Spotlight on Exchange Readme File

Spotlight® on Exchange Enterprise Edition

5.0.1

Readme

January 2005

Contents
Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer Issues and Limitations
Spotlight on Exchange Diagnostic Console Issues and Limitations
For More Information

Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer Issues and Limitations

scheduling diagnostic tests (mailbox logon, message delivery, and external mail transfer)

These specific diagnostic tests are all MAPI based. There are known issues with some versions of MAPI such that over-use will cause resource constraints and memory leaks that may cause the diagnostic tests to hang without notification in the Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer. The tests will appear as if they are running, and appear in the ‘in progress’ state, however, there will be no activity. You will be able to check for this by accessing the Diagnostic Test Results tab and viewing the last execution time. If the last execution time is as expected (the last scheduled run time), then the tests are executing normally. This is an intermittent problem, and has not been seen in all environments.

To negate these issues, please install the latest version of MAPI on the host running the Spotlight on Exchange diagnostic tests. At the time of release, the latest version of MAPI is one of the following:

- ESM 2000 with SP3 and the August 2004 rollup (available at: (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=363A57A4-8BED-4BBB-BBE4-ABC11AB04611&displaylang=en). Or,

- ESM 2003 with SP1

Again these versions of MAPI should be installed on the host running the Spotlight on Exchange diagnostic tests. The MAPI version on the Exchange server itself has no effect. If you do experience any of the aforementioned MAPI issues, please restart the Diagnostic Test Engine Service to resolve this issue. Your scheduled tests will restart automatically.

The OWA Availability test and the Store Responsiveness test are unaffected by this issue.

If you are running in an Exchange 5.5 environment and you do not have Exchange System Manager (ESM) installed, you must have Exchange 5.5 Administrator SP4 installed in order to avoid receiving error messages when you run Mailbox Logon and Message Delivery diagnostic tests

the message DELIVERY TEST MAY FAIL IF EXCHANGE SERVER CLOCKS ARE NOT SYNCHRONIZED

If the source and target Exchange servers used in a Message Delivery Test are not synchronized, the test may return a message delivery time of -1. Ensure all Exchange servers in your organization have their clocks synchronized.

EXCHANGE 2000 AND 2003 SERVERS ARE NOT SHOWN WHEN DISCOVERING A MIXED ORGANIZATION USING AN EXCHANGE 5.5 SERVER

You should discover your mixed Exchange server organization using an Exchange 2000 or 2003 server. Exchange 2000 and 2003 servers are not shown in the Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer when you discover a mixed organization using an Exchange 5.5 server and Active Directory Connector (ADC) is not configured to replicate Exchange 2000/2003 configuration to the Exchange 5.5 directory.

Only some types of connectors appear as links

· Only routing group connectors appear as the links between servers in the Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer for an Exchange 2000/2003 organization or a mixed organization that has Exchange 2000/2003 and Exchange 5.5 servers.

· Only site connectors and directory replication connectors appear as the links between servers in the Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer for a native Exchange 5.5 organization.

· All connectors appear in the Topology Navigation (tree) View.

UNKNOWN DOMAIN IS DISPLAYED

The Server Details tab displays “Unknown Domain” in the Domain field if the Topology Viewer fails to retrieve the domain information from the selected server during discovery. When you select the Domain option from the Current Grouping list, all servers for which domain information is unknown appear in one group labeled “Unknown Domain” in the Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer.

UNKNOWN SITE IS DISPLAYED

The Server Details tab displays “Unknown site” in the Windows Site field if the Topology Viewer fails to retrieve the Windows site information from the selected server during discovery. This also happens when the server operates on a Windows® NT operating system. When you select the Windows Site option from the Current Grouping list, all servers for which Windows site information is unknown appear in one group labeled “Unknown Site” in the Spotlight on Exchange Topology Viewer.

COMPATIBILITY WITH SPOTLIGHT ON SQL SERVER

If you install Spotlight on SQL Server after installing Spotlight on Exchange, you may receive the “Internal Error 2753” or “Installation ended prematurely because of an error” message. Click OK on these messages to be able to use both products.

THE EXTERNAL MESSAGE TRANSFER TEST, MESSAGE DELIVERY TEST AND MESSAGE FLOW FEATURE MAY GIVE INACCURATE INFORMATION IF TRACKING LOGS ARE DISABLED

The External Message Transfer test, the Message Delivery test and the Message Flow feature require collection of data from tracking logs. Disabling the tracking logs and restarting some of the key Exchange services may cause these tests and features to provide inaccurate results. This situation will continue until 12AM Universal Time. At this time these tests and features will again display accurate results.

· COLLECTING MESSAGE FLOW INFORMATION

The Message Flow feature has the option to always collect message flow information. In large Exchange deployments this could have a negative impact on network and application performance. It is recommended that you weigh the impact on your system performance before enabling this feature.

· CONNECTING TO DIAGNOSTIC SERVICES USING WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 2

Connecting to Diagnostic Services remotely will fail when Diagnostic Services is running on a computer with Windows XP Service Pack 2 with the Windows firewall enabled. You can resolve this problem by opening ports 9501 and 9502.

Spotlight on Exchange Diagnostic Console Issues and Limitations

The following issues and limitations are known to exist in Spotlight on Exchange 5.5 and Spotlight on Exchange 2000/2003:

Common Diagnostic Console Issues and Limitations:

Memory Consumption

If you run the Spotlight on Exchange Diagnostic Console for an extended period of time (days), you should set the number of server connections to a minimum, the history setting low, and the refresh rate high to avoid excessive memory consumption.

