Exchange 2013 CU7 server performance/outage issues.

Question

Hi Forum,
We are constantly faced with incidents from users that the connections are lost with the exchange server. As a result, we hired a consultant to install an new Exchange 2013 environment based on the Microsoft, VM-Ware and NetApp best practices.
We are still having problems with performance issues. From the client prospective, the performance has not changed, weekly hangs are still happening and I’m at my wits end.
This is our configuration:
2 Windows Server 2012 R2 CAS and DB
VM with 4 vCpu, 16GB, 1 Vmxnet3, IPv6 disabled (the Microsoft way)
VM Ware 5.1 U1
Cluster without AAP
DB1 active on Server 1 (Datacenter 1 with 3 host cluster)
DB2 active on Server 2 (Datacenter 2 with 3 host cluster)
Veeam 8 Backup (Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase DB2 -ActivateOnServer Server1 , backup server 2 then Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase back to
 Server2.
Exchange is in Online-Mode due to Citrix XD VDI clients.
1300 Mailboxes and 750 users.
NetApp with SATA disks. (1.5TB E: Vol for DB1/1.5TB F: Vol for DB2)
No archiving
Unlimited mailbox sizes.
The problems are:
If we migrate a non-Exchange VM in the same cluster or to\from the same host, this results in a 30 second to 5 min Outlook outage;
If we make both DB’s active on mail server 1 and reboot server 2, this results in a 30 second to 5 min Outlook outage;
If we make both DB’s active on mail server 1 and do a Veeam backup of server 2, sometimes one of the DB’s go back to server 1, on its own;
While monitoring we see that the w3wp.exe and the Microsoft.Exchange.Store.worker.exe are consuming most of the cpu and memory;
What can I do to solve the outages?
Tnx. Timotatty.
Exchange server performance issues.
Hi Forum,
We are constantly faced with incidents from users that the connections are lost with the exchange server. As a result, we hired a consultant to install an new Exchange 2013 environment based on the Microsoft, VM-Ware and NetApp best practices.
We are still having problems with performance issues. From the client prospective, the performance has not changed, weekly hangs are still happening and I’m at my wits end.
This is our configuration:
2 Windows Server 2012 R2 CAS and DB
VM with 4 vCpu, 16GB, 1 Vmxnet3, IPv6 disabled (the Microsoft way)
VM Ware 5.1 U1
Cluster without AAP
DB1 active on Server 1 (Datacenter 1 with 3 host cluster)
DB2 active on Server 2 (Datacenter 2 with 3 host cluster)
Veeam 8 Backup (Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase DB2 -ActivateOnServer Server1 , backup server 2 then Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase back to
 Server2.
Exchange is in Online-Mode due to Citrix XD VDI clients.
1300 Mailboxes and 750 users.
NetApp with SATA disks. (1.5TB E: Vol for DB1/1.5TB F: Vol for DB2)
No archiving
Unlimited mailbox sizes.
The problems are:
If we migrate a non-Exchange VM in the same cluster or to\from the same host, this results in a 30 second to 5 min Outlook outage;
If we make both DB’s active on mail server 1 and reboot server 2, this results in a 30 second to 5 min Outlook outage;
If we make both DB’s active on mail server 1 and do a Veeam backup of server 2, sometimes one of the DB’s go back to server 1, on its own;
While monitoring we see that the w3wp.exe and the Microsoft.Exchange.Store.worker.exe are consuming most of the cpu and memory;
What can I do to solve the outages?
Tnx. Timotatty.

Answer 1

Hi Simon,<o:p></o:p>
Apparently we are using basic authentication which result in a FailingCode=401 as seen in the Event Log under Active Monitoring --> Probe Results from ECP and others. This
became apparent after reading this blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/ehlro/archive/2014/02/20/exchange-2013-managed-availability-healthset-troubleshooting.aspx<o:p></o:p>
We are now overriding some of the monitors which require Forms Based Authentication.<o:p></o:p>
Regarding the other 2 issues we have changed the licensing model for Veeam 8 to allow full throughput which will reduce the backup time and add compression.
The KEMP support team helped us by deselecting Use HTTP/1.1 under View/Modify Services --> ECP –> Modify --> Real Servers. This
now only flags a service (ECP or ActiveSync or OWA) as being down instead of an etire server should one component fail.<o:p></o:p>
I am satisfied but still not happy with the steps required to troubleshoot an Unhealthy Health Sets:<o:p></o:p>
Invoke-MonitoringProbe always returns with: WARNING: Could not find assembly or object type associated with monitor identity '<Healthe Set >\< Probe >'. Please ensure
that the given monitor identity exists on the server.
This makes it very difficult to troubleshoot
Unhealthy Health Sets.
Regards,
Timotatty