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Old 03-13-2012, 09:55 AM   #7
DarthBBerry
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Join Date: Jan 2007
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Default Re: Seeking BES Upgrade Advice

Quote:
Originally Posted by beev View Post
We're currently running 4.1.6 and need to go to 5.0.3..

Here's the plan:

Prep:
1)Create an image of the server for backup purposes
2)Create a virtual machine of the current server for testing purposes

Execution:
3)Purchase a beefy new server
4)Use the server's image to do a "universal restore" (we have some neat software that can do this), essentially moving everything from the old server to the new
5)Upgrade from Windows Server 2003 to 2008
6)Install the service pack to move up to 4.1.7
7)Backup and upgrade the Database (this step is a real grey area for me)
8)Install the upgrade to 5.0.3

Note: The BES software and the database reside on the same server.

I'd love to hear your guys' feedback and feel free to ask for more details of course, I'm just a novice at all this right now. I would hate to embarass myself and render the server non-functioning.

Hopefully the famous KnottyRope can lend me some advice as well.
Not that you're creating more work for yourself, but there's a much easier way:
Use the BlackBerry Enterprise Transporter Tool and migration kit.
You will have 2 total servers to deal with.
  1. Old BES 4.1.6 with BESMgmt database
  2. New BES 5.0.3 - Primary with BESMgmt5 database and BAS.
In an ideal situation, you need 4 new servers.
  1. New BES - primary
  2. New BES - HA
  3. New SQL
  4. New BAS
Quick summary, set up New BES (primary and HA) & new BAS on new beefy servers using New SQL server for your new BESMgmt5 database. This will give you a clean slate for BES 5 to work with.
Use the transporter tool to move your users from 4.1.7 to 5.0.3.
User the migration kit so your SRP doesn't die. (To use a Ghostbusters reference.... "Don't cross the streams. Egon says that's bad.")
Once everything is installed and folks are successfully moved, decommission the Old BES server.

You'll end up with a primary BES, a failover BES, a dedicated Admin Server and a dedicated SQL server.
Your users won't experience any downtime.

We did this process and migrated 100s of users with no downtime.

Recommended reading:
BlackBerry Enterprise Server Resource Kit - Manuals and Guides
KB10945-What is a BlackBerry Enterprise Server migration kit
KB22499-How to migrate the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 to new hardware using the high availability feature
KB21609-Overview of the BlackBerry Enterprise Transporter Tool migration process

PS: Knotty learned everything he knows from me. LOL
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DarthBBerry
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