Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2011-10-13

The Mailbox Replication Service (MRS), which resides on all Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Client Access servers, is the service responsible for moving mailboxes, importing and exporting .pst files, and restoring disabled and soft-deleted mailboxes.

Because MRS performs several tasks, you can throttle it to maintain the overall health of your Exchange organization. Although each instance of MRS has its own configuration settings, each instance of MRS is aware of the tasks that other instances of MRS are processing. MRS throttling is controlled by the configuration file MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config. By default, this configuration file is located on all Client Access servers in the same folder where Exchange is installed: <Exchange Installation Path>\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin\MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config.

Note:
When you open the configuration file, you can find the minimum, maximum, and default values for the configuration settings in the section titled ! Mailbox Replication Service configuration.

Looking for other management tasks related to move requests? Check out Managing Move Requests.

Throttle MRS

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Text editor" entry in the Client Access Permissions topic.

  1. Navigate to <Exchange Installation Path>\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin.

  2. Open the MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config file using a text editor such as Notepad.

  3. Navigate to the MRSConfiguration section. You can edit the following properties:

    • MaxRetries    This property specifies the maximum number of times MRS will attempt to perform a task after encountering a transient failure. You can specify a value from 0 through 1000. The default value is 60.

    • MaxCleanupRetries    This property specifies the number of times that MRS should attempt to clean up a task. If the maximum number of attempts is reached, the task fails. You can specify a value from 0 through 100. The default value is 5.

    • MaxStallRetryPeriod    This property specifies the maximum duration for which MRS pauses while waiting for the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service to bring the target mailbox database into compliance with its configured data redundancy constraints. If the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service reports that the mailbox database is unhealthy, MRS will pause. If the maximum time is reached, the task fails. You can specify a value from 00:00:10 (10 seconds) through 05:00:00 (5 hours). The default value is 00:15:00 (15 minutes).

    • RetryDelay    This property specifies the amount of time MRS will wait before it attempts to perform a task again after a transient failure. You can specify a value from 00:00:10 (10 seconds) through 00:30:00 (30 minutes). The default value is 00:00:30 (30 seconds).

    • MaxMoveHistoryLength   This property specifies the maximum number of move histories to maintain in the mailbox. You can specify a value from 0 through 100. The default value is 2 move histories per mailbox.

    • MaxActiveMovesPerSourceMDB   This property specifies the total number of tasks MRS can perform that involve the mailbox database as a data source. Types of tasks include moving mailboxes located on the database, exporting mailbox data from mailboxes located on the database, and restoring mailbox data from the database. You can specify a value from 0 through 100. The default value is 5 concurrent tasks.

    • MaxActiveMovesPerTargetMDB   This property specifies the total number of tasks MRS can perform that involve the mailbox database as a data target. Types of tasks include moving mailboxes to the database, importing mailbox data into a mailbox located on the database, and restoring mailbox data to a mailbox located on the database. You can specify a value from 0 through 100. The default value is 2 concurrent tasks.

    • MaxActiveMovesPerSourceServer    This property specifies the total number of tasks MRS can perform that include the server as a data source. You can specify a value from 0 through 1000. The default value is 50 concurrent moves.

    • MaxActiveMovesPerTargetServer    This property specifies the total number of tasks MRS can perform that involve the server as a data target. You can specify a value from 0 through 1000. The default value is 5 concurrent moves.

    • MaxTotalMovesPerMRS   This property specifies the total number of tasks that a single instance of MRS can perform at a time. You can specify a value from 0 through 1000. The default value is 100 concurrent moves.

    • FullScanMoveJobsPollingPeriod   This property specifies how often each instance of MRS scans for new tasks. You can specify a value from 00:03:00 (3 minutes) through 1.00:00:00 (1 day). The default value is 00:10:00 (10 minutes).

    In addition to the preceding properties, you can also configure the following properties. However, you should only change these settings when directed by support personnel.

    • MinimumTimeBeforePickingJobsFromSameDatabase

    • ServerCountsNotOlderThan

    • MRSAbandonedMoveJobDetectionTime

    • BackoffIntervalForProxyConnectionLimitReached

    • DataGuaranteeCheckPeriod

    • DataGuaranteeTimeout

    • DataGuaranteeLogRollDelay

    • MailboxLockoutTimeout

    • MailboxLockoutRetryInterval

    • EnableDataGuaranteeCheck

    • DisableMrsProxyCompression

    • DisableMrsProxyBuffering

    • MinBatchSize

    • MinBatchSizeKB

  4. Make sure any changes you make are also applied to the MSExchangeMailboxReplication.exe.config file on all other Client Access servers.