Set & Remove Throttling Policy in Exchange 2016 for Better Performance & Resource Management

Anuraag Singh | Modified: July 12, 2016 | Exchange Server 2016 | 4 Minutes Reading
The throttling policy feature of Microsoft Exchange 2016 help administrator for managing Hardware Resources and increase the performance of Exchange Server. Throttling policies application help in good management of server and allow Administrator to check whether any mailboxes are not consuming more resources then expected. In this post we are going to discuss about Set & Remove Throttling Policy in Exchange 2016 for better performance and resource management of Exchange Server 2016.
Throttling Policy was firstly came with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with functionality of monitoring Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Client Access. It was the unique feature at that time. But with the change of time new versions of Exchange Server came with more advanced functionality in throttling policy. In Exchange 2016 throttling policy covers almost everything like: Exchange Active Sync, OWA, Exchange Autodiscover, Anonymous Access Monitoring, RPC Client Access monitoring etc.

Set & Remove Throttling Policy in Exchange 2016

Throttling Policy is a command used for managing workload in Exchange Environment and is available in on-premises Exchange Server 2016. Before we run the commands, we need to assign permissions and throttling policy settings are stored in active directory. It is aimed to restrict the usage of resources by individual users in Exchange environment consumed using an identity. The assigned number for the parameter defined in throttling policy can be used and if it exceeds, it will generate an error message.

Set-ThrottlingPolicyAssociation Command

As the name of the command suggests, it is used to link a throttling policy with a specific object. The object can be a user with/without a mailbox, a computer account or a contact.

Syntax: 

set-throttling-policy

This command sets the quota limits for particular specific objects. If a user or any other object is utilizing excessive bandwidth, that object can be associated or linked with a throttling policy that can restrict the usage.

Example:
The below example has used Solivia as Identity and IT Team as the name of Throttling Policy.
Set-ThrottlingPolicyAssociation -Identity Solivia -ThrottlingPolicy IT Team
Parameters used in the command:

  1. Identity:
    • It is the parameter required to run the command and it is the ID parameter of Throttling Policy Association.
    • It defines the object to which a throttling policy needs to be associated.
  2. Confirm:
    • It is the optional parameter and it is switch parameter to define whether to show or hide the confirmation prompt.
    • It parameter affects the command depending on if command requires confirmation before proceeding.
  3. Domain Controller
    • It is used to define the domain controller used by command to read data from or write data to Active Directory.
  4. ThrottlingPolicy
    • It specifies the throttling policy that needs to be associated with object defined in Identity parameter.
  5. WhatIf
    • It is a switch parameter, which is optional and is used to simulate the actions of command.

Remove-ThrottlingPolicy Command

It is the command that is available in only the on-premises Exchange Server 2016 and is used to remove a non-default Microsoft Exchange Throttling Policy. We are not allowed to remove the default client throttling policy and the throttling policy linked to any users.

Syntax: 

remove-throttlingpolicy
Example:
The below example will remove the user throttling policy named Policy1
Remove-ThrottlingPolicy -Identity Policy1

Note: Before removing throttling policy make sure that the policy isn’t associated to any mailboxes. If it is assigned to any mailboxes then first set another retention policy to that mailbox then go for removal of throttling policy.

Parameters:

Parameters used in the remove command are almost same. However, Identity Parameter is used to define the throttling policy that needs to be removed. We can remove the throttling policy using the name that matches with the one present in Active Directory. Other parameters such as Confirm, DomainController and WhatIf will work in the same manner. Force parameter is an optional parameter for defining whether to suppress warning or confirmation messages.

Conclusion

In the blog, we have discussed about the commands associated with Set & Remove Throttling Policy in Exchange 2016. These commands have been aimed to improve the performance of the Exchange environment and to ensure the resources are used proportionately. The two main commands that have been described in details are Set-ThrottlingPolicyAssociation and Remove-ThrottlingPolicy.