technical solutions and commentary

At products change from version to version, the tunning recommendations will typically change as well. If you are deploying Exchange Server 2003 be sure you are following the current tuning guidelines and not using guidlines from Exchange 2000. As well guidelines for running Exchange 2003 on a Windows 2000 SP4 server may have different tweaks than Exchange 2003 on a Windows 2003 server.

Guidelines for Optimizing memory for Exchange Server 2003 running on Windows Server 2003 or SBS 2003 can be found in this KB How to optimize memory usage in Exchange Server 2003

Here are some additional Knowledge Base articles dedicated to this issue:

“Using the /Userva Switch on Windows Server 2003-based computer that are running Exchange Server”

“The “HeapDecommitFreeBlockThreshold” registry key”

“CPU and Memory Scalability for Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003”

“How to troubleshoot virtual memory fragmentation in Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange 2000 Server”

If you are planning an in-place upgrade from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003, the Exchange Server 2003 deployment guide recommends that certain manual tuning performed for Exchange 2000 be removed before upgrading to Exchnage 2003.

See the section Removing Exchange 2000 Tuning Parameters contained in the chapter Upgrading from Exchange 2000 Server to Exchange Server 2003 of the Exchange Server Deployment Guide.

Some other printed resources: