Xoom crashed Exchange server

[siscim23]

So after not being able to get work email on my Xoom or iPhone for the past few days, I finally called IT. They'd been waiting for me I personally think this is pure awesome/funny, they were not happy.

Something happened that caused the Xoom to send 12 server requests per second, preventing ANYONE else to get a request in and essentially crash the server. Is there a way to change the number of requests sent on a push account? I know I can just set the account to fetch but I would rather keep it to push.

 

[SquintySteam]

I'm a Messaging guy and I have push running using the stock app to my personal Exchange 2010 server and I'm using Touchdown for Exchange 2010 at work and I don't see any activity on mine that's abnormal.

Direct Push operates in the following way:

A mobile phone that's configured to synchronize with an Exchange 2010 server issues an HTTPS request to the server. This request is known as a PING. The request tells the server to notify the device if any items change in any folder that's configured to synchronize in the next 15 minutes. Otherwise, the server should return an HTTP 200 OK message. The mobile phone then stands by. The 15-minute time span is known as a heartbeat interval.
If no items change in 15 minutes, the server returns a response of HTTP 200 OK. The mobile phone receives this response, resumes activity (known as waking up), and issues its request again. This restarts the process.
If any items change or new items are received within the 15-minute heartbeat interval, the server sends a response that informs the mobile phone that there's a new or changed item and provides the name of the folder in which the new or changed item resides. After the mobile phone receives this response, it issues a synchronization request for the folder that has the new or changed items. When synchronization is complete, the mobile phone issues a new PING request and the whole process starts over.

 

[siscim23]

Yeah I have the stock app and Touchdown as well.

It must be something with their server then, because it didn't do anything like that for the first 2 weeks I had it. I'll just set it up again and have them keep an eye on it to see if it was an issue on my end or theirs.

 

[naldiian]

Well, there are a couple of points to make on this really:
1) 12 requests per second should be transparent to the mail server unless they are running it on an old calculator. Even if you were doing that it would be nothing compared to the potential thousands of devices communicating with an ActiveSync service point in many environment.

2) If your Xoom was really doing that, it sounds like it is not set to use ActiveSync communications (unless it is resending because the server isnt responding), but may instead be using polling - though that would still mean it is not getting a response from the server if it is hitting that often.

 

[Ianas]

Well, there are a couple of points to make on this really:
1) 12 requests per second should be transparent to the mail server unless they are running it on an old calculator. Even if you were doing that it would be nothing compared to the potential thousands of devices communicating with an ActiveSync service point in many environment.

2) If your Xoom was really doing that, it sounds like it is not set to use ActiveSync communications (unless it is resending because the server isnt responding), but may instead be using polling - though that would still mean it is not getting a response from the server if it is hitting that often.

If 12 requests per second is swamping their server they need to throw out the 386 and get some new hardware.
Seriously, though, I would be curious to find out what was causing your Xoom to hit the server so frequently, if it really was happening.

 

[siscim23]

Well it was 12/sec on the external server, maybe it's much smaller because not many people use it. It's a ~400 person company, maybe 10% use external. I wouldn't doubt it was because of something on their end, all the servers here are always going down. I'll just have them set me up again and keep an eye on it.

 

[DrWu]

Well it was 12/sec on the external server, maybe it's much smaller because not many people use it. It's a ~400 person company, maybe 10% use external. I wouldn't doubt it was because of something on their end, all the servers here are always going down. I'll just have them set me up again and keep an eye on it.

It would be beneficial for your company to deploy a monitoring solution to at least monitor their exchange server, then they'd be able to pinpoint exactly what happened to cause their issue. I have no doubt that it wasn't your Xoom.
The troubleshooting method of "blame the last guy who turned something on" hasn't been acceptable since Sniffer V.1 was released.