Postmaintenance Procedures
Postmaintenance
procedures are designed to quickly and efficiently restore Exchange
operations to the environment following any offline maintenance.
Devising a checklist for these procedures ensures that the systems are
brought back online quickly and efficiently, without time wasted
because of minor errors. The following is a sample checklist for
maintenance procedures:
1. | Start all the remaining Exchange services.
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2. | Test email connectivity from Outlook, Outlook Web Access, Outlook Anywhere, and ActiveSync.
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3. | Perform a full backup of the Exchange Server 2007 server(s).
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4. | Closely review backup and server event logs over the next few days to ensure that no errors are reported on the server. |
Reducing Management and Maintenance Efforts
Numerous utilities are available
with Exchange Server 2007 for managing, maintaining, and monitoring the
messaging system. These utilities can often help administrators avoid
problems, and can save time and energy addressing those that arise.
In
any messaging environment, administrators should always attempt to
develop processes and procedures that can reduce maintenance efforts
while maximizing effectiveness and efficiency. Many management and
maintenance procedures can be streamlined, or even automated, ensuring
a maximum return for minimum time spent, resulting in a significant
monetary savings for the organization. Equally important, proper upkeep
of the Exchange environment ensures administrators are one step ahead
of preventable issues, allowing more time for proactively managing the
environment, and less time reacting to problems.
Using Microsoft Operations Manager
Microsoft
Operations Manager (MOM) is one tool that can be used to streamline and
automate many of an administrator’s messaging responsibilities. More
specifically, the MOM Exchange Server management pack provides the key
features required to manage, maintain, and monitor the Exchange Server
2007 environment.
Key features to consider evaluating include, but are not limited to, the following:
Provides
rules and scripts to track Exchange performance, availability, and
reliability of all Exchange-related components, including
Internet-related services, Extensible Storage Engine, System Attendant,
Microsoft Exchange Information Store service, and SMTP
Sends test emails to verify operations and measures actual delivery times
Gathers Exchange data and provides technical reports on Exchange service delivery, traffic, storage capacity, and usage
Alerts administrators when various thresholds are met, such as resource utilization statistics or capacity
Performance baselining and continuous monitoring of system resources and protocols
Trend analysis of usage and performance
A full knowledge base of Exchange-specific solutions tied directly to over 1,700 events
Reporting on usage, problems, security-related events, and much more
