How Offline Address Book Works In Exchange 2007

A clear understanding of how the offline address book works in exchange helps an admin in troubleshooting the related issues. This
article explains how oab works in the 2007 edition.
The Exchange System Attendant service is responsible for the generation of oab. This service is available only on a server that has
the mailbox role installed. The SA invokes a dll file called oabgen.dll. To find out the server that is generating the offline address
book, launch EMC > Organizational Configuration > Mailbox > OAB tab.

Once you have made too many changes in exchange, you can update the address book by right clicking and selecting Update. By
default, oab is updated only once in 24 hours at 5am. You can customize the update schedule depending upon your requirements.

Where exactly are these oab files stored?
On a default installtion, the oab files are stored in C:\Program FilesMicrosoftExchange \ServerExchangeOAB. This folder is shared
so that it can be replicated to the CAS server for web distribution.

How does oab end up in public folders?
Outlook 2003 and previous versions get oab from the system public folders in exchange. The oab generation server opens the oab
folders and updates the file. The oabgen.dll file is responsible for connecting to the public folder.
How does Outlook 2007 get oab files?
The server that has the client access role installed (CAS server) is responsible for providing oab files for outlook 2007 clients. For
that, CAS server runs a service named Microsoft Exchange File Distribution Service which copies the oab files from the mailbox
server (ExchangeOAB folder) to the web distribution point in the CAS server.

Where is this web distribution point, one might ask?
The web distribution folder is a folder in the file system where the copied oab files are placed. The default location is C:\Program
Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess\OAB.

The web distribution point is updated once in 8 hours. If you want to force an oab update, restart the Exchange File Distribution
Service.
Now that you know how oab works and are replicated from the mailbox server to the system folders and web distribution point,
you will find it much easier to troubleshoot any issues relating to the offline address book.

How offline Address books works in Exchange 2010
For Users where Outlook is in Cache mode, they got to have their Outlook Address book when they are offline.
Outlook downloads the latest updates on Offline address book, whenever they go online.
So that they can use their updated address book when they are offline.
Earlier Exchange Versions Outlook Connects to the Mailbox Server
But From Exchange 2010 Outlook Connects only to the Client Access Server.
Offline Address book Generation Server will be a Mailbox Server.
Where You can See Below the Generation Server (If all roles are installed on the Same box)
The work flow remains the same

Offline Address book has Two Methods of Distribution.
For Outlook 2010, Outlook 2007, and Outlook 2003 SP2 clients it uses OAB version 4

1 .Web-Based distribution
2. Public Folder distribution
Earlier Version like Outlook 2003, Offline address book are Downloaded via Public Folders,
So If you dont have Outlook 2003 In your Environment, you can go ahead and disable Public Folder Distribution
From Outlook 2007 , Outlook Downloads Offline Address book using the OAB URL from the IIS Manager(Web-Based Distribution)
Offline Address book Updates its self Depends on the update Schedule
** This Updates the Items only on the Mailbox Server ** Where Users Download offline address book from the Client Access Server

Now Depends on the Update Time, LZX files will get updated on the Mailbox Server.
**Offline Address book data are saved in the form of LZX files**
They are located at
By Default C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ExchangeOAB

Every OAB will have their own GUID value,
To Find the GUID Value of the Default Offline address book,
You can Customize the name of the oab as per your requirement

When Right Click on the Offline Address book if you Click on Update , The LZX files should get updated on Mailbox Server
** Data Modified Changes to Recent Date Lzx files are updating **

Now Outlook 2003 Users should be able to download their Offline address books from Public Folders
Now here Goes the Web-Based Distribution much efficient and must faster.
Now These Files are Copied to the Client Access Server where Clients can download from the Client Access server
For that Reason this Folder is Shared where Client Access Server can access it and Copy it.


* Background Intelligent Transfer Service does this Job

They are not Copied much frequently, They Copy the LZX files to the Client Access server depends on the Polling Interval
You Can Find the Settings for the Polling Interval as shown below -

By Default The polling interval is 480 minutes

You can find the OAB url , which is used for web based Distribution. in the URLs tab
By Default internal URL doesnt use HTTPS.

Microsoft Exchange File Distribution Services does this job in the Client Access Server

Now the Same Set of Offline address book files copies over to the Client Access Server
They are located at
By Default C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\OAB

As Now Offline address book are web based You can find a OAB Virtual Directory in IIS

It Uses Windows authentication by Default.

