Test method

The test was conducted with the involvement of a specialized script that created a complex load on the tested system in the form of a set of parallel SMTP and MAPI sessions that simulated the behavior of customers of the organization. Incoming, Outgoing, and Internal mail traffic was emulated with a specially prepared collection that imitated real mail based on the ratio of Clean/Spam/Phishing/Viruses indicated below.

Ratio of messages in mail traffic:

The number of simultaneous sessions for load emulation was chosen based on the maximum load that the test stands could handle.

The load was created locally on each server using a special test utility that generated streams of outgoing / incoming / internal mail.

To assess ODS (on-demand scanning) of mailboxes, mailboxes were pre-filled with unscanned messages. Measurements were conducted without generating a system load in the form of active sessions, but with only a background scan of mailboxes.

Before beginning tests, the Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam databases received the latest updates. Database update was disabled during testing.

System performance was assessed based on the following performance counters:


Performance counters

Counter name:

Brief description

MSExchangeTransport Queues(_total)\Messages Completed Delivery Per Second (MPS)

Number of messages (end to end) delivered to mailboxes of users

MSExchangeTransport Queues(_total)\Active Mailbox Delivery Queue Length

Size of the Microsoft Exchange message delivery queue

Processor Information(_Total)\% Processor Time

Total load on the processor

Processor Information(Kavscmesrv) \% Process Time

Processor load generated by Kaspersky Security

KSE Anti-Virus (Mailbox)\Antivirus scans per second

Number of Anti-Virus scans per second as counted by Kaspersky Security (for mailboxes)

KSE Anti-Virus (Transport)\Antivirus scans per second

Number of Anti-Virus scans per second as counted by Kaspersky Security (for the transport role)

KSE Anti-Spam (Transport)\Antispam scans per second

Number of Anti-Spam scans per second as counted by Kaspersky Security (for the transport role)

Memory\Committed Bytes in Use

Percentage of allocated memory usage

Readings were taken from performance counters once every 10 seconds locally for each server.

The average values from counter readings were indicated.

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