Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 entered our lives with the automatic mailbox distribution feature that offers great convenience to IT administrators. In this article, we will explain how you can automate database selection during mailbox creation, migration and mail activation processes.
Exchange Server Automatic Mailbox Provisioning Basics
Exchange Server enables automatic mailbox distribution when users or administrators do not specify a database. This feature New Mailbox, Enable-Mailbox ve New-MoveRequest It ensures that mailboxes configured using cmdlets are randomly distributed among available mailbox databases. This is done by filtering out unavailable databases and selecting databases based on their health status.
Exchange Server, Automatic mailbox distribution, reduces IT management burden and enables more effective use of database capacity. This process provides load balancing and resource optimization by distributing mailboxes evenly across databases.
Note: When using Exchange Server Automatic Mailbox Provisioning, you should always check the disk usage size. When there is no space to be used on the Exchange Server DB, you may receive an error like the one below.
Error: Load balancing failed to find a valid mailbox database
Exchange Server Automatic Maibox Deployment Process
- Getting the Database List: Exchange Server obtains a list of all mailbox databases in the Exchange organization.
- Removing Databases Excluded from the Deployment Process: To control which databases will be excluded from the deployment process, they are removed from the list of available databases.
- Admin Restrictions: Any mailbox database that falls outside the database management scopes applied to the administrator performing the operation is removed from the list of available databases.
- Local Active Directory Site: Any mailbox database that lies outside the local Active Directory site where the operation is performed is removed from the list of available databases.
- Random Selection and Health Status Check: From the list of remaining mailbox databases, Exchange randomly selects a database. If the database is online and healthy, that database is used. If it is offline or unhealthy, another database is randomly selected. If no online or healthy database is found, the operation fails with an error.
Scope of Exchange Server Automatic Mailbox Provisioning
Exchange Server Database management scopes are an additional level of control over the automatic mailbox deployment process. If a mailbox database is online and healthy, is located in an Active Directory site, and is not excluded from the automatic deployment process, Exchange checks to see if it is in the database scope applied to the administrator running the cmdlet. If the database is in the scope, it is included in the list of available databases for that administrator.
These settings can be useful if you have Exchange Server servers that serve different agencies in a large organization, and you want each agency to create or move mailboxes only in their dedicated mailbox databases. You can use database scopes to limit which mailbox databases administrators can access.
Recommendations for Exchange Server Automatic Mailbox Provisioning
- Regular health checks of mailbox databases keep system performance at optimal levels.
- You can use administrative scopes to give administrators control over private mailbox databases.
- Strengthen access control to mailbox databases and allow access only to authorized users.
Conclusion
Exchange Server automatic mailbox distribution feature can be a great help in managing large and complex email environments. This feature can automate critical functions such as load balancing and resource management.