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Monitoring Exchange 2013

We currently use Exchange 2010, and are about to move to Exchange 2013. We have existing an existing Cacti installation in place that we use to monitor all of our infrastructure. I'd like to set up something to monitor individual Exchange 2013 servers, so that I get a notification if something happens- for example a mailbox database going offline (We will have a DAG, so mail will still be sent, but I don't want to have to have a stacked failure because of something that we might otherwise have had weeks to correct). I have not seen anything for Cacti that gets deep enough into this with any degree of accuracy. Does anyone have experience with this? Are the 2013 tools that ship with Exchange able to provide what I am looking for (i.e. services stopping, machines going catatonic, databases dismounting or other health issues), should I try to keep looking for Cacti resources, or should we consider a more established platform like Solarwinds for these types of needs? I'm interested in any recommendations.
Thanks for your replies!

Adam Brown

The built in SNMP MIBs for Exchange are fairly limited in scope to just performance data, so you won't get information on whether databases are up or down, whether services are running, or other similar data. WMI can probably be used to get more data, but there aren't many free solutions that do WMI monitoring like there are for SNMP. Cacti only supports SNMP.

There are some utilities that you can purchase that will allow you to get much more data about Exchange from SNMP, though. SNMP Informant is one you can take a look at.

it_medcomp

ASKER

I should have mentioned that non-free solutions are certainly worth consideration- Our environment is complex enough to warrant purchasing a solution if that's the best way to go. I'll take a look at SNMP Informant. Thanks for the info!

Adam Brown

If you can justify the cost, just about any RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management) solution will probably meet your needs. The major differences between them all are cost, usability, and advanced features.

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cwstad2

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it_medcomp

ASKER

Is AppInsight a windows agent, or does it allow visibility into non-windows systems and devices?

Simon Butler (Sembee)

If you have the cash to buy something...
https://enowsoftware.com/products-and-solutions/exchange-management-tools/

I have struggled to find anything free/open source that comes close without a lot of hand holding.

it_medcomp

ASKER

Thanks for the info- we are looking at Solarwinds in the near future!

cwstad2

Its an excellet product