Exchange Search Monitor Test

Exchange Search is an important tool that significantly improves user productivity by enabling users to quickly locate critical email messages – a task that would otherwise take hours in a mailbox that is cluttered with thousands of messages! If this Exchange Search capability is not enabled on an Exchange server or is found to take too much time, it will result in many dissatisfied and unproductive users. To assure users of a high-quality user experience with their Exchange mailboxes, administrators must continuously track the status and performance of the Exchange Search feature and proactively spot anomalies. This is exactly what the Exchange Search Monitor test does. This test reports whether/not the Exchange Search feature is currently enabled on a configured mailbox; if enabled, the test further reports how long Exchange Search takes to complete search queries on that mailbox. In the process, the test sheds light on the unavailability of the Exchange Search capability on a mailbox and inconsistencies in its performance.

This test is disabled by default. To enable the test, go to the enable / disable tests page using the menu sequence : Agents -> Tests -> Enable/Disable, pick the desired Component type, set Performance as the Test type, choose the test from the disabled tests list, and click on the >> button to move the test to the ENABLED TESTS list. Finally, click the Update button.

Target of the test : A Microsoft Exchange 2013/2016 server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each mailbox in every mailbox database on the Exchange 2013/2016 server being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test
  1. Test period - How often should the test be executed
  2. Host - The host for which the test is to be configured.
  3. port – The port at which the host listens.
  4. xchgextensionshellpath - The Exchange Management Shell is a command-line management interface, built on Windows PowerShell v2, which enables you to administer every part of the Microsoft Exchange Server. This test uses the Exchange management shell to run scripts and collect the desired performance metrics from the Exchange server. To enable the test to load the Exchange management shell snap-in (exshell.psc1) for script execution, you need to specify the full path to the Exchange management shell in the XCHGEXTENSIONSHELLPATH text box. For instance, your specification can be, c:\progra~1\micros~1\exchan~1\v14\bin\exshell.psc1.
  5. mailboxname– Specify the name of the mailbox to be monitored by this test.
  6. indexingtimeoutinseconds – Specify the duration (in seconds) for which this test will wait for a response from the server. If the server does not respond beyond this duration, the test will timeout. By default, this duration is 60 seconds.
  7. 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 enable/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

Status:

Indicates the current status of Exchange Search on this mailbox. 

 

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

Measure Value Numeric Value

True

0

False

1

If the status reported by this measure is False, you can use the detailed diagnosis of this test to know what errors.

Note:

Typically, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate status of each replication-related activity that is monitored. However, in the graph of this measure, the Numeric values are used to represent replication health.

Search time:

Indicates the time taken to complete the search queries on this mailbox. 

Secs

A low value is desired for this measure. A sudden/gradual increase in the value of this measure is a cause of concern as this may be due to the unavailability of the Exchange Search capability or the inconsistencies in the performance of the mailbox.