How can I determine how much unused space I have in my Information Store (IS)?
Exchange Server 5.5 Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes a set of event-log messages that give you information about free space. Every night, the IS logs two information messages with ID 1221; one message shows MSExchangeIS Private as the source and the other shows MSExchangeIS Public as the source. These messages tell you approximately how many megabytes of white space remain in the private and public stores after a defragmentation. The IS can use this space for expansion, or you can reclaim the space by stopping the Exchange Server services and using Eseutil to perform an offline defragmentation. (For information about using Eseutil, see Getting Started with Exchange, "The Sorcerer's Apprentices," May 2000.)
Another way to determine the amount of free space is to use the Eseutil command-line switch /ms, which Microsoft introduced in SP1. (SP1 doesn't update the copy of Eseutil in \exchsrvr\bin; Microsoft moved the SP1 version of Eseutil to \winnt\system32, so you wind up with two copies of Eseutil.) The /ms switch causes Eseutil to count the pages in the IS databases. Each page takes up 4KB of disk space, so to determine total storage, multiply the number of pages by four and convert that total from kilobytes to megabytes. This estimate is higher and more accurate than the event-log estimate.
We're running Exchange Server 5.5, Standard Edition, and our private IS is approaching the 16GB limit. What happens if we surpass the limit?
When the size of either the public or the private IS database surpasses the 16GB limit, the IS service stops and refuses to restart until the database shrinks. Log files preserve any pending transactions. After you shrink the database, you can restart the IS, which will then process the transactions in the log files. This process applies to the standard editions of Exchange 2000 Server, Exchange Server 5.5, and Exchange Server 5.0.
To shrink the database, you have several options. First, you can use Eseutil to perform an offline defragmentation of the oversized store. Afterward, you can use the Mailbox Cleanup Agent (or the Microsoft Exchange Administrator's Tools, Clean Mailbox command) to strip out old junk. If your public store is the problem, consider setting more aggressive age limits for your replicas.
Second, consider upgrading to an Enterprise edition, which permits an IS of unlimited size. Exchange 2000 Enterprise Server also supports multiple storage groups (SGs) on one server. (For information about using Enterprise Server to cluster Exchange 2000, see Jerry Cochran, "Clustering Exchange 2000, Part 1," December 2000 and "Clustering Exchange 2000, Part 2," page 154.)
I want to use Microsoft Exchange Administrator's Directory Export function to export the entire Global Address List (GAL). I tried writing an export options file that specifies the home server and container, but the file exported the contents of the container only.
To include the entire GAL in your output file, you must include two key export-file options. For example, the following file might look correct, but it will yield only one container's data.
[export]
homeserver=hq
container=recipients
information=full
exportobject=mailbox
Syntactically, nothing is wrong with this file, but it doesn't specify a starting point for the export. Compare the previous example with the following file, which includes the keywords basepoint and subcontainers.
[export]
basepoint=/o=reallybigcompany
exportobject=mailbox
informationlevel=full
subcontainers=yes
The basepoint keyword tells Exchange Administrator what to use as the export's basepoint. To get the data you want, include your complete organization name and use the subcontainers keyword to indicate that you want the contents of all the containers in that organization. (For information about Exchange Administrator's import and export tools, see Getting Started with Exchange, "Super Export and Import Tools," August 2000 and "Export and Import Mission: Possible," September 2000.)
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Mike Courtney April 20, 2001