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eBook: How to Manage the Database Availability Group using GSX Monitor & Analyzer - June 2012
GSX SOLUTIONS
EBOOK: HOW TO MANAGE AN EXCHANGE 2010 DATABASE AVAILABILITY GROUP USING GSX MONITOR & ANALYZER
Project: Microsoft Exchange DAG
Targeted Product: GSX Monitor & Analyzer for
Exchange
www.gsx.com
Summary
Introduction .................................................................................................. 2!
1 Understanding the Database Availability Group .................................................... 3!
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2 What GSX Monitor & Analyzer does for you? ........................................................ 5!
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3 Database Availability Group reporting ............................................................... 7!
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4 Your Next Action ......................................................................................... 9!
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Introduction
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 includes several built-in tools, cmdlets and scripts for
monitoring and alerting on issues that are critical for administrators and the business. These powerful tools can be executed manually, but they are best utilized when they are automated
and augmented with some form of alerting or notification. By automating these monitoring tasks with GSX Monitor & Analyzer, your administrators have more time to devote to other critical tasks, confident with the knowledge that GSX Monitor & Analyzer will alert them if the messaging system requires attention.
GSX Monitor & Analyzer provides an agentless add-on solution for Exchange 2010 that comes preconfigured to monitor, report, and alert on the components and services that are most important for a healthy messaging system.
GSX Monitor & Analyzer tests the availability, performance, and usage of the Mailbox Server role, the Client Access Server role, the Hub Transport and Edge Transport Server roles. In addition, GSX Monitor and Analyzer can also monitor critical high availability components, such as database availability groups and the RPC Client Access Server Array. GSX provides administrators with relevant alerts and overviews of the services that your infrastructure is truly delivering to your business lines.
This eBook focuses on monitoring the Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG) using GSX Monitor & Analyzer.
www.gsx.com
1 Understanding the Database Availability Group
1.1 A single platform for high availability and site resilience
Exchange Server 2010 includes a platform that provides both high availability and site
resilience for mailbox data. This platform is known as the database availability group (DAG). A DAG is a group of up to 16 Mailbox servers that host a set of replicated databases and
provide automatic database-level recovery from failures that affect individual servers or databases. A DAG is also a boundary for mailbox database replication, database and server switchovers and failovers, and an internal Exchange 2010 component called Active Manager. Active Manager, which runs on every server in a DAG, manages switchovers and failovers across mailbox database copies.
Mailbox database copies can be Active or Passive. Active copies are in use by clients and passive copies are redundant copies of the active database. A passive copy can be activated automatically by the system in case of a failure affecting the active copy.
For more information about database availability groups, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979799.
1.2 Active Manager
Because Exchange 2010 does not use the Windows Failover Cluster resource model, a new
component was needed to monitor critical Exchange resources and to initiate corrective action when a failure does occur. This component is called Active Manager. This is a new component introduced in Exchange 2010 that runs inside the Microsoft Exchange Replication service (MSExchangeRepl.exe) on every Exchange 2010 Mailbox server. An Active Manager
client runs inside the RPC Client Access service on the Client Access Server role and inside the transport stack on the Hub Transport Server role. These clients work with Active Manager on the Mailbox server to determine where the database containing the user’s mailbox is active and mounted.
Active Manager is required for DAG operations and for database mount operations. It is therefore critical that the Microsoft Exchange Replication service is running and operational, or databases will dismount and DAG operations will cease.
For more information about Active Manager, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd776123.aspx.
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1.3 Mailbox Database Copies Exchange 2010 introduces a concept known as database mobility. Database mobility disconnects databases from servers, adds support for up to 16 copies of a mailbox database, and provides a native experience for adding database copies to a database. In Exchange 2010, continuous replication operates at the database level. Transaction logs are replicated to one
or more Mailbox servers and replayed into a copy of a mailbox database that's stored on those servers. A failover or switchover (collectively referred to as *overs) can occur at either the database level or at the server level. It is the combination of multiple Mailbox servers and mailbox database copies that provide
high availability and site resilience for mailbox databases in Exchange 2010. It is therefore critical that continuous replication and mailbox database copies be monitored for their health and status. For more information about mailbox database copies, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/dd979802.
