Microsoft introduced its first analyzer tool for Exchange in 2004. Called by the catchy title Microsoft Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer, the software proved to be so successful that similar software was rolled out for troubleshooting other aspects of Exchange.

Best Practices Analyzer emerged after Microsoft observed certain patterns when addressing critical situations with its support services. Critical situations require urgent assistance to solve a problem that’s disrupting service to an organization’s members and its important business operations. What Microsoft found was that not only were the number of critical situations growing, but that 60 percent of them were caused by configuration errors, not bugs in Exchange. Moreover, new critical situations arising in some shops were the same ones that had emerged in other organizations just a few months earlier.

Microsoft began by creating a utility to gather key information throughout an Exchange environment. When a customer faced a critical situation, they were told to run the utility and Microsoft would sift through the data to ferret out the root cause of a problem.

Collecting data was only the first step. Next, an engine was developed that could analyze the data and expose it to a set of rules. The rules established thresholds. If a key data item was outside the acceptable range in a threshold, the rule would “fire” and a red flag would be raised for support folks.

With the basic model in hand, Microsoft began refining it. Performance was improved from taking 24 hours to collect and analyze information to two hours. The rules set was beefed up.

Once in action, however, it didn’t take Microsoft long to figure out that Exchange didn’t operate in a vacuum. Email problems can originate in the underlying infrastructure of a system, as well as in the applications running on top of Exchange. So Microsoft expanded its analyzer’s rules to take into account what’s running under Exchange and invited vendors running software on top of Exchange to submit rules for their programs that could be added to the tool.

The latest version of Best Practices Analyzer, version 2.8, was released in June 2007. True to its roots, the program collects data from repositories such as Active Directory, registry, metabase and performance monitor and applies best practice rules to the lot. A report is generated that an administrator can use to improve an Exchange environment’s performance, scalability and uptime. The program shouldn’t be used to scan Exchange 2007 or 2010, however, since the software is installed  automatically when those versions of Exchange are set up.

In addition to Best Practices, Microsoft also makes software for troubleshooting Exchange. Aptly named Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant, the software executes a set of troubleshooting steps to expose the fundamental causes of problems with performance, mail flow and database mounting issues. Like the Best Practices software, Troubleshooting Assistant collects key data for its purposes–configuration data, performance counters, event logs and tracing information from Exchange and other sources–and determines what data is needed to treat the symptoms of the problems it finds.

Another valuable analyzer offered by Microsoft is its web-based Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer. As its name suggests, it’s designed to help administrators solve connectivity problems. Client logons and mail flows scenarios are simulated by the tool. If a test fails, advice is offered for troubleshooting many of the errors discovered by the service.

Four tests are available from the main Connectivity Analyzer page.

There’s an Exchange ActiveSync test. It simulates the steps a mobile device takes to connect to an Exchange server using ActiveSync, or ActiveSync device uses to obtain settings from the Autodiscover service.

There’s a Web Services connectivity test. It walks through basic Exchange Web services tasks to confirm they’re working. It’s handy for troubleshooting external access from Web Services clients, such as Entourage EWS, Microsoft’s email client for Apple’s Mac computers. Entourage will be replaced in the new version of Office for the Mac expected to be released in the fall. The web Services test also verifies a service account’s ability to access a specific mailbox, create and trash items in it and access it via Exchange Impersonation.

There’s an Office connectivity test that examines the steps Outlook uses to connect via Outlook Anywhere or Outlook 2007 uses to obtain settings from the Autodiscover service.

There’s also Internet Email tests that check the steps an Internet email server uses to send inbound SMTP email to the tester’s domain or reviews an outbound IP address for certain requirements.

No one likes troubleshooting problems, but with Microsoft’s analytic tools, some of those snares can be solved with a minimum of fuss.