Optimizing SBS 2003 Excange? Intermittent Connection Issues!! HELP   

Good morning everyone.

Currently the business I work for utilizes SBS 2003 Standard for our needs.  
We have a somewhat 'aging' system (by today's standards), It's an Intel 
Pentium 4 @ 2.80ghz, 3gb ram, and plenty of hd space on a SATA RAID 5 array.  
 Currently we have less than 30 actual users.

The problems lately, is that the server seems quite sluggish.  Beyond the 
general maintenance of updating, defrags, etc, it seems that Exchange is 
really becoming a pain point and quite a PITA in particular.  Lately, and 
this is true for a very important user here (the boss) along with many other 
users, when using Outlook to connect to Exchange, the synched connection 
w/Exchange pops in an out on a whim and many times quite often. Personally I 
see this switching from my mailbox to the support mailbox and back again, 
though users are seeing this as well.  The big guy's email box is less than 
200 megs so it's not like he's got a whopping ammount of storage here on the 
server.  He sees the problem locally in the office (though part of the local 
issue is the bad wiring in that office and I've partially offset that for now 
with a new gigbit switch as the old one was half dead with dead ports and the 
like, and we'll be running new ethernet direct from the server room over to 
him to circumvent bad wiring).  Externally, he's seeing it as well.  We use 
VPN here for external usage, though the standard OWA is available as well, 
though not widley used.  He's seeing the issue when connected via the VPN, 
though the VPN connection remains solid, the Outlook connection to Exchange 
pops in and out and as he puts it, and I 100% agree, its quite annoying when 
trying to use email to send and recieve. 

Granted we run nightly incremental backups and weekend full backups that 
really shouldn't interfere with Exchange as such, and at least I've narrowed 
down the issue to the fact that its not an external DNS, ISP thing as it 
happens internally, externally, etc.  

Now, when using the SBS, things take forever just to login, open up, etc. 
Makes it hard to do quick maintenance, add users, etc.  Here are the current 
stats I can give you regarding server usage: It's 10am now, so primetime 
usage is up and going....

Current processes: 72
CPU Usage: 14-60% 
Commit Charge: 2873M/7440M
Store is using: 996,999k roughly (so a gig?)....
Performance is spking here and there but relatively low as far as CPU usage. 
PF usage: 2.77gb
Handles: 369xx
Threads: 1350 rouhgly

Physical Memory: Total: 3136788, Available: 222428, Sys Chache: 291576

Commit Charge: Total 2907xxx , Limit: 7619260 Peak 2977628
Kerne Mem: Total  1204xx Page 59856 Non Paged 60524

It just seems like Exchange is chewing resources up and I can't quite figure 
out what the hiccups are resulting from, be it resources or otherwise.
I'm trying to get things squared away but need some outside opinions and 
expertise here.  Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:22:11 -0700   author:   Erich Weihrauch

Re: Optimizing SBS 2003 Excange? Intermittent Connection Issues!! HELP   

I would suggest downloading both Exchange Best Practice Analyzer and SBS 
Best Practice Analyzer to see if either suggest a bottleneck issue.  From 
what you stated in the server being slow for other things such as logins, 
creating users, etc, could mean numerous things.  You mention bad wiring.  I 
would continue your troubleshooting on the network.  Is your Switch a 
managed?  If you stop all Exchange Services on the SBS Server does the 
slowness of the Server go away?

-- 
John Oliver, Jr
MCSE, MCT, CCNA
Exchange MVP 2008
Microsoft Certified Partner

"Erich Weihrauch"  wrote in 
message news:FEAD82ED-89E1-4F52-8A0A-37A569EAC98F@microsoft.com...
> Good morning everyone.
>
> Currently the business I work for utilizes SBS 2003 Standard for our 
> needs.
> We have a somewhat 'aging' system (by today's standards), It's an Intel
> Pentium 4 @ 2.80ghz, 3gb ram, and plenty of hd space on a SATA RAID 5 
> array.
> Currently we have less than 30 actual users.
>
> The problems lately, is that the server seems quite sluggish.  Beyond the
> general maintenance of updating, defrags, etc, it seems that Exchange is
> really becoming a pain point and quite a PITA in particular.  Lately, and
> this is true for a very important user here (the boss) along with many 
> other
> users, when using Outlook to connect to Exchange, the synched connection
> w/Exchange pops in an out on a whim and many times quite often. Personally 
> I
> see this switching from my mailbox to the support mailbox and back again,
> though users are seeing this as well.  The big guy's email box is less 
> than
> 200 megs so it's not like he's got a whopping ammount of storage here on 
> the
> server.  He sees the problem locally in the office (though part of the 
> local
> issue is the bad wiring in that office and I've partially offset that for 
> now
> with a new gigbit switch as the old one was half dead with dead ports and 
> the
> like, and we'll be running new ethernet direct from the server room over 
> to
> him to circumvent bad wiring).  Externally, he's seeing it as well.  We 
> use
> VPN here for external usage, though the standard OWA is available as well,
> though not widley used.  He's seeing the issue when connected via the VPN,
> though the VPN connection remains solid, the Outlook connection to 
> Exchange
> pops in and out and as he puts it, and I 100% agree, its quite annoying 
> when
> trying to use email to send and recieve.
>
> Granted we run nightly incremental backups and weekend full backups that
> really shouldn't interfere with Exchange as such, and at least I've 
> narrowed
> down the issue to the fact that its not an external DNS, ISP thing as it
> happens internally, externally, etc.
>
> Now, when using the SBS, things take forever just to login, open up, etc.
> Makes it hard to do quick maintenance, add users, etc.  Here are the 
> current
> stats I can give you regarding server usage: It's 10am now, so primetime
> usage is up and going....
>
> Current processes: 72
> CPU Usage: 14-60%
> Commit Charge: 2873M/7440M
> Store is using: 996,999k roughly (so a gig?)....
> Performance is spking here and there but relatively low as far as CPU 
> usage.
> PF usage: 2.77gb
> Handles: 369xx
> Threads: 1350 rouhgly
>
> Physical Memory: Total: 3136788, Available: 222428, Sys Chache: 291576
>
> Commit Charge: Total 2907xxx , Limit: 7619260 Peak 2977628
> Kerne Mem: Total  1204xx Page 59856 Non Paged 60524
>
> It just seems like Exchange is chewing resources up and I can't quite 
> figure
> out what the hiccups are resulting from, be it resources or otherwise.
> I'm trying to get things squared away but need some outside opinions and
> expertise here.  Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:12:51 -0400   author:   John Oliver, Jr. [MVP]

Re: Optimizing SBS 2003 Excange? Intermittent Connection Issues!!   

To clairfy sluggishness, by this I don't mean network wise i mean when i'm 
logged into the server it can be quite slow.  That's because Exchange is 
eating quite a bit of memory.

I did run the Exchange BPA and will do the SBS one today as well.  Thanks to 
the BPA for Exchange I was able to tweak the heck out of Exchange, and from 
what I've seen it seems to be running a bit better now. One of the 
bottlenecks was that the # of connections for SMTP in/out was set quite low 
(like 20 or so) and we have 30 people connecting at any given time.  So I 
bumped some #'s up to the reccomended settings, and also turned off reverse 
dns as that seemed to be an indicated bottleneck.  So far, so good!  We'll 
see what the big guy says when he comes in next.

"John Oliver, Jr. [MVP]" wrote:

> I would suggest downloading both Exchange Best Practice Analyzer and SBS 
> Best Practice Analyzer to see if either suggest a bottleneck issue.  From 
> what you stated in the server being slow for other things such as logins, 
> creating users, etc, could mean numerous things.  You mention bad wiring.  I 
> would continue your troubleshooting on the network.  Is your Switch a 
> managed?  If you stop all Exchange Services on the SBS Server does the 
> slowness of the Server go away?
> 
> -- 
> John Oliver, Jr
> MCSE, MCT, CCNA
> Exchange MVP 2008
> Microsoft Certified Partner
> 
> "Erich Weihrauch"  wrote in 
> message news:FEAD82ED-89E1-4F52-8A0A-37A569EAC98F@microsoft.com...
> > Good morning everyone.
> >
> > Currently the business I work for utilizes SBS 2003 Standard for our 
> > needs.
> > We have a somewhat 'aging' system (by today's standards), It's an Intel
> > Pentium 4 @ 2.80ghz, 3gb ram, and plenty of hd space on a SATA RAID 5 
> > array.
> > Currently we have less than 30 actual users.
> >
> > The problems lately, is that the server seems quite sluggish.  Beyond the
> > general maintenance of updating, defrags, etc, it seems that Exchange is
> > really becoming a pain point and quite a PITA in particular.  Lately, and
> > this is true for a very important user here (the boss) along with many 
> > other
> > users, when using Outlook to connect to Exchange, the synched connection
> > w/Exchange pops in an out on a whim and many times quite often. Personally 
> > I
> > see this switching from my mailbox to the support mailbox and back again,
> > though users are seeing this as well.  The big guy's email box is less 
> > than
> > 200 megs so it's not like he's got a whopping ammount of storage here on 
> > the
> > server.  He sees the problem locally in the office (though part of the 
> > local
> > issue is the bad wiring in that office and I've partially offset that for 
> > now
> > with a new gigbit switch as the old one was half dead with dead ports and 
> > the
> > like, and we'll be running new ethernet direct from the server room over 
> > to
> > him to circumvent bad wiring).  Externally, he's seeing it as well.  We 
> > use
> > VPN here for external usage, though the standard OWA is available as well,
> > though not widley used.  He's seeing the issue when connected via the VPN,
> > though the VPN connection remains solid, the Outlook connection to 
> > Exchange
> > pops in and out and as he puts it, and I 100% agree, its quite annoying 
> > when
> > trying to use email to send and recieve.
> >
> > Granted we run nightly incremental backups and weekend full backups that
> > really shouldn't interfere with Exchange as such, and at least I've 
> > narrowed
> > down the issue to the fact that its not an external DNS, ISP thing as it
> > happens internally, externally, etc.
> >
> > Now, when using the SBS, things take forever just to login, open up, etc.
> > Makes it hard to do quick maintenance, add users, etc.  Here are the 
> > current
> > stats I can give you regarding server usage: It's 10am now, so primetime
> > usage is up and going....
> >
> > Current processes: 72
> > CPU Usage: 14-60%
> > Commit Charge: 2873M/7440M
> > Store is using: 996,999k roughly (so a gig?)....
> > Performance is spking here and there but relatively low as far as CPU 
> > usage.
> > PF usage: 2.77gb
> > Handles: 369xx
> > Threads: 1350 rouhgly
> >
> > Physical Memory: Total: 3136788, Available: 222428, Sys Chache: 291576
> >
> > Commit Charge: Total 2907xxx , Limit: 7619260 Peak 2977628
> > Kerne Mem: Total  1204xx Page 59856 Non Paged 60524
> >
> > It just seems like Exchange is chewing resources up and I can't quite 
> > figure
> > out what the hiccups are resulting from, be it resources or otherwise.
> > I'm trying to get things squared away but need some outside opinions and
> > expertise here.  Any feedback is greatly appreciated. 
> 
>

date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:51:00 -0700   author:   Erich Weihrauch