To Confirm That Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 Clients are using Web Based Distribution
Hold your Ctrl Key and Right Click on the Outlook icon Click on Test Email AutoConfiguraion

Now Using AutoDiscover , You can see the Offline Address book URL as listed below with the Correct Guid Value

Client will Download their Own OAB depends upon their Client Settings in Database Properties



How offline Address books works in Exchange 2003
Let's begin and start with some basics about Offline Address Books
An Offline Address Book is a container that stores a collection of Offline Address Lists. Administrators can configure Offline
Address Books (Figure 1)

Figure 1: Default Offline Address List
Outlook users can choose which offline address lists they want to download (Figure 4). Users who work offline connect to Exchange
Server computers and download Offline Address Lists to obtain information about other users in their organization.
When an Administrator creates an Offline Address Book, the address list will be converted to a separate set of files and stored in an
Exchange Public Folder. Offline Address Books typically contain at least one address list that represents the global address list
(GAL). Users who are working offline with their Outlook clients can use this global address while they are on the road.
All Offline Address Lists are contained under CN=Offline Address Lists, CN=Address Lists Container,CN = <Org Name> in Active
Directory.
OAB versions
Exchange Server 2003 has several different OAB formats:
OAB version 2
The OAB Version 2 folder contains Offline Address Books with ANSI characters and is used by Outlook 97 through 2003. Each
object in the system folder represents a created Offline Address Book (depending on the interval of OAB generating). Outlook
clients have only to download the delta changes since the last full download. Changes between the last full download are saved in a
file called Changes.oab.
OAB version 3
Exchange Server 2003 introduces a new Offline Address Book format called Offline Address Book v3a. Offline Address Book v3a is
stored in a system folder named OAB Version 3a. OAB Version 3a adds support for Unicode format. These Offline Address Books
are used by Outlook 2003. When Outlook 2003 logs on to the Exchange Server it checks the existence of the OAB Version 3a folder
and uses the Unicode files if they are available.
OAB version 4
OAB v4 was designed to help remove some download issues with the OAB. Some of the new OAB v4 features are:
Generates local specific indexes based on the OAB.
Uses LZX compression
Uses a new Binpatch logic for applying multiple days worth the diff files
Has sort orders for ambiguous name resolution (ANR) and browse files
Note:
OAB 4.0 is only available if you use Outlook 2003 Service Pack 2.
Figure 2: Location of Offline Address Book folders

OABInteg
OABInteg is a command line utility which can help you in troubleshooting OAB generation problems, and problems with Outlook
clients that have problems with downloading an Offline Address Book from an Exchange Public Folder store. OABInteg simulates
two processes related to Offline Address Books:
How Microsoft Outlook 2003 connects to a public folder store to download the Offline Address Book.
How the OABGEN process on the Exchange server connects to the public information store to recreate the Offline Address Book.

Figure 3: OABInteg syntax
Henrik Walther has written a great article about this helpful utility at www.msexchange.org. You will find this article here.
Outlook 2003 and OAB
Outlook 2003 uses the Offline Address Book to provide offline access to the global address list or other address lists. Exchange
generates an Offline Address Book every night and places them into a special public folder (a system folder). (Figure 2). Offline
Address Book files are compressed before they are added to the Offline Address Book system folders. Outlook checks the system
periodically for new Offline Address Books and download the required files.
Outlook 2003 with Cached Mode and the Offline Address Book
Outlook 2003 with Cached Mode enabled uses the Offline Address Book by default for all operations. This is useful in situations
where the client is offline but can result in some confusion if the user uses Outlook 2003 in LAN environments and the Offline
Address Book is not up to date. You can modify this behaviour by modifying the Registry on the Outlook Computer(s):
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Outlook\Cached Mode New REG_DWORD
DownloadOAB. This setting can have the following values:
0 The offline address book does not download automatically.
1 The offline address book uses the Download Full Items download mode. This is the default setting.
2 Download the offline address book in any download mode, but download a differential update in the Header only download
mode.
3 Always download the offline address book and a differential update in one of the following download modes: Download
Headers and then Full Items, Download Full Items, and Download Headers.

Figure 4: Download Offline Address Book feature in Outlook 2003
Planning the Deployment of Offline Address Books
If you are using Offline Address Books you must be careful planning a possible impact in your Exchange Organization. Some of
these factors include:
The size of each Offline Address Book in your Exchange organization
The number and frequency of parent distinguished named changes
The number of Offline Address Book downloads
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol address mismatches
The overall number of changes made to Active directory.
Other conditions that require a full offline address book download.