1.4 Windows Failover Clustering
Underneath every DAG is a Windows Failover Cluster. Although Exchange 2010 does not use
the cluster resource model, it does use and require several components of Windows Failover Clustering, specifically, the node and membership APIs, cluster network and heartbeat functionality and the cluster registry and database. In order to leverage these cluster components, the underlying cluster must have quorum.
Without quorum, both cluster and DAG operations will terminate. It is therefore critical to monitor the health and status of a DAG’s cluster.
For more information on how DAGs use Windows Failover Cluster and quorum, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd979799.
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2 What GSX Monitor & Analyzer does for you?
2.1 Alerts for critical conditions
A DAG provides both redundancy of the service (by using multiple Mailbox servers) and
redundancy of mailbox data (by creating and maintaining multiple copies of the database). GSX Monitor & Analyzer proactively monitors your DAG to ensure that:
• There is at least one healthy passive copy of each database in the DAG
• Continuous replication and the underlying cluster functions are operating normally, and replication is occurring, as expected.
GSX checks regularly to ensure that these two conditions are maintained. If replication is
unhealthy or at risk, or if any replicated database is down to a single remaining copy, GSX sends you an alert that includes a description of the problem.
2.2 Alerts for non-critical conditions
In addition to sending alerts for the critical conditions described above, GSX Monitor and
Analyzer can also notify you when non-critical issues are detected, such as when a DAG member is down, or when the content index associated with a replicated mailbox database is in an unhealthy or failed state.
2.3 DAG Health checks
GSX schedules and regularly executes DAG health checks to proactively ensure that services and components necessary for DAG operations are up and running. These services include:
• Microsoft Exchange Replication service o Active Manager o Active Manager Tasks RPC Listener
o Active Manager TCP Listener
• Windows Failover Clustering o Quorum o Cluster Network o Cluster Services o Cluster Core Resources
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2.4 Exchange Service Monitoring
In addition to monitoring core DAG functionality, GSX can also monitor all installed Exchange services remotely and alert you if any service is down or unavailable.
Figure 1- Microsoft Exchange Services
2.5 DAG statistics
GSX also includes a statistics view that provides information about the DAG’s underlying
cluster, the number of healthy mailbox databases in the DAG, the number of mailboxes per DAG, the total amount of disk space used by mailboxes, and other statistical information.
Figure 2- GSX Analyzer: Exchange Statistics
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3 Database Availability Group reporting
In addition to monitoring, alerting and statistics, GSX Monitor & Analyzer also includes a
reporting engine that provides information about the general availability of the DAG and database statistics.
3.1 General availability of the DAG
As GSX calculates the availability of the DAG, GSX also reports on its availability. As a result,
trending and forecasting are available for server up, server down, average access time, longest downtime, and other statistics. A DAG provides high availability for mailboxes, so it is
essential to continuously trend these statistics to ensure that SLAs are being met (when applicable) or to anticipate any degradation in the availability of the mailboxes for users.
3.2 DAG Statistics
GSX provides a variety of statistics about your DAG that you can use to easily report, compare, and trend. These per-DAG statistics include:
• Number of healthy mailbox databases • Percent of healthy mailbox databases • Number of mounted mailbox databases • Percent of mounted mailbox databases • Number of mailboxes • Average mailbox size • Number of mailbox databases • Total disk space usage for all mailbox databases
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Figure 3- GSX Analyzer: Trend Reports
Statistics on the number and average size of mailboxes allow for the administrator to control their sizing and perform capacity planning at the DAG level for the total population of users.
3.3 Database Statistics
In addition to providing statistics about your DAG, GSX also provides you with statistics about your databases. These include:
• Database: Up 24h • Database: Up 24h without maintenance • Database: Up business hours without maintenance • Database: Down 24h • Database: Down 24h without maintenance • Database: Down business hours without maintenance • Database: % up 24h (Day / Week / Month) • Database: % up 24h without maintenance (Day / Week / Month) • Database: % up business hours without maintenance (Day / Week / Month)
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4 Your Next Action • Ask for a live demo of our GSX Monitor & Analyzer solution and fill out the form at
http://www.gsx.com/contact-us/request-a-demonstration-of-gsx-v10/
• Contact us at [email protected]
