You are the Exchange administrator for your company. The main office has 5,700 users. A total of 1,500 users work in 70 different branch offices.
All branch offices are connected to the main office by WAN connections. The Exchange organization contains four servers that run Exchange Server 2003.
Each Exchange server contains 1,800 mailboxes.All Exchange servers are located in the main office and are configured as Microsoft Outlook Web Access servers.
Only SSL connections are accepted for Outlook Web Access. Branch office users connect to the Exchange servers by using Outlook Web Access.
They report unacceptably slow response times when they access the servers.
You use System Monitor on one Exchange server to collect the performance data shown in the exhibit.
You need to optimize the performance of Outlook Web Access for branch office users.
What should you do?
A.
Install additional RAM on each Exchange server.
B.
Install an additional physical disk on each Exchange server. Move the paging file to the new disk.
C.
Install an additional Exchange Server 2003 computer. Configure the new server for SSL and configure it as a frontend server. Instruct all branch office users to use the new server for Outlook Web Access.
D.
Install an additional Exchange Server 2003 computer. Move all mailboxes for branch office users to the new server. Configure the new server for SSL. Instruct all branch office users to use the new server for Outlook Web Access.
Explanation:
The need for a second server for SSL would come if the processor usage is high. Since the processor is almost maxed out (98%), there is an indication that a second server (or a second processor) would be needed to offload the SSL work.
Incorrect answers:
A: Looking at the performance counters, it is apparent that the number of pages per second is high (412.980). The article referenced below states that Exchange makes heavy use of the paging file, and a high number of pages in and of itself does not
indicate a performance issue. Therefore, this counter MUST NOT be used alone in determining problems. For this reason, this is not the best answer.B: Adding a physical disk will not help much. The percent disk time is relatively low (34%), so the workload on the hard drives is minimal
D. Moving all the mailboxes to the new server, configuring it for SSL, and having all OWA users’ use the new server effectively takes the first server out of operation. The problem would simply shift to the new server, while leaving the old server without
much to do. This is not the optimal solution, as one server is effectively wasted.Reference:
Exchange Server 2000 Server Operations Guide, Section 4 – Performance Monitoring
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2000/maintain/e2kops4.mspx