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Exchange running slow... - 6.Feb.2008 10:48:24 AM   
First Coverage

 

Posts: 10
Joined: 4.Feb.2008
Status: offline 		Since I can't post the picutre of our taskmanager I guess the only thing left is to describe it. :(

We have Exchange 2007 Server (x64 of course), installed on a dual Xeon 2.8Ghz (604 pin CPUs) server, 2GB RAM, 1 x 160GB SATA II hard drive...

We recently installed GFI ScanMail but the problems started before GFI. Exchange was installed by an MCSE guy (before I started working here) who installed everything onto one big partition. Exchange is using Hub Transport, Client Access, and Mailbox and MS Anti-Spam services.

The taskmanger process tab shows the following:

CPU usage: 10% to 75% (always fluctuating)
PF Usage: 3.8GB to 4.1GB

Totals:
Handles: 38490
Threads: 1262
Processes: 69

Physical Memory (K):
Total: 2096324
Available: 397xxx (ish)
System Cache: 480xxx (ish)

Commit Change (K):
Total: 418xxxx (ish)
Limit: 5109796
Peak: 4551948

Kernel Memory (K):
Total: 15xxxx (ish)
Paged: 117xxx (ish)
Non-Paged: 37776

The number one problem is that from time to time when the available gets to the 200MB mark outlook connections start dropping off with MS Outlook 2003 reporting it's not able to communicate with the exchange server. The problem is the fact that Exchange is slow.

I am upping the memory to 8GB (max the mobo will handle) so is there anything you would suggest I have a look at?

Thanks.

_____________________________

Regards,
Andrew English
IT Manager
First Coverage Inc
www.firstcoverage.com
Post #: 1
RE: Exchange running slow... - 6.Feb.2008 11:19:19 AM   
John Weber

 

Posts: 584
Joined: 20.Apr.2005
From: Portland, Oregon
Status: offline 		ONE drive for a business critical app?  I have issues with that.  Zero survivability.  However, that is a side issue. 

Seeing as how you don't mention the number of users nor types of users, judging whether or not 8GB is necessary is rather problematical. 

Also, search this forum or the mskb's for .net and memory consumption.  That may well be part of your problem also.

_____________________________

-jmw
http://tsoorad.blogspot.com

(in reply to First Coverage)
Post #: 2
RE: Exchange running slow... - 6.Feb.2008 3:05:14 PM   
First Coverage

 

Posts: 10
Joined: 4.Feb.2008
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: John Weber

ONE drive for a business critical app?  I have issues with that.  Zero survivability.  However, that is a side issue. 

Seeing as how you don't mention the number of users nor types of users, judging whether or not 8GB is necessary is rather problematical. 

Also, search this forum or the mskb's for .net and memory consumption.  That may well be part of your problem also.


Under 100 mailboxes including distribution groups.

Leathal


_____________________________

Regards,
Andrew English
IT Manager
First Coverage Inc
www.firstcoverage.com

(in reply to John Weber)
Post #: 3
RE: Exchange running slow... - 14.Feb.2008 5:13:54 PM   
webadmin@dbsit.com

 

Posts: 5
Joined: 14.Feb.2008
Status: offline 		My situation is very similar to yours and am experiencing the same performance issues. I have scoured the Internet, TechNet, forums and white papers alike and can't seem to get anyone besides yourself to agree that Exchange 2007 on a perfectly healthy x64 Enterprise server is strangely slow and all normal troubleshooting and investigations lead to noting but Exchange is slow... Any ideas or recommendations

P.s. I am running 8Gb and the performance did increase very minimally. 

(in reply to First Coverage)
Post #: 4
RE: Exchange running slow... - 14.Feb.2008 6:41:13 PM   
longman111

 

Posts: 86
Joined: 19.Jun.2007
Status: offline 		Run performance monitor on the box and look at memory, processor and disk subsystem. Besides the anemic amount of memory one drive with everything on it is most likely bottle necked. You should be running multiple drives in a raid configuration seperating the tnx logs from the db.

