AppAnalyzer has a capable browser-based administrative interface, as shown in Figure 1. It offers an alternate blue theme that you can apply through the interface, suggesting that some basic customization of the web application is possible, but I don’t suspect there's much need to do so. I found the interface to be slightly sluggish on our midrange management server compared to the administrative interfaces of competing products, but the application wasn't slow in generating the reports. Reports are generated within the web interface and can then be exported to other formats. AppAnalyzer requires Microsoft Report Viewer 2008, a separate, free download from Microsoft, and reports are generated using Microsoft Report Definition Language. I found reviewing reports within this interface less than optimal. The web-based administration interface might be preferred by some administrators and detested by others. AppAnalyzer also runs as a service on the reporting server dependent on SQL Server services.
Sirana AppAnalyzer for Exchange 4.01 PROS: Good preinstallation prerequisite check; solid reporting when exporting reports to other sources; reports and interface can be skinned through the UI CONS: Somewhat lethargic web interface for tasks and report administration; some reports didn't display well within the web application RATING:3.5 out of 5 PRICE: $2,500 plus $6 per mailbox RECOMMENDATION: AppAnalyzer is a solid mid-level performer.
When you first run AppAnalyzer, it presents a basic checklist of the initial tasks required to get started. The first task is to connect to AD and retrieve configuration information for the Exchange servers in the organization. There's a distinct lack of a real-time progress indicator for these tasks. Typically, you would schedule the tasks to run regularly. But administrators can manually run tasks at any time, and when they do, they won't be aware of how well the tasks are working without a progress indicator. One feature I like in AppAnalyzer that I didn’t see in the other applications is the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed for report changes.
Managing your Sirana AppAnalyzer account requires registering with Sirana. Account history, including software licenses, invoices, and the support ticket system, are maintained at sirana.com.
PROMODAG Reports for Microsoft Exchange Server
PROMODAG Reports has been around for a long time. You can run PROMODAG Reports against any version of Exchange from Exchange 4.0 to Exchange 2007. As a mature product, it manages reporting for Exchange quite well. PROMODAG Reports isn't part of a series of complementary management solutions; it's a standalone reporting solution, and Exchange reporting is all PROMODAG does. The product is simple and it works. It has well over 100 reports and certainly includes all the reports most requested by customers.
After a simple installation and a little configuration, PROMODAG was ready to connect to the Exchange organization and gather reporting input data. PROMODAG can use a SQL Server database or the embedded Microsoft Access database for the Exchange source data. With the Access option, the database has the Microsoft-imposed limit of 2GB. PROMODAG maintains three versions—Standard, Professional, and Enterprise; the Enterprise version is required to use the SQL Server option. The initial seeding of PROMODAG’s database took the longest out of the three products I tested.
PROMODAG Reports for Microsoft Exchange Server 8.4 PROS: Basic, solid solution for standard Exchange reporting; covers all versions of Exchange; easy to install and intuitive to use. CONS: No integration with other applications; no extensibility. RATING:4 out of 5 PRICE: $1,130 per analyzed server plus $905 per PROMODAG Enterprise installation. RECOMMENDATION: PROMODAG Reports is an excellent choice for SMBs. The product can scale to larger businesses, but at some point as size increases, a more versatile solution might be better.
PROMODAG's GUI, shown analyzing mailbox data for reporting in Figure 2, reflects a basic Windows Explorer style with the tree of available reports in the left pane. PROMODAG doesn't use the Application event log. Instead, it adds its own Windows event log, so administrators don't need to filter for PROMODAG events. It seems that all events are reported with the log type Information, even some that would be more appropriate as log types Warning or even Error.
PROMODAG is the only application of those I reviewed that uses Crystal Reports, as older versions of Exchange did. PROMODAG can export to Crystal Reports file format (.rpt), and output can also be directed to other resources such as a file, a printer, an email message, an Exchange folder, or a SharePoint repository.
Quest Software MessageStats 4.0
Quest Software maintains a wide range of management and migration solutions for Microsoft products. The company's range improved and expanded with the acquisition of NetPro and its competing product, NetControl for Exchange, in September 2008. Quest MessageStats reporting is available in the form of Report Packs for several different server technologies, including Microsoft Office Communications Server, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and even Postfix and Sendmail.
MessageStats for Exchange is divided into three roles: server, database, and reports. The database role requires SQL Server, and the reports role uses Microsoft IIS for presentation. You can install the roles on separate servers to distribute resources for enterprise-level reporting, or you can install them in combinations, including the common configuration of placing all roles on a single MessageStats server. During installation, MessageStats warned me that a prerequisite was missing. It was looking for Exchange System Manager (ESM) from Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2000. This is a problem if the installation is for a native Exchange 2007 organization. After some research, I learned that what it really needed from ESM is the Messaging API (MAPI) provider. MessageStats needs MAPI, Collaboration Data Objects (CDO), and Collaboration Data Objects for Exchange Management (CDOEXM) for complete reporting. CDOEXM is required to access inherited mailbox permissions information. This minor shortcoming is covered in Quest’s knowledge base and release notes, which both recommend installing the Exchange Server MAPI client and CDO 1.2.1 libraries from Microsoft (Search Microsoft downloads for “ExchangeMapiCdo.EXE”). Although Quest said that the problem was resolved in the version I reviewed, my experience suggests otherwise. However, after I installed the Exchange MAPI client and CDO 1.2.1 libraries from Microsoft, the MessageStats deployment didn't request ESM.
While Microsoft is still investigating a notebook battery life issue that was supposedly caused by Windows 7, some interesting trends have emerged. ...
Microsoft on Monday issued a lengthy statement about the recent Windows 7 battery controversy, echoing my assessment from earlier in the day, but backing it up with hard, cold evidence. ...
Should Your Email Live in the Cloud? This Forrester report shows how-to calculate your on-premise email costs and compare with cloud-based alternatives and offers best practices for reducing email costs.
New from Left-Brain.com - Manage VMware with PowerShell Learn how to perform everything from simple ad-hoc reporting at the command-line to complex scripts that automate a massive deployment of hundreds of virtual machines. Solve your old problems using less code than you thought possible!
Register
