Exchange Queue monitoring must be configured with threshold and action.

Monitors are automated "process watchers" that respond to performance changes and can be useful in detecting outages and alerting administrators where attention is needed. Exchange has built-in monitors that enable the administrator to generate alerts if thresholds are reached, better enabling them to react in a timely fashion.

This field offers choices of alerts when a "warning" or "critical" threshold is reached on the SMTP queue. A good rule of thumb (default) is to issue warnings when SMTP queue growth exceeds 10 minutes and critical messages when it exceeds 20 minutes, which should only exist occasionally. Frequent alerts against this counter may indicate a network or other issue (such as inbound ExchangeMER traffic) that directly impacts email delivery.

Notification choices include email alert to an email-enabled account (for example, an email Administrator) or invoke a script to take other action (for example, to add an Event to the Microsoft Application Event Log, where external monitors might detect it).