New tools to tame Microsoft Exchange

Network executives looking to better monitor and manage their installations of Microsoft Exchange server now have two new options to evaluate.

IntelliReach last week released ExRay for Exchange 1.0, a health assessment tool that allows for proactive monitoring and management of Exchange 2000 and 5.5.

Also, eIQnetworks recently released MailAnalyzer 1.0, a Web-based reporting and analysis tool to track usage patterns in Exchange.

With ExRay for Exchange, users can get status reports on the performance of connections to the e-mail server and traffic routes between both internal and external servers. An alerting feature flags problems and sends an e-mail or page to an administrator. IT staff members also can monitor the inner workings of Exchange for potential problems.

"The route monitoring is helpful because I depend on other groups within the company to supply the network," says Bruce Kane, enterprise Exchange administrator for an electrical component manufacturer he asked not be named. "I know that our route to Brazil is down more than it is up, and I can see how other links between servers perform over time."

Kane says the big benefit is that he can steer clear of problems.

"I want to know something is broken before some user calls. Most people won't notice a short outage," he says.

ExRay also supports the monitoring and measuring of performance marks such as message delivery times and downtime, as well as the time it takes to complete repairs.

"This can help you establish and enforce service-level agreements within your organization," says Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research.

The software also provides the ability to publish real-time reports to an intranet site so non-IT staff can check on the health of Exchange instead of calling the help desk if they experience a problem.

IntelliReach plans to combine ExRay with three tools for tracking e-mail content and usage that it acquired last month when it purchased MicroData Software. The tools are Cameo 2.0 for real-time e-mail monitoring, Cameo Recon for managing stored e-mail and Melia 2.0, for usage reporting.

ExRay, which is based on technology from IntelliReach's Control 2.5 for Novell GroupWise, installs on one Exchange server and can monitor hundreds of servers. It also requires Windows 2000 and Internet Information Server. ExRay is priced per user account with installations starting at $10,000 for large organizations.

MailAnalyzer from eIQnetworks is designed to help administrators understand the e-mail traffic that Exchange generates.

The Web-based tool lets administrators track e-mail use, providing data on traffic including peak times, delivery times and mailbox usage. It also tracks the prolific users of e-mail and the size of attachments being sent.

Usage reports can be conducted per server, department, location, individual or specific time. Reports are produced in HTML, Microsoft Word, Excel or PDF formats.

MailAnalyzer gathers data from Exchange's message-tracking logs, the Exchange directory, Active Directory and Windows NT Event Logs. It works with Exchange 5.5 and 2000.

MailAnalyzer costs $400 for use on up to five Exchange Servers. The company plans to release versions for Lotus Notes and Sendmail later this year.

Both products compete with software from BindView, DYS Analytics, Hewlett-Packard, MessageOne, NetIQ, Quest Software and TNT Software.