Exchange Mailbox Status Test

Mounting a database puts it online, thereby making its data available to users. If a mailbox database is not mounted, then users will be denied access to the mailbox data. It is therefore important that the mount status of the mailbox databases is monitored periodically.

This test reports the mount status of every mailbox database in an Exchange server.

Target of the test : An Exchange server 2000/2003

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every Mailbox database being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters Description

Test Period

How often should the test be executed.

Host

The IP address of the machine where the Exchange Server is installed.

Port

The port number through which the Exchange server communicates. The default is 691.

XchgExtensionShellPath

Specify the full path to the Exchange management shell. By default, this will be none.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Mount status of mailbox

Indicates the mount status of this mailbox database.

 

If the value of this measure is Mounted, it indicates that the database is mounted. The value Dismounted, on the other hand, implies that the database is not mounted.

The numeric values that correspond to the mount status’ discussed above are listed in the table below:

State Value
Mounted 100
Dismounted 0

Note:

By default, this measure reports the value Mounted or Dismounted to indicate the mount status of a mailbox. The graph of this measure however, represents the mount status using the numeric equivalents – 0 or 100. 

An unmounted database can render critical data inaccessible to users. Commonly, mounting issues may occur owing to one/more of the following reasons:

  • To mount a database, typically, the user should belong to the local Administrators group for the target server and should be assigned the Exchange Server Administrator role. If the user account used for mounting does not have these privileges, then the database will not mount.
  • You can mount a database only if the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is running. If this service is not running, then you would be unable to mount the database.
  • An Exchange mailbox database might not be able to mount if it reaches the 16-GB limit
  • If a file-level antivirus software deletes or modifies the transaction log files, then the database might not mount.
  • Hardware issues can prevent a database from mounting.
  • If Exchange runs out of hard drive space, then the databases might not mount.
  • If hard disk NTFS file system permissions have been modified, then the databases might not mount.

Note:

Apart from Processes test, a TCP Port Status test also executes on the Application Processes layer of the Exchange server. For more details about the TCP Port Status test, refer to the Unix and Windows Servers monitoring model.