XADM: Tasks Controlled by the IS Maintenance Schedule

ID: Q159196

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Exchange Server, versions 4.0, 5.0, 5.5

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Exchange information store maintenance schedule is a configurable block of time in which common tasks are launched for maintaining the information store database. This articles describes the tasks directly controlled by the information store maintenance schedule and the order in which they start.

MORE INFORMATION

The information store maintenance schedule is set through the IS Maintenance tab within the properties of the Server object in the Microsoft Exchange Server site. The information store maintenance schedule is divided into 15-minute intervals, as are all schedule pages (NOTE: if you click "Always," this means every 15-minutes).

At the start of each 15-minute interval the maintenance thread checks to see if the interval is selected. If it is selected, maintenance is performed. In starting each task, the minimum time between cleanup is checked (these values are listed below and controlled by the registry settings documented only unless otherwise noted) and if the task was last completed within the minimum time, the task will not be performed in this maintenance window (the minimum time interval will override the information store maintenance schedule). After information store maintenance is started, it will run to completion.

The following tasks are performed at IS Maintenance time:

Index Aging

Tombstone Maintenance

Message Expiration (Public Store Only)

Age Folder Tombstones (Public Store Only)

Update Server Versions (Public Store Only)

These tasks are described below.

Index Aging

Indexes created in database tables by the client (used for views) that have not been used for a given time are cleaned up at this time. The following registry entries are used to control index aging:

Aging Keep Time:
The minimum index age (milliseconds for Exchange 4.0 and 5.0, seconds for Exchange 5.5) before it is deleted, the default is 8 days.

Aging Clean Interval:
The minimum time interval (milliseconds) between index age task runs, the default is 24 hours.

Reset Views:
If this setting exists and it is non-zero, this will force all cached indexes to be deleted during the next index aging task run. When the index aging is complete, the Reset Views value will be set to 0.

For additional information on Index Aging, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Q159197 XADM: Controlling Folder Index Aging

Event logging for index aging is controlled by the following registry settings:


   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ 
   Diagnostics\Private\General\Views

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ 
   Diagnostics\Public\General\Views

NOTE: The above registry keys are one path; they have been wrapped for readability.

The standard event log levels of 0 to 5 apply (5 is most verbose.)

Tombstone Maintenance

This is the process of compacting deleted message information used for local and Public Folder replication. The minimum time between tombstone maintenance task execution is 24 hours (not controllable through the registry).

There is currently no event logging available for tombstone maintenance.

Message Expiration (Public Store Only)

This is the process of expiring messages in Public Folders that are older than a specified time value. The setup for message expiration is in the Microsoft Exchange Server Administrator program on the "Age Limits" tab in the public Information Store container.

The default minimum time between expiration task execution is 24 hours with the following registry setting override (in milliseconds).


   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ 
   ParametersPublic\Replication Expiry

NOTE: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability.

Event logging is controlled by the following registry key:


   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ 
   Diagnostics\Public\Replication\Expiry

NOTE: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability.

The standard event log levels of 0 to 5 apply (5 is most verbose).

Age Folder Tombstones (Public Store Only)

This is the process of removing folder tombstone entries that are older than a given time (default is 180 days). Folder tombstone information is used by public folder replication. The aging is required to prevent the folder tombstone list from growing unbounded. The default value of 180 days can be overridden with a registry variable (value is in days):


   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\ 
   ParametersPublic\Replication Folder Tombstone Age Limit

NOTE: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability.

The default minimum time between folder tombstone aging task execution is 24 hours with no registry override.

There is currently no event logging available for age folders tombstones.

Update Server Versions (Public Store Only)

The Directory Service stores the Microsoft Exchange Server version number for each server. At regular intervals, this information is read from the Directory Service and stored in memory for use by the public store. This information is used to control interoperability between current and older versions of Microsoft Exchange Server. As servers are upgraded, this info needs to be updated. Default minimum time between server version updates is 24 hours, with no registry override.

There is currently no event logging available for updating server versions.

Article Index Expiration (Public Store Only)

Default minimum time between article index expiration task execution is 60 minutes with a registry override:


   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
   \MSExchangeIS\ParametersPublic\NNTP Article Cleanup Interval" (value is
   in milliseconds).

NOTE: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability.

The default article age is 7 days before it is expired with a registry override:


   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
   \MSExchangeIS\ParametersPublic\NNTP Article Expiry" (value in
   milliseconds)

NOTE: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability.

NOTE: The information store maintenance tasks all run under the same thread at THREAD_PRIORITY_BELOW_NORMAL. Each task runs sequentially. The thread is allocated when information store maintenance is performed, and freed when it is complete.

NOTE: There are other tasks that can be considered maintenance tasks, but they are not controlled by the information store maintenance schedule.

For more information on these tasks, please see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Q159306 XADM: IS Maintenance Tasks Not on IS Schedule

Additional query words:

Keywords : kbusage XADM
Version : winnt:4.0,5.0,5.5
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbhowto