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Version: 7.3

Exchange performance settings – turning off the Exchange throttling policies

Introduction​

Exchange throttling policies control how Exchange Server distributes server resources evenly among users, for example by limiting the number of emails a user can send per minute. While this mechanism ensures fair access for regular mailbox users, it can interfere with the archiving user (superuser) used by contentACCESS, which requires elevated access to process multiple mailboxes and messages.

This page explains why the default throttling policy is not suitable for the archiving user and provides the PowerShell commands required to turn off throttling limitations for that user on both Exchange 2013 and Exchange 2010.

Why throttling affects the archiving user​

Throttling limits how much a given user can interact with Exchange resources within a given time frame. For example, a user might be limited to sending a maximum of 5 emails per minute. Once this limit is reached, the user is throttled and must wait before performing further actions.

The archiving user needs to access multiple mailboxes and process large volumes of messages, which is significantly more resource-intensive than typical mailbox usage. As a result, the standard throttling policy is not suitable for the archiving user (superuser).

If you experience issues that may be caused by throttling policies, you can turn them off for the archiving user. The commands below remove any limitations for that user, allowing it to use as many Exchange resources as needed.

Turn off throttling on Exchange 2013​

New-ThrottlingPolicy -Name CAPolicy -ThrottlingPolicyScope Organization

Set-ThrottlingPolicy CAPolicy -RCAMaxConcurrency Unlimited -EWSMaxConcurrency Unlimited -EWSMaxSubscriptions Unlimited -CPAMaxConcurrency Unlimited -EwsCutoffBalance Unlimited -EwsMaxBurst Unlimited -EwsRechargeRate Unlimited

Set-Mailbox "Administrator" -ThrottlingPolicy CAPolicy

Turn off throttling on Exchange 2010​

New-ThrottlingPolicy -Name CAPolicy

Set-ThrottlingPolicy CAPolicy -RCAMaxConcurrency $null -RCAPercentTimeInAD $null -RCAPercentTimeInCAS $null -RCAPercentTimeInMailboxRPC $null -EWSMaxConcurrency $null -EWSPercentTimeInAD $null -EWSPercentTimeInCAS $null -EWSPercentTimeInMailboxRPC $null -EWSMaxSubscriptions $null -EWSFastSearchTimeoutInSeconds $null -EWSFindCountLimit $null -CPAMaxConcurrency $null -CPAPercentTimeInCAS $null -CPAPercentTimeInMailboxRPC $null -CPUStartPercent $null

Set-Mailbox "Administrator" -ThrottlingPolicy CAPolicy

Apply the throttling policy for the superuser​

Three commands must be run in PowerShell to apply the throttling policy to the superuser:

  1. New-ThrottlingPolicy: Creates a new policy and assigns it a name. The policy is created with default values.

  2. Set-ThrottlingPolicy: Changes the parameters of the policy, turning off throttling for the contentACCESS user.

    info

    Note: This list of parameters should be discussed with the customer, as they might not allow all of these options to be changed. This is a matter of support.

  3. Set-Mailbox: Assigns the policy to the user.

Verify the policy assignment​

You can verify that the policy has been correctly associated with the archiving user by running the following command:

Get-Mailbox "Administrator" | fl ThrottlingPolicy