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WIndows Server 2008 R2, EV 10.0.3 and Memory Issues

EV_Novice
Level 5

Ladies, Gents, Gurus, Geniii, folk with extra large intellects,

Usually, I login to ask a possibly dumb question. This time I want to share a solution that a helpful colleague kindly advised.

In the last few weeks our EV 10.0.3 server, that services around 10,000 mailboxes spread across two Exchange 2007 CCR clusters appeared to be having memory troubles.

The issue was that the EV archving task for one of the two clusters wasn't ending successfully. The task appeared to stop but didn't complete. It remained in 'running' status and didn't get to 'completed'. The task for the other server works just fine ! Just to help annoy some more, the non ending task wasn't releasing the physical memory either.

The first time we encountered the issue, we organised an emergency reboot, to recover the memory that wasn't being released.

The problem recurred and after asking around my peer group of experts, one suggested that the issue was not with EV 10.0.3, but with Windows Server 2008 R2 (Enterprise Edition). It seems that most of the memory is used in the Metafile, which is a cache of NTFS information for files on the file system.

When the archiving task completes, the memory isn't being released / cleared / let go. (See Sysinternals RamMap under C:\Tools). My colleague recommended that the System Working Set is cleared.

This appears to have solved our issue as instead of finding over 80 per cent of memory being utilised, we now have only twenty per cent utilisation, although this will inevitably grow..

What we appear to need now is an automated process to empty the System Working Set, unless you already know of an excellent way to achieve this.

I claim no credit for finding this solution and applaud my colleague MW for passing on the information.

Best Regards to all.

3 REPLIES 3

Rob_Wilcox1
Level 6
Partner

hmm very interesting - but then is something 'different' with your configuration, because surely everyone would have this problem?

Working for cloudficient.com

EdLacey
Level 5
Certified

EV_Novice - the Windows Dynamic Cache Service may be your answer

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=9258

 

 

GertjanA
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Hello EV_Novice,

offtopic: There are no stupid questions! Keep asking whatever you need to know.

ontopic.

Out of curiosity, how much RAM does this server have?

 

Regards. Gertjan