Exchange Search Test

Exchange Search is a feature that enables fast searching of text in messages through the use of pre-built indexes. Exchange Search uses the Microsoft Search indexing engine, and creates the initial index by “crawling” all messages in mailboxes moved into an Exchange 2007/2010 database, and updates this index based on notifications from the information store as new messages arrive. This test summarizes the performance statistics of the Microsoft Search indexing engine for every Exchange 2007/2010 database.

Target of the test : A server configured with the Mailbox role

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

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

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The IP address of the Mailbox server.
Port	The port number through which the Mailbox server communicates. The default is 6001.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Mailboxes left to crawl	Indicates the number of mailboxes that are currently left to be crawled on this database.	Number	Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. A high value is indicative of an inefficient search indexing engine.
Documents to be indexed	Indicates the number of documents that are currently awaiting indexing.	Number
Documents indexed	Indicates the number of documents that are being actively indexed in this database.	Number
Documents successfully indexed	Indicates the number of documents that were currently indexed successfully.	Number
Documents failed during indexing	Indicates the number of documents have not been indexed in this database since the last measurement period.	Number	A low value is desired for this measure. An unusually high value might call for further investigation.
Average latency of RPCs to the information store	Indicates the average latency of RPCs (in milliseconds) to the Exchange Information Store service.	Msecs	Typically, Exchange Search makes these RPC calls for crawling purposes for the given database. High RPC latencies are quiet obviously a cause for concern, as they can slow down crawling, and ultimately the search process.
Average document indexing time	Indicates the average (in milliseconds) of how long it takes to index documents.	Msecs	A high value of this measure could indicate an indexing bottleneck.
Is full crawl mode in use for indexing?	Indicates whether this database is going through a full crawl or not, currently.	Status	When the database is still being crawled, it has a value of 1. When the crawl is complete, the value is 0.