Our Exchange 2007 server is experiencing a high volumn of RPC calls. I have used EXmon to track it down to our iPhone users using activesync to synchronize their phone. Is there anything we could do to reduce the rpc load on the mailbox server?We have a Client Access server, and a mailbox server hosting about 175 users. The mailbox server has Windows Server 2003 Enterprise 64, With exchange 2007, Xeon 1.6Ghz, 16Gb ram. We have about 10 iPhones and about 10 Blackberry's syncronizing to this server. The blackberries seem fine, it is the iPhone that seem to be causing problems. In a 5 minute period some phones are making over 2000 RPC calls. Any idea's on the best way to sync iPhone so they don't put a lot of strain on exchange? Do we need another mailbox server to divide the users, or another client access server? Or is there something like blackberries BES that might help?

IPhones dont always play nice. Have you applied the latest SP1 Rollups?If you do an iisreset on the Client Access Server, does the high traffic stop?Iphonesat version3.0?

Troubleshooting: 1. Does the issue happen to all IPhone users? 2. As Andy has asked before, whats the version of IPhone? 3. Does Entourage exist in the organization? 4. Please reset the IPhone and break the partnership to see if issue returns. If it does return, try the same IPhone but with a new user account and mailbox. 5. Please try to synchronize the folders one by one, Contacts, Calendar, and so on. Always monitor the RPC calls during the synchronization of each folder, see if we can narrow down the cause to one specific folder 6. Please use the Performance Troubleshooter in the Toolbox of the EMC, see if we can get any further info 7. Also, please run ExBPA against the exchange servers for a health check

Thank you Andy and James for your replies. here is what I found so far.1) I thought we had SP1 but just found out we are still on RTM version with no service packs. We will install the service packs on both servers.2) I did an iisreset on the client access server and I will monitor it today to see what happens.3) This seems to happen on all iPhone users and most are on version 3, only a couple have version 2, but again it seems all are affected.4) We do not use EntourageI will work on the performace troubleshooter and ExBPA and your other recomanedations today and let you know what I find. Thank you very much for your suggestions.

Thank you for your reply. I just noticed we are on RTM version. I thought we had at least SP1 but none of the service packs have been applied. We will apply them to both servers, thanks.I did a iisreset, but it did not seem to make a difference. The iphone users seem to have high amounts of RPC traffic. Most iPhone users are on version 3.o but there are a couple of version 2.0. Both have the problems. Thanks again for your response.

Thank you for your response. To answer your questions.1) Yes this seems to happen on all 10 iPhone users. Most are on version 3 but a couple have version 2.2) iPhone version 3, and 23)We do not use Entourage4)I will try this today5) I will try this today6) I don't remember the exact warning but is was something like RPC is too high for number of users on system. I am running it again to find out what the message is. This is what got us looking at RPC calls when the server seemed to get bogged down at times. 7) The only thing it is complaining about is Network interface driver is more than 2 years old, Storage driver is more than 2 years old, TCPIP.sys dirver, Microsoft filter pack not installed, scalable networking pack not installed. I will look at these in detail.Thanks again for all your help.

Yes, please provide the detailed error info, which would help for troubleshooting

The error I am receiving is:High User RPC Activity - Since the RPC operations per second per user is greater than 0.25, the RPC operations per second rates indicate a user or users on this server are unusually active. The measured RPC operations per second per user rate is 0.359.Sometimes the number is higher than .359

Ray, I am kind of curious, how are you determining that it is the iPhone's that are generating the RPC traffic?Jim McBee - Blog - http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com

Hi Jim, I am using ExMon and I have run it many times throughout the day ranging from 5 minute periods to 30 minute periods. Each time the top users are always iPhone users with at least 20x the amount of RPC operations than users with blackberries or just using outlook 2007. I am assuming it is the iPhone because that is the only thing they have in common. The iPhone users are setup to use activesync to sychronize their phones directly to exchange 2007. For example I just ran it now for 5 minutes with an iPhone users(Only 1 this time, sometimes it is 3 or 4 and we have a total of about 12) with 2190 Operations. The closest is a 419 and a 350, followed by everyone else being under 150.

Please refer the procedures in the articles below to troubleshoot the issue: Client Applications Impact on Server Performance RPC User Activity From Performance Counters Also, please provide the detailed description for those error events

Hi James,Thanks for the update. Give me a couple of days to work through those two documents you sent and I will post a reply. Thanks again for your help.

Sure

Hi All, After a recent wave of patches, we also are experiencing the high RPC loads as outlined in this thread. This is what we have SBS 2008 w/ Exchange SP1 Rollup 9. 2 Apple iPhones, version 3. an iireset fixes the issue, temporarily, but is there a permanent fix out there? Cheers, Anil

Not sure if this issue is still alive for both Ray and Anil, but here is something that may help Iphone 2.0 and high Store CPU usage on Exchange Servers http://blogs.technet.com/mikelag/archive/2008/07/15/iphone-2-0-and-high-cpu-usage-on-exchange-servers.aspx Mike Lagase is one of the best exchange performance t/s engineers out there, and he has beautifully nailed down the issue. You need to update Entourage (Mac for Office to 12.1.2) and also disable SyncServices in the same. Also update iPhone Firmware to the latest and check the same then. This should definitely help.

We have seen huge problems with Iphones connecting to calendars with open ended recurring calendar items. The solution so far has been to change the calendar entries to have a fixed end date. You also have to restart the http services on the CAS server to get the servers to stop self destructing. It would be nice if MS could fix this problem for good.

if your users are running ios 4 this may be helpful as well: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3398

I have heard that Microsoft Online is experiencing this same problem. Microsoft may well have to fix this problem even if it isn't their problem. -- Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." . "Dan Holzrichter" wrote in message news:2a96a27f-b430-4443-814f-2219ea42adda... We have seen huge problems with Iphones connecting to calendars with open ended recurring calendar items. The solution so far has been to change the calendar entries to have a fixed end date. You also have to restart the http services on the CAS server to get the servers to stop self destructing. It would be nice if MS could fix this problem for good.Ed Crowley MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems."

On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:10:23 +0000, Dan Holzrichter wrote: >We have seen huge problems with Iphones connecting to calendars with open ended recurring calendar items. The solution so far has been to change the calendar entries to have a fixed end date. You also have to restart the http services on the CAS server to get the servers to stop self destructing. It would be nice if MS could fix this problem for good. You mean it would be nice if APPLE fixed the problem for good? Microsoft licenses the ActiveSync protocol, but it's up to the 3rd-party to write the code for their device. Apple has an update for you and your iPhone/iPod users running iOS 4: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2010/06/30/455342.aspx --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP