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Exchange Server logging best practices

Exchange Server Logging Best Practices

Read time: 5 minutes

Summary: It is vital to maintain the transaction logs in your system meticulously. This post discusses some significant practices to manage Exchange Server logging. You can learn these and use them in your Exchange environment to prevent any backlogs or downtime. The post also mentions Kernel for Exchange Server, which is a great tool when you talk about data backup, restoration, and recovery.

Logging is a process to store activities, events, and transactions going on in the Microsoft Exchange environment. Maintaining logs helps monitor, troubleshoot, and maintain the health of the server. Transaction logs function as a buffer between the database and a user. Data remains in this temporary storage until it is written into the Exchange database.

The system will face interruptions and even shutdowns if there are any missing or corrupt transaction logs. It is, therefore, essential to be more cautious while you are keeping the transaction logs. Reading this article will help you learn ‘Exchange Server Logging Best Practices’ to keep and maintain logs in the recent versions of Exchange.

Types of logging in Exchange Server

In Exchange 2019, you’ll encounter diverse types of logging to execute a specific function. We’re mentioning a selection of those here to provide a better understanding of how logging helps.

  1. Admin Audit Logging: Allows tracing changes and activities done by the administrator in the Exchange Server configuration.
  2. Event Logging: Event logs record information about critical and warnings about Exchange, which helps monitor the overall health of the Exchange Server.
  3. Diagnostic Logging: Store information about specific components of the server. Admins use the information for troubleshooting and server analysis.
  4. Protocol Logging: Provide info about the SMTP conversation between the messaging server and the clients. Use protocol logs to analyze the mail flow in the Exchange Server.
  5. Connectivity Logging: Find records for message transmission done using the Transport service in the outbound settings.
  6. Message Tracking Logging: Show details of messages sent to or from a mailbox in the Exchange environment.
    Why do we perform logging?

In an Exchange Server, the logs are classified into diverse categories, and each one of them has a significant role to play. The logs help identify potential issues causing inefficiency in the Exchange environment and find a way to resolve them. Given are a couple of the reasons that explain the need to keep logs in a server.

  1. Logging helps in keeping a record of system activities to monitor the health and performance of the Exchange Server.
  2. It is easy to pinpoint the root of the issues and then implement appropriate solutions when you have logs with you.
  3. Logs store information about the performance metrics that the admin can check and tune the metrics to deliver the best performance.
  4. Admin uses the audit logs to perform security monitoring. Failed login attempts and unauthorized accesses are easy to detect and administer.
  5. Learn about the mail flow and get information about a message, such as sender, recipient, and delivery status.
  6. Transaction logs store a backup of committed data to quickly recover the data files when data corruption or hardware failure happens.

What are Exchange Server logging best practices?

To take backups or defragment the database, use Kernel for Exchange Server recovery software. The tool allows creating multiple or a single PST files, which you can store to use whenever needed. With the software, it is easy to restore deleted or corrupted files and mailboxes just by following a few simple steps, which means it’s a win-win situation for the admin.

Conclusion

Logging is essential to keep track of activities going on in the Exchange Server. Reading this article will help you learn a handful of the Exchange Server logging best practices. It will make it easy for your organization’s administrator to maintain logs, improve performance, and identify issues (if any). It’s also advisable to have tools like Kernel for Exchange Server by your side to avoid any unforeseen circumstances, such as data loss or corruption.

The tool doesn’t just help you to take backups of your EDB but also assists in restoring and recovering deleted or corrupted mailboxes and databases. You can convert EDB to PST files, MSG, or other file formats and export them to your systems.