would be good practice to relook at the Test Period configuration every time one of the parameters mentioned above is modified, and increase it if required.

The host for which the test is to be configured.

Refers to the port used by the Exchange server. By default, this is NULL.

Indicate how the test should access the Exchange server. If the test should access Exchange via the Outlook Web Access (OWA) interface, then select the MS Exchange option from this drop-down. If the test should access Exchange via the Office 365 portal, then pick the Office365 option from this drop-down. If the Office365 option is chosen, then make sure that the default start page of the Office 365 portal is set to Mail for every Email ID that you configure for this test. The steps for achieving this are detailed in Configuring the Default Start Page for Office 365. Once this is done, make sure you clear the browser history.

Specify the URL for connecting to Exchange server. You can provide an HTTP or an HTTPS URL here.

To know how to configure the email IDs for the simulation, refer to How to Configure Email IDs for Monitoring?

The Logon Simulator Agent needs to run in the account of a user who has local administrator rights on the simulation end point - i.e., the system on which the agent has been installed. Specify the name of this user here. This user should also be logged in at all times for the simulator to run continuously.

If the user specified in Console Username belongs to a domain, specify the name of the domain in this text box. By default, none is specified against this text box.

By default, this parameter is set to 30 seconds. This implies that the test will wait for a maximum of 30 seconds (by default) to login to the Exchange server. If the login does not happen even after the 30 seconds have elapsed, then the simulation will be automatically terminated, and the simulator will mark the login attempt as 'failed'. A login duration will hence not be computed or reported in this case.

In some environments, even during normal operation, login may take longer. In such environments, you can instruct the simulator to wait longer for the login to occur, by increasing the Web Logon Delay. The high time out setting for login ensures that the simulator waits for the login to complete and captures and reports the accurate login duration.

By default, this parameter is set to 90 seconds. This implies that the simulator will wait for a maximum of 90 seconds (by default) for a configured mailbox to open. If the mailbox cannot be opened even after the 90 seconds have elapsed, then the simulation will be automatically terminated, and the simulator will report that the mailbox is unavailable. Accordingly, the Inbox availability measure for that email ID will report the value 0, and no Inbox folder access duration will be reported for the same.

In some environments, it may be normal for some mailboxes to take longer than the rest to open. In such environments, you can instruct the simulator to wait longer for each mailbox to open, by increasing the Launch Timeout. The high time out setting for mailbox access ensures that the simulator captures and reports only genuine failures, and does not treat an access delay as a failure.

By default, this parameter is set to 30 seconds. This implies that the test will wait for a maximum of 30 seconds (by default) after each mailbox access, for the logoff to occur. If the logoff does not happen even after 30 seconds, then the simulation will be automatically terminated, and the simulator will mark the logoff attempt as 'failed'. A logoff duration will hence not be computed or reported in this case.

In some environments, even during normal operation, logoff may take longer. In such environments, you can instruct the simulator to wait longer for the logoff to occur, by increasing the Web Logoff Delay. The high time out setting for logoff ensures that the simulator waits for the log off to complete and captures and reports the accurate logoff duration.

For the logon simulation to be successful on the simulation endpoint at all times, it is important to maintain the Windows session in 'active' state always. To this effect, this flag is set to Yes by default.

By default, the logon simulator will automatically take screenshots of failure conditions and displays the same in the layer model against the measure that reported failure as well as in the graphical view of the detailed diagnosis. To this effect, this flag is set to Yes, by default. If you do not wish to view the screenshot for the simulation, then, set this flag to No.

By default, this flag is set to No indicating that the logon simulator will not capture a screenshot and display the same in the graphical view of the detailed diagnosis if the simulation performed was successful. If you wish to capture a screenshot for successful simulations too and display the same, then, set this flag to Yes.

Specify the frequency i.e., measurement period for which a screenshot captured for a successful simulation should be retained in the layer model/graphical view. By default, this is set to 5 indicating that the screenshot captured for a successful simulation will be displayed for the subsequent 5 measurement periods provided, the logon simulation is successful during all those 5 measurement periods.

By default, this flag is set to No indicating that administrators had to reconfigure this test whenever they performed troubleshooting of the site or the machine on which the logon simulation agent was installed. By setting this flag to Yes, they can simply pause the test and continue troubleshooting. The test configuration will be retained until the execution of the test is resumed.

Sometimes, the logon simulation may fail once in a while to simulate a user access to the mailbox owing to network issues, system updates, etc. This can result in false alerts. To avoid such false alerts, the logon simulator supports retries. By configuring 1 or more retries against this parameter, you can considerably reduce false alerts. By default, this is set to 0.

For example, if you set this parameter to 2, then, if the first simulation attempt is successful, then, the logon simulator completes the simulation and reports the metrics. However, if the first simulation fails, then, the logon simulator attempts the simulation again. Alerts will be raised only when the simulation fails in all the retries.

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 this 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.