Re: Post Exchange SP1 - new threshold for store.exe

From: M Callinan (mcallinan_at_dslextreme.com)
Date: 05/31/04 

Date: Mon, 31 May 2004 10:37:17 -0700

Good catch Les, I think you are right. When I look at store.exe private
bytes usage in performance monitor, here's what I get:
Current: 310,022,144
Average: 310,047,212
Min: 310,009,856
Max: 310,054,912

In my case, the value from Task Manager and Performance Monitor are closer
than are yours. I guess I got lucky since I set my threshold to
314,572,800, which is just under the max private bytes value from
performance monitor. From what I can tell, this is the value that will
trigger the alert. To select a new max value, it's probably easiest to add
5 or 10 MB to the max value reported by performance monitor, e.g. if max is
310,054,912, set threshold to 315,000,000.

If you want to be more anal about converting megabytes to bytes, then 315MB
is 315 * 1024 * 1024 = 330,301,440 bytes. Conversely, if you divide
315,000,000 bytes by 1048576 (1024 * 1024), you get 300.40 MB. From what I
can tell, it won't matter if you set the threshold on an actual MB boundary
or not. The threshold is just a value that if passed triggers the alert.

Just took a look and my counter average today is 54,730,903.50, approx 54MB.
Before applying SP1 (about 2 days ago), is was around 32MB. After 30 days
(the counter average window size), I would expect this to get close to the
Average value reported by performance monitor.

To convert your max value of 3.227542e+008 to bytes, move the decimal 8
places to the right, and zero fill any digits that aren't present. For
example:
3.227542e+008 = 322754200 or 322,754,200 bytes which is approx 322MB. You
might want to try a new threshold value of 325,000,000 (~325MB) or
330,000,000 (~330MB).

For those that don't know how to view their store.exe private bytes values,
do this:

On you SBS2K server, go to Start -> All Programs -> Administrative Tools ->
Performance. Select System Monitor in the left side window, then right
click in the background of the chart window on the right, select Add
Counters. Under Performance Object, select Process (not Processor). In the
Select counter from list, select Private Bytes. In the Select instances
from list, select Store. Then click Add. In the lower right window, select
the Private Bytest counter, and above this list but below the chart you will
see the Last, Average, Min, Max, and Duration values for store.exe private
bytes.

"Les Connor [SBS MVP]" <les.connor@DEL.cfive.ca> wrote in message
news:OM6Af%23yREHA.1312@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Cool :-). Now we're getting somewhere.
>
> That's a good job of translating. Any chance you can similarily educate me
> on translating these numbers: i.e. how to get them to a common denominator
?
>
> a) In Alert Notifications the threshold is by default: 104857600
>
> b) The counter average currently shows 52,833,461.62
>
> The decimal confuses me.
>
> What confuses me even more is Health Monitor, which is the guts of the
> monitoring and alerting.
>
> Here's what it shows for the store.exe private bytes after about 30 hours
of
> uptime after applying the SP. (Note that this is a moving target for a few
> days after a restart of exchange)
>
> Private Bytes STORE
> (Current) 3.227812e+008
> (Minimum) 3.135283e+008
> (Maximum) 3.228836e+008
> (Average) 3.227542e+008
>
> We can see that the threshold is the default 104857600.
>
> Store.exe is currently using 204,176 k (task manager). I don't believe
task
> manager is showing the Private Byes for Store.exe, rather some other
counter
> is used. If you go into Performance Monitor, you can monitor the Private
> Bytes for store, and the number in this case is presently 322781184. Now
> that is starting to resemble some of the digits that Health monitor is
> showing (above). Other than the decimals and other charachters.
>
> I guess I should have stayed in school longer ;-(. In any case, I wonder
if
> you could translate these actual numbers for us, so we could use it as a
> basis to arrive at a proper threshold.
>
> Sidebar:
>
> In a way, it's seems odd to me that the monitoring threshold is a default.
> I've got SBS2k3 boxes with 1, 2, and 3 gb of ram, and of course it's only
> natural that Store.exe takes different amounts of each. Makes you wonder
> whether the thing is even worth monitoring.
>
> --
> Les Connor [SBS MVP]
> -------------------------------------
> SBS Rocks !
>
>
>
> "M Callinan" <mcallinan@dslextreme.com> wrote in message
> news:uaPN7gyREHA.3528@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > Here's what I did to stop the nightly threshold alert email. You want to
> set
> > the memory threshold for store.exe to something slightly greater than
what
> > that process normally runs at. To determine an appropriate value, open
> Task
> > Manager, and if you don't have the Peak Mem Usage column already
> displayed,
> > do so by selecting View -> Select Columns ..., put a check mark next to
> Peak
> > Memory Usage, click OK. Now select store.exe from the process list, and
> > look at the value for Peak Mem Usage and Mem Usage values. Mine peaked
at
> > 297,292K and the current value is 292,840K. Since my peak memory usage
> was
> > 297MB, I rounded up and figured I would set my new threshold to 300MB.
> This
> > should allow for a little more growth by this process, which is going to
> > vary based on the load its processing at the moment, but not so much
> larger
> > that if something is going wrong, that I won't be notified of the
> condition.
> > Since the value set in the Performance Counters threshold for store.exe
is
> > in bytes, I calculated my new threshold as 300 * 1024 * 1024 = 314572800
> > bytes. By the way, my original threshold was set to 100MB (100 * 1024 *
> > 1024 = 104857600) out of the box. The new value is entered on SBS2K3 in
> > Server Management -> Monitoring and Reporting -> Change Alert
> Notifications,
> > select Performance Counters tab, select "store.exe private bytes STORE",
> > click Edit button, enter your new threshold value, click OK, OK.
> >
> >
> > "Andrew H" <ajhpms@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:ONu4UruREHA.1312@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> > > At all of my sites where I've installed Exchange 2003 Service Pack 1,
> I'm
> > > getting notification alerts that store.exe is allocating more memory
> than
> > > usual.
> > >
> > > I'm sure this is just a harmless side-effect of the upgrade, but what
> > would
> > > be an appropriate level to set the threshold at in Server Management
> > > Monitoring and Reporting?
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>