[Konsept]

Hey all,

I'm new to this blackberry server administration thing and I'm trying to get familiar with it as quick as possible.

A few things thats' been thrown around in my head that I want to get done and I'm just not sure how to approach it.

1st problem: Backup. How do I backup the blackberry server properly? Right now it's using the MSDE backend and this is something I want to push over to SQL database instead (this should clear up the evil RPC requests my exchange servers are getting).

2nd problem: Migration. Is there a proper document on how to go through with this? Keep in mind, we have 3 BES servers and they are all hosting their own MSDE database and I want this unified in some way so that it's just a centralized backup of the database.

3rd problem: High-Availability. How can I get this BES network so that it'll be on a high availability system? I'm thinking something along the lines of like clustering but not sure how to put things in their place with blackberry enterprise servers.

Any documents, links, webcasts, etc is greatly appreciated.

Hopefully I can have the right information by the end of this week to make a proper assessment when I finish planning out my Exchange 2007 deployment.

[alwayzurboy]

Originally Posted by Konsept

Hey all,

I'm new to this blackberry server administration thing and I'm trying to get familiar with it as quick as possible.

A few things thats' been thrown around in my head that I want to get done and I'm just not sure how to approach it.

1st problem: Backup. How do I backup the blackberry server properly? Right now it's using the MSDE backend and this is something I want to push over to SQL database instead (this should clear up the evil RPC requests my exchange servers are getting).

2nd problem: Migration. Is there a proper document on how to go through with this? Keep in mind, we have 3 BES servers and they are all hosting their own MSDE database and I want this unified in some way so that it's just a centralized backup of the database.

3rd problem: High-Availability. How can I get this BES network so that it'll be on a high availability system? I'm thinking something along the lines of like clustering but not sure how to put things in their place with blackberry enterprise servers.

Any documents, links, webcasts, etc is greatly appreciated.

Hopefully I can have the right information by the end of this week to make a proper assessment when I finish planning out my Exchange 2007 deployment.

Answers for 1&2:

http://www.blackberryforums.com/bes-...store-how.html

plus i dont recommend consolidating all three server DB's into one single. maybe others could shed some light on this but i just wouldnt do it.

Answer for 3:

Clustering is currently not supported for the BES, there are talks about 5 having clustering built in... which would be a great thing but its just not feasible right now. A knige edge cut over is probaby your best bet, you can find the more technical drill down on this from the blackberry technical center.

Hope i was of some help.

[Konsept]

Originally Posted by alwayzurboy

Answers for 1&2:

http://www.blackberryforums.com/bes-...store-how.html

plus i dont recommend consolidating all three server DB's into one single. maybe others could shed some light on this but i just wouldnt do it.

Answer for 3:

Clustering is currently not supported for the BES, there are talks about 5 having clustering built in... which would be a great thing but its just not feasible right now. A knige edge cut over is probaby your best bet, you can find the more technical drill down on this from the blackberry technical center.

Hope i was of some help.

Thanks!

So if I understand this right, as far as disaster recovery goes like my BES server has blown up and is on fire, etc...

If I have the database backup using the command osql -E to get the data, I can restore it anywhere?

Like I reinstall BES on another server with the same name and IP address and just do a restore of the database config file?

[gibson_hg]

The same BES name in the managermust be used, the machine name and IP are irrelevant. But you are right about the DB, it's all you need. Just restore and install the BES with the same BES name and you are back in business.

[hdawg]

Hey all,

I'm new to this blackberry server administration thing and I'm trying to get familiar with it as quick as possible.

IMO, the #1 challenge of all new BES Admins ... management wants it up and working 100% without any issues yesterday.

1st problem: Backup. How do I backup the blackberry server properly? Right now it's using the MSDE backend and this is something I want to push over to SQL database instead (this should clear up the evil RPC requests my exchange servers are getting).

If you want to continue to use MSDE, start from the sample script I created

Moving from MSDE to SQL Standard / Enterprise won't necessarily fix RPC problems you're having with Exchange; be aware of that.

2nd problem: Migration. Is there a proper document on how to go through with this? Keep in mind, we have 3 BES servers and they are all hosting their own MSDE database and I want this unified in some way so that it's just a centralized backup of the database.

First thing is to get the databases from MSDE to that central SQL server ... KB12247 - How to move from an MSDE database to a Microsoft SQL Server database

Then, Increase mail agent limitation on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server when moving from MSDE to SQL Server

Then, perform a DBMerge

You'll not only have your database on a central server, but they'll be in a central database!

3rd problem: High-Availability. How can I get this BES network so that it'll be on a high availability system? I'm thinking something along the lines of like clustering but not sure how to put things in their place with blackberry enterprise servers.

RIM offers nothing out of the box for automated HA / DR ... you might look to: Neverfail - Continuous Availability: Disaster Recovery: Data Protection: High Availability or MessageOne for something to help with that. Rumor is in BES 5 we'll see some HA, but we're still a long time away before we see it.

[Konsept]

Originally Posted by hdawg

IMO, the #1 challenge of all new BES Admins ... management wants it up and working 100% without any issues yesterday.

I know... my problem is that I just don't know how to approach this beast. There's far too many people that rely on this system (that's currently up and running) that I just wouldn't know how to do anything with it if a problem arised.

Right now I'm reading up like mad to figure out how to safely transition from BES 4.1 sp3 to BES 4.1 sp4.

Keep in mind, I have 3 BES servers in different geographical locations.

Seeing how this isn't your typical Microsoft product, I have this feeling that I can't just easily go to setup on each machine and let it guide me through.

Any advice/strategies to accomplish this is uber appreciated...

If you want to continue to use MSDE, start from the sample script I created

Moving from MSDE to SQL Standard / Enterprise won't necessarily fix RPC problems you're having with Exchange; be aware of that.

Cool script, but how does it actually work? The commands just don't make any sense to me... remember I'm the rookie of all rookies here.

First thing is to get the databases from MSDE to that central SQL server ... KB12247 - How to move from an MSDE database to a Microsoft SQL Server database

Then, Increase mail agent limitation on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server when moving from MSDE to SQL Server

Then, perform a DBMerge

You'll not only have your database on a central server, but they'll be in a central database!

I was going to do this but the other guy in this thread advised against the central database theory. It was "alwayzurboy". So now who is right and who is wrong?

RIM offers nothing out of the box for automated HA / DR ... you might look to: Neverfail - Continuous Availability: Disaster Recovery: Data Protection: High Availability or MessageOne for something to help with that. Rumor is in BES 5 we'll see some HA, but we're still a long time away before we see it.

I see...

[BBcharel]

We are running blackberry enterprise server on a vmware esx cluster with 4 physical machines on a mirrored san (which makes it more high available)