Topic Last Modified: 2005-11-18

The Microsoft® Exchange Server Analyzer Tool queries the Active Directory® directory service to determine the value of the msExchESEParamCheckpointDepthMax attribute on each storage group. If the Exchange Server Analyzer finds that the msExchESEParamCheckpointDepthMax does not equal 5242880 on an Exchange 2000 Server cluster, a warning is displayed.

The msExchESEParamCheckpointDepthMax attribute is set in bytes and governs the maximum checkpoint depth. The checkpoint depth is the amount of data that is waiting to be committed to the Exchange store. The maximum checkpoint depth is the maximum amount of data that can be outstanding at any time. Therefore, if the maximum checkpoint depth is set to 20 MB, this is the maximum amount of data that can be outstanding (not committed to the Exchange store) at any time. In a clustered environment, a smaller value for this parameter causes faster failover times. Testing in Exchange Server 2003 showed that a value of 5 MB (5242880 bytes) for this parameter (instead of 20 MB, which was the default in Exchange 2000 Server) causes much faster failover times, without seriously affecting I/O performance on the server.

On Exchange 2000 Server clusters, this value should always be set to 5242880.

Caution:
If you incorrectly modify the attributes of Active Directory® directory service objects when you use Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) Edit, the LDP (ldp.exe) tool, or another Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) version 3 client, you may cause serious problems. These problems may require that you reinstall Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, Exchange Server 2003, or both. Modify Active Directory object attributes at your own risk.

To set the msExchESEParamCheckpointDepthMax attribute using ADSI Edit

  1. Run Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) Edit. ADSI Edit is provided with the Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server and Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 Server Support Tools.

  2. In the console tree, right-click ADSIEdit, click Connect To, and then connect to the Configuration Naming Context.

  3. Expand the Configuration Container, CN=Configuration, CN=Services, CN=Microsoft Exchange, CN=<OrganizationName>, CN=Administrative Groups, CN=<AdminGroupName>, CN=Servers, CN=<ServerName>, CN=Information Store.

  4. Right-click CN=<StorageGroupName>, and then click Properties.

  5. In the properties list, select msExchESEParamCheckpointDepthMax.

  6. Click Edit and type the size you want to set in 5 MB increments. The value must to be entered in bytes. For example, a 5 MB checkpoint depth is 5242880 bytes, and a 10 MB checkpoint depth is 10485760 bytes. The minimum size you can enter is 5 MB. If you enter a value over 20 MB, there will be an increase in the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service resource failover times.

  7. Close ADSIEdit, and then restart the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service.

For more information about deploying Exchange 2000 Server clusters, see "Deploying Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server Clusters" (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=14578).