Performing Support Functions

Gateways are complex and need to handle many situations, some of which may require troubleshooting efforts by the Microsoft Exchange Server administrator to reach peak performance. To support administrators in maintaining Microsoft Exchange Server sites, a gateway can be set up to perform the following support functions:

• Performance monitoring You can design your gateway so it generates performance monitoring reports using functions provided with the Microsoft Exchange Server SDK.
• Event logging Your gateway can use the Windows NT Application event log to record events that occur during the message transfer process.
• Error handling When errors occur, your gateway can provide users with the information necessary to understand what went wrong. This can involve supplying reports to the originator about nondelivered mail, writing information to an error log, or alerting the administrator. These functions can be performed by the Windows NT Application event log.
• Message tracking Your gateway can track the progress of messages as they travel through the gateway to or from Microsoft Exchange Server. Because message identifiers vary between systems, this function requires that you enable cross-references.
• Configuration management You can design your gateway to detect changes in its configuration data.
• Directory synchronization Some mail systems have directories containing user addresses. Directory synchronization is an optional process that lets you copy directory information between Microsoft Exchange Server and a foreign mail system. Foreign system recipients then appear to be part of the Microsoft Exchange Server directory, and users are unaware that their mail is delivered through a gateway. This process is useful when an organization is in the process of migrating employees between two e-mail systems. By using directory synchronization, identical user information can be maintained on both systems, so that employees on both the old and the new systems do not have to be aware of which employees are on which system.