These steps must be completed prior to installing the RoomWizard Exchange Connector
Before installing and configuring the Exchange Connector, you will need the following:
- A Microsoft Windows server OS 2012 or higher with internet access to install the connector (details below)
- Connector package downloaded and saved on the desktop of the Windows Server
- Local domain service account that can be used to log in to the Windows Server and Exchange for configuration.
- Resources with mailboxes for calendars (one for each RoomWizard)
- Note: Newly created accounts and resources take some time to replicate throughout Exchange/Office 365
- Port 443(HTTPS) or Port 8080(HTTP) open in Server firewall; this will be used when configuring the Connector Website
- Below is Microsoft's typical optimization recommendation
- Change the default SNP offload settings where available, and make sure that RSS is enabled (the default setting in Windows Server 2012 and later). RSS will help scale CPU utilization, especially on 10GbE. RSS and TCP Chimney Offload must be set both in the OS and in the NIC device configuration to work. This is an official recommendation from PG and is discussed in https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn879075(v=exchg.150).aspx. To set in the OS run the following in an elevated cmd prompt:
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netsh int tcp set global rss=enabled
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netsh int tcp set global chimney=Automatic
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- When building out Exchange or doing system gap analysis using the latest Exchange storage calculator as found at https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Exchange-2013-Server-Role-f8a61780 :
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Room IOPS Multiplier = ((# Room Wizards/1000)/1.2)
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- Separate IIS server for the connector
- Like Exchange scalability, having a formula that would take the estimated Room Wizard load and potentially incorporating them into multiple instances of the Room Wizard IIS application pool using different impersonation counts. By using the default EWS thresholds for cutoff balance and recharge rate we came up with the following which would estimate a per impersonation account to keep the balance bucket under 60 seconds so that the default 20 second recharge can recharge. This of course can be altered via setting it to all “unlimited”, but as we can see in test creates a very long delay.
- Estimated Impersonation Accounts = ((API Calls per Hour/360) x (Room Wizard Instances))/45
- Disable Hyper-threading on physical servers and at the VM level for virtualized servers and setting the page file set to RAM+10MB https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/david231/2015/03/30/for-exchange-2010-and-2013-do-this-before-calling-microsoft/
- Change the default SNP offload settings where available, and make sure that RSS is enabled (the default setting in Windows Server 2012 and later). RSS will help scale CPU utilization, especially on 10GbE. RSS and TCP Chimney Offload must be set both in the OS and in the NIC device configuration to work. This is an official recommendation from PG and is discussed in https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn879075(v=exchg.150).aspx. To set in the OS run the following in an elevated cmd prompt:
Server Manager
- .NET Framework 3.5 (Features), 4.0, 4.5, or 4.6
- .NET (Application Development): Install via Server Manager, Web Server (IIS) Role Services, Add Role Services
- Windows Web Server Management: Install via Server Manager, Web Server (IIS) Role Services, Add Role Services
IIS (Internet Information Service)
- IIS 10 or higher
- Web Deploy 3.6 or higher (Web Deployment Tool) https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/web-deploy