Microsoft Exchange Server 2007: Tony Redmond's Guide to Successful Implementation

292 4.13 Testing Exchange 2007

IsClientAccessServer : False

IsExchange2007OrLater : False

IsEdgeServer : False

IsMailboxServer : False

IsMemberOfCluster : No

IsProvisionedServer : False

IsUnifiedMessagingServer : False

OrganizationalUnit : xyz.com/ExchSvr2003

AdminDisplayVersion : Version 6.5 (Build 7638.2: Service Pack 2)

Site :

ServerRole : None

IsExchange2007TrialEdition : False

IsExpiredExchange2007TrialEdition : False

RemainingTrialPeriod : 00:00:00

IsValid : True

OriginatingServer : DC23.xyz.com

ExchangeVersion : 0.0 (6.5.6500.0)

ObjectClass : {top, server, msExchExchangeServer}

WhenChanged : 9/18/2006 5:23:44 PM

WhenCreated : 2/21/2003 3:46:28 PM

The Get-Mailbox and Get-CasMailbox commands work for mailboxes on

legacy Exchange servers but other commands such as

Get-MailboxStatistics

and Get-MailboxDatabase do not. Because you cannot be sure that all of the

EMS commands will work against legacy servers, the best idea is to follow the

guideline of managing legacy Exchange servers with legacy tools and managing

Exchange 2007 servers with Exchange 2007 tools.

Because PowerShell supports many different providers through a consis-

tent interface, you can write code that mixes and matches data from multiple

sources to automate reports, provisioning of servers, and other administrative

operations. While it is true that you will encounter some limitations (such as

the fact that using WMI to work with Exchange 2003 servers has not the

same potential as using PowerShell to work directly with Exchange 2007

servers), there is still a lot of useful work that PowerShell can do in a multi-

version Exchange environment.

4.13 Testing Exchange 2007

Exchange 2007 provides a set of shell commands that you can use to verify

that everything is working correctly on a server. This is the first time that

Microsoft has provided commands to help administrators check that

Exchange is working properly and as you look at the comprehensive suite of

4.13 Testing Exchange 2007 293

Chapter 4

test commands available in Exchange 2007, you can’t help reflecting that it

has taken Microsoft a long time to fill in this particular gap. You need to have

Exchange administrative permissions over a server before you can execute

these commands.

The first step in testing a system is to check that all the necessary com-

ponents are present and are at the right revision level. The

Test-System-

Health

command helps by scanning a server to verify that it is running the

correct versions of software (related to Exchange 2007) and to detect some

other conditions that may cause Exchange 2007 a problem. Before it runs,

the

Test-SystemHealth command checks the Microsoft web site for any

updates that it should know about to be able to test a server accurately.

Figure 4.16 shows the result of running

Test-SystemHealth on a server

that runs a beta version of Exchange 2007 and you can see how the com-

mand reports this issue. More importantly,

Test-SystemHealth reported that

a driver is present (for HP Remote Insight Manager) that does not meet the

Microsoft standards for some reason. There may be a good reason why the

driver is not compliant, but it is always best to check out errors that

Exchange flags like this.

From the perspective of Exchange, the most basic test that you can per-

form is to determine whether all the services that collectively make up the

different server roles in Exchange 2007 are running on a server. Use the

Test-ServerHealth command for this purpose. As you can see, Exchange

responds with the server roles that are installed on the target server and a list

of services that are running plus any that are not currently operational.

Test-ServerHealth –Server ExchMbxSvr1

Figure 4.16

The results of the

Test-SystemHealth

command

294 4.13 Testing Exchange 2007

Role RequiredServicesRunning ServicesRunning ServicesNotRunning

---- ----------------------- --------------- ------------------

Mailbox True IISAdmin

MSExchangeADTopology

MSExchangeIS

MSExchangeMailboxAssis

tants

MSExchangeMailSubmissi

on

MSExchangeRepl

MSExchangeSA

MSExchangeSearch

MSExchangeServiceHost

MSExchangeTransportLog

Search

MSFTESQL-Exchange

W3Svc

Client Access True IISAdmin

MSExchangeADTopology

MSExchangeFDS

MSExchangeIMAP4

MSExchangePOP3

MSExchangeServiceHost

W3Svc

Hub Transport True MSExchangeADTopology

MSExchangeEdgeSync

MSExchangeTransport

MSExchangeTransportLog

Searc

h

4.13.1 Client connections

The Test-MapiConnectivity command verifies that clients can make MAPI

connections to a database. If you run this command on a mailbox server,

Exchange attempts to make a connection to every mailbox database on the

server and reports how quickly it can make the connection. You can specify

the name of a server or a mailbox database to focus in on a specific issue. If

you do not specify the name of a mailbox to connect to, then Exchange con-

nects to the special system mailbox in the database. This command runs a

quick check against a selected mailbox server:

Test-MapiConnectivity –Server ExchMbxSvr1

MailboxServer Database Result Latency(MS) Error

------------- -------- ------ ----------- -----

ExchMbxSvr1 VIP Mailboxes Success 5

ExchMbxSvr1 new Mailboxes Success 4