(in reply to First Coverage)
Post #: 5
RE: Exchange running slow... - 14.Feb.2008 6:48:37 PM   
webadmin@dbsit.com

 

Posts: 5
Joined: 14.Feb.2008
Status: offline 		I failed to mentio it is a hardware RAID 5 disk subsystem with server grade drives. However, moving to logs to another array is an option but out of the 100+ Exchange 2003 servers I manage not a one has a problem running Exchange and logs on the same array? Are you suggesting that simply moving the logs to another array is going to be a miraculous improvement in perfromance?

(in reply to longman111)
Post #: 6
RE: Exchange running slow... - 14.Feb.2008 8:21:09 PM   
longman111

 

Posts: 86
Joined: 19.Jun.2007
Status: offline 		As I said before run performance monitor on the box to identify the bottlenecks. Regardless of performance tnx logs and the db should never be on the drive. If you have a raid failure you will lose both and not be able to recover all the data.

(in reply to webadmin@dbsit.com)
Post #: 7
RE: Exchange running slow... - 15.Feb.2008 8:13:04 AM   
Sembee

 

Posts: 3503
Joined: 17.Jan.2008
From: Somewhere near London, UK
Status: offline 		@ webadmin @ dbsit.com - the fact that you may have 100s of machines with the logs and the databases on the same array doesn't mean it is the right thing to do.

Exchange is a high transactional database, and writes to the logs and the database at the same time. Therefore if you have the logs and the database on the same array it is basically thrashing itself. Microsoft have a white paper on monitoring the server for disk bottlenecks, and the Exchange Performance tool will also identify them.
Faced with a server with the transaction logs and database on the same array that would be the only place I would be looking for performance issues. Throwing memory and/or processors at the server will not improve the performance because the bottleneck is with storage. That has been the case since Exchange 5.5 and hasn't changed with Exchange 2007.

Simon.

_____________________________

Simon Butler,
Exchange MVP
Blog: http://www.sembee.co.uk/
Web: http://www.amset.info/
In the UK? Hire me: http://www.amset.co.uk/

(in reply to longman111)
Post #: 8
RE: Exchange running slow... - 15.Feb.2008 11:56:49 AM   
webadmin@dbsit.com

 

Posts: 5
Joined: 14.Feb.2008
Status: offline 		You are absolutely correct in your technical comments on how something should be implemented according to the various sources of knowledge. However, you didn't understand and or answer my question. I am not looking for one's opinion on how a server should be configured, we all know that by the various sources of information. My question was fueled by my observations that running all of Exchange 2003 on the same array has not been a problem even on the weakest machines but Exchange 2007 runs very slow even on a screaming server. So back to my question have you seen a SIGNIFICANT difference with Exchange 2007 separating the logs onto a different drive or was the difference minimal and Exchange 2007 is just slow. Once again I'm not debating the tech deities on proper Exchange server building/configuration, I guess I am looking for someone to agree with me that Exchange 2007 is slow and lethargic even when tweaked to the hilt and or moving the logs is or is not the answer or it is just a little improvement in performance and still slow.

(in reply to Sembee)
Post #: 9
RE: Exchange running slow... - 15.Feb.2008 12:36:23 PM   
Sembee

 

Posts: 3503
Joined: 17.Jan.2008
From: Somewhere near London, UK
Status: offline 		Exchange behaviour hasn't changed from Exchange 5.5 days when it comes to the database configuration. If the file system has been setup poorly then Exchange will not work very fast at all - doesn't matter how much memory or processing power you throw at it. The only difference with Exchange 2007 is that you can throw more at it and some of the processor intensive tasks are quicker. Anything that is storage related will continue to be slow.

There is a simple test.
Click Start, run and then type perfmon. Don't change any of the counters, just change it to "View Report" so you can see the numbers. Look at the middle counter - Physical Disk - Average Queue Length.
If that number is above 1, then the disks are being thrashed.
I have seen servers on their knees with that number never below 15. I split the logs and the database and it quite happy. The more users you put on to the server the worse it gets.

The biggest performance gain you will make with any Exchange server is by using multiple RAID arrays. Ideally three, you can get away with two. Given a choice between RAM/Processor and Storage on Exchange Server specification - storage always wins, no contest.

Simon.

_____________________________

Simon Butler,
Exchange MVP
Blog: http://www.sembee.co.uk/
Web: http://www.amset.info/
In the UK? Hire me: http://www.amset.co.uk/

(in reply to webadmin@dbsit.com)
Post #: 10
RE: Exchange running slow... - 15.Feb.2008 12:55:01 PM   
webadmin@dbsit.com

 

Posts: 5
Joined: 14.Feb.2008
Status: offline 		Good advice. The numbers were lowest 0.014 and highest 0.088?

(in reply to Sembee)
Post #: 11
RE: Exchange running slow... - 15.Feb.2008 1:10:01 PM   
Sembee

 

Posts: 3503
Joined: 17.Jan.2008
From: Somewhere near London, UK
Status: offline 		Is that under full load? Even on my home Exchange server which has multiple disks I can push it over 1 occasionally.

The disk queue length is just one test, something I do very quickly when looking at a server for the first time. There are whitepapers and technet articles from Microsoft on tuning Exchange storage configuration, but all of them will follow the same basic advice I have given above.

Simon.

_____________________________

Simon Butler,
Exchange MVP
Blog: http://www.sembee.co.uk/
Web: http://www.amset.info/
In the UK? Hire me: http://www.amset.co.uk/

(in reply to webadmin@dbsit.com)
Post #: 12
RE: Exchange running slow... - 15.Feb.2008 1:13:00 PM   
webadmin@dbsit.com

 

Posts: 5
Joined: 14.Feb.2008
Status: offline 		O.K. Thanks

(in reply to Sembee)
Post #: 13
RE: Exchange running slow... - 14.May2008 3:34:36 PM   
KirkLashbrook

 

Posts: 3
Joined: 6.May2008
Status: offline 		 
The guideline of "1" seems a little too low for that counter.
 
I've read that if the value of Avg. Disk Queue Length exceeds twice the number of spindles, then you are likely developing a disk bottleneck.
 
Saw somewhere else that the general guideline is the number of Spindles +2.   Think that was in the jetstress documentation.
 
Then I found this on Technet: The average should be less than the number of spindles of the disk. If a SAN is being used, ignore this counter and concentrate on the latency counters: PhysicalDisk\Average Disk sec/Read and PhysicalDisk\Average Disk sec/Write.
 
 
My mailbox servers have 20 spindles, so following all the advice... the acceptable threshold could be 1, 19, 22 or 40.
 
Take your pick   :)

 

(in reply to Sembee)
Post #: 14
RE: Exchange running slow... - 2.Nov.2008 6:03:58 AM   
pepinho

 

Posts: 5
Joined: 2.Nov.2008
Status: online
quote:

Then I found this on Technet: The average should be less than the number of spindles of the disk. If a SAN is being used, ignore this counter and concentrate on the latency counters: PhysicalDisk\Average Disk sec/Read and PhysicalDisk\Average Disk sec/Write.


My mailbox servers have 20 spindles, so following all the advice... the acceptable threshold could be 1, 19, 22 or 40.

Take your pick   :)

I pick the Technet advice: less than the number of spindles. It makes sense: by definition, a queued operation is a bottleneck (as that operation is waiting for the previous operation to finish). Therefore, to don't have any bottlenecks you need to try to keep queued operations lower than one.

However, in the real world a little of queued operations on rush hour make not too much harm...

I must say I was suffering too Exchange 2007 slowdowns. I tried everything. Only thing that cured the problem, was uninstalling all sort of Antivirus software in the Exchange Server. I think Antivirus for x64 are not mature yet, plus I have come to be of the opinion that Antivirus software should not be installed on a server (except for "Antivirus Servers", and then only to serve the clients, not to scan itself).

Regards,

Pepinho.

(in reply to KirkLashbrook)
Post #: 15

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