[Fatboy40]

I've not installed a trial of it yet but I've gone though the documentation and the available videos and don't like what I see in regards to the administration side of BES 5.0

It looks like a massive step backwards, with having to search for users etc rather than seeing a whole list displaying the quick facts we want to see (applied policies etc).

As this is the future of BES I suppose I'll have to get used to it but what do others think ?. Is there a way of seeing the key stats we need on all users immediately with the monitoring tools or will some of us be clinging onto 4.x for as long as we can ;)

[penguin3107]

I miss BlackBerry Manager.
Doubtful it will return, and hopefully BAS is still considered by RIM to be in its infancy and will improve over time.

[fadmin]

Wish we had both but I guess it won't happen.

[Fatboy40]

Originally Posted by penguin3107

...hopefully BAS is still considered by RIM to be in its infancy and will improve over time.

I forgot about the nice new acronym for us all to learn

[knottyrope]

does this mean its BAS ackwards?

[SEP]

im getting the hang of it. not so intuitive and not helped by its dodgy help files

[Frank Castle]

I have spent the past week setting up BES 5 and recreating my software configurations and groups (I have over 100).

I do not like the lack of seeing users initially. It's also confusing how admin roles are also listed in the user list and you "Add a blackberry" to the account.

It's somewhat like the first BES 4.1 with no right click and everything is menu driven. I'm getting used to it but I don't think it's as easy to pick up as Blackberry manager.

Back to configuring HA

[noname]

Originally Posted by SEP

im getting the hang of it. not so intuitive and not helped by its dodgy help files

The help file is useless and probably not updated as well from its beta. The steps on creating a Domino messaging account for BAS admin is totally non-existence. I had to figure it out myself.

[nymigny]

Originally Posted by Fatboy40

It looks like a massive step backwards, with having to search for users etc rather than seeing a whole list displaying the quick facts we want to see (applied policies etc).

Just installed our 1st BES 5.0 in our environment and I do agree BAS is a massive step backwards... Documentation is also terrible

[JRV]

Found a couple bugs today (5.0 MR3):

1. When I sort by Last Contact Date, I can only view page 1 (of 2). When I click on the links to other pages, it just reloads page 1.

2. The Last Contact Date doesn't update when I press F5 when I sort by Last Contact Date. I think it actually did the first few times and then it stopped. When I switched back to Display Name sort, the dates updated. Maybe a bug; maybe I just needed to try again in a new browser window.

Still haven't found where Pending Messages is hidden.

Biggest disappointment is that I had hoped it would not need local admin permissions to install, so the people that provision BBs would not need IT help every time there's a new SP/MR. But it does need elevation to install. I'm no web developer, but it seems like the portion that interfaces with BES wouldn't need an install at all, any more than an online banking web site does. Only the part that interfaces with the device should reasonably need an install. And the folks who provision our BBs don't need the device portion at all.

[besadmin23]

Originally Posted by JRV

Biggest disappointment is that I had hoped it would not need local admin permissions to install, so the people that provision BBs would not need IT help every time there's a new SP/MR. But it does need elevation to install. I'm no web developer, but it seems like the portion that interfaces with BES wouldn't need an install at all, any more than an online banking web site does. Only the part that interfaces with the device should reasonably need an install. And the folks who provision our BBs don't need the device portion at all.

JRV, I think you have a big missunderstanding. Based on your comment it sounds like you think you need to install BAS like you did the BB Manager... This is not the case. BAS is a web administration service for the BB Domain. You only install one or possibly two or three BAS nodes depending on your company size and then you can hit the URL from any machine within your company. It's a web interface into the management console.

It takes elevated permissions to install because it is a portion of the BlackBerry Domain and must run as the BESAdmin account. You aren't installing it on every machine you want to manage from are you?

[freakinvibe]

JRV, I think you have a big missunderstanding.

No, I don't think so. The piece of software JRV is refering to is the Internet Explorer plugin you need to start the Admin Web Site. This plugin is just needed when you want to connect a device, but nevertheless you can't start the admin page without it. It would be great to have a choice wether you want that plugin or not.

Also it would be great if we could use Firefox and other browsers to do administration.

[nobody7290]

I want not only other browsers, but also other browsers on other platorms.

Using a web management GUI instead of a standard application for a multiple platform has the drawback that it might not work as smooth as a native application, but, it is compatible with every standards compliant browser, which makes your application availible for a broader customers base.
The deployment the applications is also faster, because code has to be written and maintained once - similar to the advantages you have when you develop a java application.

This is ok, also, RIM could later develop something native for Windows/Mac/Linux/???

Creating a Web-GUI and binding that to a single platform and single browser is just wrong by design, because this gives you the drawbacks but not the advantages of a Web-GUI.

[JRV]

Yes, of course. We have only one BES, and only one BAS. I'm referring to the web console. I should not have called it BAS, I suppose.

Symantec Endpoint Protection introduced a Java-based web console that has become one of its most despised features. It even has some of the same bugs as BAS! Sentiment on symantec.com/connect runs heavily against the new console. No one ever thought Symantec Antivirus's (SEP predecessor's) poorly-implemented MMC console would be missed, but it is.

A few versions ago, then-Veritas offered a web console for Backup Exec. It nearly duplicated the Win32 UI, but its performance was so poor no one used it. It was quietly retired.

Java potentially allows the console to run equally poorly on everything. And I don't care whether Java saves RIM development cost. BES is an expensive product: A few more dollars for my share of a usable console would be money very well spent.

And don't get me started on having to maintain various supported JRE versions for different products. BES 5 installs 2 different versions all by itself! If you're gonna use Java, you need to use the latest, with all the latest bugfixes and security patches. And no "static" JRE nonsense. You use what's there, and you don't break when the "family" JRE uninstalls the previous version while installing the new one. I don't want the old, buggy, insecure Java on my system one minute longer than necessary.

BES 4.0's MMC console was not best of breed, but it was better than 4.1's proprietary console, and infinitely better than 5.0's Java console. BES's Java console will get better--it can't get much worse. But it will never be as good as a well-implemented MMC.

Give me a native-code MMC I can load into my custom MSC files any day.

[fadmin]

BES 5.0 administration, a step backwards ?

_______________________________________

Wish it was just single step rather then steps backwards. Never had high opinion about the BBM4.1 before I started playing with BAS, but comparing to BAS? It rocks!