Planning Offline Address Book Size
The size of the Offline Address Book depends on several factors. One of the primary factor is the number of users in the Offline
Address Book. The size of Offline Address Books can vary from a few megabytes to hundreds of megabytes. The following factors
can affect the size of the Offline Address Book:
The usage of certificates in your company
Every PKI certificate range from 1 KB to 3 KB. If you have many users participating in your PKI, you must add the required space
for certificates to the Offline Address Book.
The number of mail recipients in the Active Directory Service
If you use many external contacts, please keep in mind that these objects also count for the Offline Address Book size.
Number of Distribution Groups in Active Directory
The size of the Offline Address Book also depends on the number of e-mail activated objects in Active Directory and the number of
Distribution Groups.
Size calculation example:
The full Offline Address Book size is approximately 0.5 MB per 400 users. If there are user certificates in the offline address book,
this will add approximately from 1 to 3 KB per certificate. The size of the offline address book and the available network bandwidth
directly relate to the time it will take for all Outlook clients to download the offline address book.
If some Outlook clients are attempting downloading the full Offline Address Book at the same time, this process can take much time
for all downloads to complete. For example, if an organization has a 20 MB offline address book, with 100 Outlook 2003 clients, this
equates to 2000 MB of data to download. Using the full bandwidth of a 256 Kbps link, it would take about 18 hours to transfer the
2000 MB download.
Minimizing Offline Address Book Download Effect on Network
If you have limited bandwidth or some regional offices with slow WAN link, there are some tips you can deploy if you are using
Exchange Server 2003 SP1 or higher:
Limit large sets of full offline address book downloads
Your first mission is to limit large sets of full Offline Address Book downloads where ever you can. You should review the
conditions which require a full Offline Address Book download (large changes to Active Directory, Mailbox moves and many
more).
If many Outlook clients are downloading the full Offline Address Book daily, this may cause high bandwidth utilization. If clients
always load only the delta changes after the full OAB download, bandwidth utilization should be no problem. In addition, because
the Offline Address Book is downloaded individually by each Outlook client, the impact on the bandwidth used will increase based
on the number of Outlook clients downloading the Offline Address Book. One example: The organization's full Offline Address
Book size is 20 MB, and 40 Outlook clients at a remote site try to download the full Offline Address Book, 800 MB of data will be
downloaded across the WAN to the remote site.
Filter certificates to limit the size of the Offline Address Book
With Exchange Server 2003, the Offline Address Book service (OABGEN) has the ability to filter unwanted attributes from
displaying in the Address Book. One of the most interesting features to filter unneeded attributes is to filter certificates, because
every certificate needs about 1-3 KB storage in the Offline Address Book.
Certificate filtering is enabled by default in Exchange Server 2003 SP1, and no other actions are required to use this feature. It is
possible to control certificate filtering by modifying the registry.
How to configure certificate filtering for Offline Address Books:
Open Regedit on the Exchange Server Computer:
Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeSA\Parameters New REG_DWORD - OAL
Invalid Cert Behavior Possible values are:
0 Filter out expired and invalid certificates (default)
1 Filter out only expired certificates
2 Do not filter the UserCertificate attribute
Note:
You must start the Exchange System Attendant after enabling the Registry Key.
Consider using the No Details offline Address Book for remote Outlook clients
The "No Details" Offline Address Book is an option for Outlook clients that don't need all information in the Address Book. The "No
Details" Offline Address Book version is small and contains only the display name, the primary SMTP address, office location, mail
nickname and surname.
Consider a remote Offline Address Book-only server for remote Outlook clients
An Exchange public folder server can be installed at a remote site to host an Offline Address Book. All remote clients at this remote
site download the Offline Address Book from the local Exchange public folder server. This option is only useful in environments
with a number of Exchange users that makes the investment of Exchange Servers in remote sites economically.
Implement offline address book throttling
One other solution is to use the throttling feature to prevent overloading an Exchange Server or the network. The throttling
mechanism was first introduced in Exchange Server 2003 SP1. This feature allows administrators to limit the network bandwidth
used by offline address book downloads by setting a bandwidth threshold. You must patch the Registry to enable OAB Throttling.
Read here on how to do that.
Conclusion
After reading this article I hope you have a better understanding about Offline Address Books, the impact for your Exchange
Organizations and your Outlook clients. With some planning in mind you should successfully implementing Offline Address Books
in your Exchange Organization.