Exchange Server EKG

If communications is modern business's circulatory system, then email has become its heart. Most Microsoft Exchange Server administrators find they need more than Exchange's built-in tools to truly keep tabs on their messaging system's pulse. I tested five Exchange Server 2003 reporting tools—BindView bv-Control for Microsoft Exchange 8.0, eIQnetworks Mail-Analyzer 3.6, e-nspect2000, PROMODAG Reports for Microsoft Exchange Server 7.0, and Quest Software MessageStats 5.6—to help you find the one that can best help you keep your Exchange organization alive and kicking. (I was unable to include Hypersoft OmniAnalyser in this review. You can find more information about that product at http://www.hypersoft.com.)

I evaluated the products based on the types of data they can collect and analyze, the reporting options they offer, their ease of use, and the time involved in running them. All tools but one gather data from Exchange's message-tracking logs but produce more complex reports than the Exchange Message Tracking Center can. (Table 1 provides a limited but illustrative list of the types of reports that each product offers.) Some of the tools also use other techniques, such as Active Directory (AD) or Messaging API (MAPI) queries or Collaboration Data Objects (CDO), to collect Exchange data. A few of the products let you search your Exchange organization for messages according to a keyword in the message subject or body. Most of the products I tested let you sort, filter, and group data into meaningful presentations and export reports to a variety of formats for viewing, printing, or additional processing. All except one let you schedule report delivery by email or other means. Table 2 provides a feature comparison. Read on to discover which of these products will best fit your messaging environment.

BindView bv-Control for Microsoft Exchange 8.0
bv-Control for Exchange (which Figure 1 shows) can collect almost any Exchange-related detail you can think of. For example, a custom query let me find the answers to questions such as "What's the average delivery time for multiprocessor Exchange servers that have at least 2GB of memory?" The price for such flexibility is speed and simplicity. Producing a report was more complicated and took noticeably longer than with any of the other products. bv-Control for Exchange retrieves data by using AD and MAPI queries, among other means. The product stores data in a Microsoft SQL Server database. bv-Control imports Exchange message-tracking logs according to a schedule but can also import logs ( including incomplete logs from the current day) on the fly. Running certain reports also causes the product to query Exchange servers for data. This variety of data sources gives bv-Control for Exchange an edge in the depth of information it reports.

The product is a module of the BindView RMS suite and uses the BindView RMS Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that provides a common interface and functionality for BindView's products. BindView RMS let me securely store the credentials to access Exchange and let me assign granular levels of bv-Control for Exchange access to any Windows user. This method of operation lets you delegate access to bv-Control for Exchange without giving every user elevated privileges to Exchange, but it also might make the tool a bit too complex for the average user. You'll probably find yourself creating reports for users, then scheduling the reports for regular delivery.

bv-Control for Exchange offers an extensive list of predefined reports but also lets you create reports based on your queries, which you define by using the product's built-in graphical tool (rather than by writing SQL statements). The number of fields available in this tool is simply amazing. Examples of data I could find only in bv-Control include full message body, calendar items, phone numbers and other directory data about Exchange users, Exchange server hardware details, and details about the Exchange services running on each server. I couldn't find a chargeback report, but exporting query results to Microsoft Excel and creating your own chargeback report would be a simple enough task. I was also unable to summarize attachments by type or get information about Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) usage, but bv-Control was still the champion in terms of number of available reporting fields. If you're a full-time Exchange administrator who needs maximum flexibility in a reporting tool, you'll likely love bv-Control. But be prepared to spend some time learning the ins and out of the product before running your first report, especially if you want to get the most out of the tool's rich feature set.

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