To set the history option and refresh rate

1. Select View | Options | Spotlight Console.

2. Click Data Collection in the Options bar.

3. Enter the appropriate history collection time and refresh rates.

· SPOTLIGHT CONNECTION SNAPSHOTS

The ability to take a “snapshot” of your Spotlight connection is not available or enabled in the Spotlight on Exchange Diagnostic Console.

Spotlight on Exchange 5.5 Issues and Limitations (Exchange 5.5 Functionality):

SELECT THE OUTLOOK Corporate or Workgroup option TO USE SPOTLIGHT ON EXCHANGE 5.5

You must have Outlook 98, 2000, 2002 (XP), or 2003 installed with the Microsoft Exchange Server Information Service to use Spotlight on Exchange 5.5. The Microsoft Exchange Server Information Service is installed during the setup of Outlook by selecting the Corporate or Workgroup option.

MTA QUEUES INCORRECTLY DISPLAY -2

When you first connect to a server, the Message Transfer Agent queues may incorrectly display -2 while all other counters display correctly. You can sometimes clear this issue by switching between connected servers in Spotlight. If not, close Spotlight on Exchange and use Task Manager to terminate Exchnetproxy.exe.

To terminate Exchnetproxy.exe

Open Task Manager and click the Processes tab.

Verify that Exchnetproxy.exe is not running.

If it is running, terminate it, and launch Spotlight on Exchange again.

MAPI USER DRILLDOWN INCORRECTLY DISPLAYS -2

If Microsoft Outlook 2002 (XP) is installed on a server, the MAPI User drilldown may incorrectly display "–2". This result is caused by an issue with pre-SP1 Outlook 2002 (XP) clients, which is described in a support article located at the following address: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q299/8/07.ASP. For more information, contact Microsoft Product Support Services.

INSTALL Office XP SP1 OR LATER TO USE MAPI Users tab

If Microsoft Office XP or Outlook 2002 (XP) is installed without Office XP SP1 or later on the client machine running Spotlight on Exchange, you will experience a problem in the MAPI Users tab of the Information Store drilldown. To resolve this issue, install Office XP SP1. Microsoft Knowledge Base article (299807) explains the problem and the resolution. You can find this article at the following address: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;299807.

· THE SERVICES TAB ON THE PROCESSES DRILLDOWN CONTAINS NO DATA

If the Services tab on the Processes drilldown contains “No Data” please connect to the server using the Spotlight on Windows plug-in to view this data. This problem will exist if you have installed Spotlight on Windows 3.4 before Spotlight on Exchange.

· EXCHANGE 5.5 ADMINISTRATOR SP4

If you are running in an Exchange 5.5 environment and you do not have Exchange System Manager (ESM) installed, you must have Exchange 5.5 Administrator SP4 installed in order to avoid receiving error messages when you run Mailbox Logon and Message Delivery diagnostic tests.

Spotlight on Exchange 2000/2003 Issues and Limitations (Exchange 2000/2003 Functionality)

OS SUBSYSTEM COUNTER DIFFERENCES

When you drill down from the OS Subsystem panel, which is located at the bottom of the Spotlight on Exchange 2000/2003 home pages, you may find that the statistics shown for some components, such as the System CPU and System Memory components, can differ from the statistics shown in the drilldown that Spotlight on Windows provides. This happens because the counter information is obtained at different periods of time over the polling periods.

ALTERING A THRESHOLD FOR A COMMON COMPONENT

If you modify a threshold for a component that resides on all home pages, such as the O/S Subsystem, Directory Services, or Exchange CPU Usage panel components, the threshold change must be made for the components on all home pages.

CLUSTER FAILOVER DETECTION

Spotlight on Windows, which is integrated with Spotlight on Exchange, detects the failure of a cluster node and disconnects from the server. At the same time, Spotlight on Exchange attempts to remain connected to the virtual server, but depending on hardware configurations and causes for the initial failure, it may not reconnect to all sources successfully. In the case of a virtual server failover, we recommend that you reconnect to the virtual server.

Connecting to a clustered Exchange 2000/2003 Server

You must use the virtual server name when you connect to a clustered Exchange 2000/2003 server.

ALARM OCCURS WHEN CONNECTING TO A FRONT-END SERVER

When Spotlight on Exchange connects to a front-end Exchange server with no storage groups, there may be false alarms for the free storage space counters on the Storage Groups home page. If you didn't install any storage groups on this server, you can ignore the alarms.

For More Information

Other Document Sources

The complete Spotlight on Exchange Enterprise Edition documentation suite includes the following:

Quick Start Guide, which includes installation instructions and product walkthroughs.
Spotlight on Exchange Enterprise Edition User Guide and the Spotlight on Exchange 5.5 Diagnostic Console User Guide, which include in-depth reference information.
Online Help, which provides context-sensitive Help when working with the application.

You can display the online Help by selecting an option from the Help menu or by pressing F1.

Contacting Quest Software

Feel free to contact Quest Software for product information and class schedules. You can reach us in any of the following ways:

Phone (USA and Canada)	949.754.8000
Fax (USA and Canada)	949.754.8999
Email Sales & Marketing	info@quest.com
Home page	http://www.quest.com
You can write to Quest Software at:	8001 Irvine Center Drive Irvine, CA 92618

Technical Support and Customer Feedback

If you have questions or comments about using Spotlight on Exchange Enterprise Edition, please contact our technical support staff at support@quest.com. Please include the version number and, if your question is about an error message, include the error text as well.