New ADAccess Performance counters included with Exchange 2007 SP2

Exchange 2007 SP2 has a new set of ADAccess Performance counters that only shows performance data from domain controllers in the same site as the Exchange Server. This new object is MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers. Previously, you had to use MSExchange ADAccess Domain Controllers(*)\Local site flag to detect if the server was local via Performance monitor.

Here is a listing of the new counters. They are very similar to the MSExchange ADAccess Domain Controllers counters, but only for local DCs.

\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Read calls/Sec
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Search calls/Sec
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Searches timed out per minute
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Fatal errors per minute
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Disconnects per minute
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\User searches failed per minute
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\Bind failures per minute
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\Long running LDAP operations/Min
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Pages/Sec
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP VLV Requests/Sec
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\Number of outstanding requests
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\DsGetDcName elapsed time
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\gethostbyname elapsed time
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\Kerberos ticket lifetime
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP connection lifetime
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\Reachability bitmask
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\IsSynchronized flag
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\GC capable flag
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\PDC flag
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\SACL right flag
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\Critical Data flag
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\Netlogon flag
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\OS Version flag
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Read Time
\MSExchange ADAccess Local Site Domain Controllers(*)\LDAP Search Time

Unfortunately. upgrading to SP2 from an earlier service pack does not reload the MSExchange ADAccess counters, so you will have to do this manually. If you are installing Exchange using the SP2 binaries, you will have these new counters by default. To reload the MSExchange ADAccess counters, do the following:

  • Ensure that no other monitoring software is currently collecting performance counter data
  • Open a command prompt and change directory to the \Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Bin\perf\AMD64 directory
  • To unload the performance counters, type the following:
    unlodctr “MSExchange ADAccess”
  • To Reload the counters, type the following:
    loadcounter dscperf.ini
  • Restart the Exchange Services to successfully reload the counters. Note: This step is very important as Exchange opens file handles to the original counters that can only be reloaded with the restart of the Exchange Services.

For all of you that are collecting performance counters via WMI, you may notice that these new counters will not appear to be loaded. You can verify this by running perfmon/wmi to see if they are there. If they are not, you can transfer the PDH settings over to WMI by running wmiadap /f.

Enjoy!!