Exchange ActiveSync Connectivity Test

Exchange ActiveSync lets you synchronize a mobile device with your Exchange 2010 mailbox, so that you can check your emails from your mobile phone itself! Whenever a mobile phone user complaints that he/she is unable to check or is experiencing slowness when checking emails on his/her mobile phone,  Exchange administrators need to quickly determine what is causing the non-sync – is it because ActiveSync is unable to synchronize with the user’s mailbox? Or is it because ActiveSync is taking too long to perform the synchronization? At which stage of the synchronization did the failure/delay occur? This test helps answer all these questions.  The test periodically checks ActiveSync connectivity at every stage (a.k.a scenario) of the synchronization – eg., the Logon stage, the FolderSync stage, the Options stage, etc. - reports issues and latencies (if any) in connectivity, and leads you to the exact stage at which the failure/slowdown occurred. 

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 each <ClientAccessServer>/ <LocalSiteNameofClientAccessServer>/ <SynchronizationStage/Scenario tested>combination.

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameters	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	Indicates the IP address of the Mailbox server.
Port	The port number of the Mailbox server. By default, this is 6001.
XchgeXtensionShellPath	The Exchange Management Shell is a command-line management interface, built on Windows PowerShell which enables you to administer every part of Microsoft Exchange. This test uses the Exchange management shell to run scripts and collect the desired performance metrics from the Exchange server. By default, the test auto-discovers the location of the Exchange management shell and thus, automatically loads the Exchange management shell snap-in (exshell.psc1) for script execution. This is why, the XchgeXtensionShellPath is set to none by default.
Client Access Server	Specify the fully-qualified domain name of the Client Access server.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
ActiveSync connectivity status	Indicates whether the ActiveSync connectivity check was successful or not at this stage/scenario of the synchronization.		If the value of this measure is Success, it indicates that the ActiveSync connectivity check was successful at this stage. If the value of this measure is Failure, it indicates that mailbox synchronization using ActiveSync failed at this stage. The numeric values that correspond to these measure values are as follows: Measure Value Numeric Value Success 1 Failure 0 Note: Typically, this measure reports the Measure Values listed in the table above to indicate the ActiveSync connectivity status. However, in the graph of this measure, the Numeric values are used to represent the connectivity status.
ActiveSync latency	Indicates the time taken by ActiveSync to successfully complete this stage/scenario of the synchronization.	Secs	A low value is desired for this measure. A high value indicates that this stage/scenario of the synchronization is taking too long to complete. Compare the value of this measure across stages/scenarios to know where the maximum delay occurred. This will greatly aid troubleshooting.