[troy12n]

This is my first post here, so excuse my ignorance if this is common knowledge. I am a long time BES user, from the early 4.0.x days in 2005 using Groupwise to now using 4.1.6 for Exchange. We migrated our Enterprise email system from Novell Groupwise 7 to Exchange 2007 in March 2009, and set up BES 4.1.4 at that time, have since upgraded to 4.1.6.

My "DR Plan" under Groupwise was to physically pull a hard drive out of our existing BES server (was NOT a domain member), put it in another server at our DR site, and turn it on, contact RIM for the IP address change on the SRP and it worked.

When implementing BES for Exchange a year ago, there were many differences in the architecture as it relates to Exchange and it's reliance on Active Directory, also the fact that it does not need to sit in the DMZ as previous versions did. So during the implementation, we did not plan for a DR component.

I have sort of formulated a plan, and wanted to know if it would work or not, or your thoughts on it.

I want to clone our existing BES server with Ghost. Bring the "DR" server online NOT connected to the network, remove it from the domain, re-name and re-SID it, set all "blackberry" services to manual, then connect it to the network, re-join it to the domain. At this point we will have a "BES" server at our main datacenter, and a "BES-DR" at our DR datacenter. Both have BES configured identically, but the services on the "DR" box are stopped (maybe even disabled).

We have SQL replicated to a SQL server at our DR site, so the databases are always in Sync.

The plan to activate will go something like this:
1. Stop redirection on all devices
2. Wait about 15 minutes
3. Shut down the "prod" BES server
4. Shut down the "prod" SQL server
5. Bring online the "DR" SQL server (make any relevant DNS changes)
6. Bring online the "DR" BES server
7. Start BES services on "DR" BES server
8. Call RIM, notify them of IP address change for our SRP
9. Wait some amount of time???
10. Re-Enable redirection on devices

Thoughts on this?

[troy12n]

My concerns are specifically if somewhere in the SQL or AD configuration, there are references to the BES server name or not, I dont want to hose my AD or Exchange or SQL environment by trying this.

[TargetIT]

My one and only thought is you don't have to tell RIM anything, just ensure the same SRP doesn't connect to RIM at the same time. Our internet here fails over all the time to another IP and no issues whatsoever.

[troy12n]

Originally Posted by TargetIT

My one and only thought is you don't have to tell RIM anything, just ensure the same SRP doesn't connect to RIM at the same time. Our internet here fails over all the time to another IP and no issues whatsoever.

Ok, great. At one point in time, if a different IP was discovered by RIM, they would automatically disable your SRP until you called them, maybe this has changed, if so, that would be great. I am aware that the SRP cannot be online at 2 places (IP's) at the same time.

My bigger concern is the re-naming of my BES server and it's implication on the configuration and connection to the database. Does anyone else have any input on this?

[knottyrope]

You are basically doing a knife edge cutover wich can be used for a cold BES DR.

My notes when I did it.
http://www.blackberryforums.com/bes-...e-cutover.html

[troy12n]

Yes, I am not looking for a warm standby, cold is fine

[troy12n]

Interesting you used Windows 2000, that seems kind of odd, as it is out of support now from a Microsoft perspective, will not support Exchange 2007 and I would imagine that RIM will be dropping support for it very soon.

[knottyrope]

Its actually advanced server 2000.

You can run BES 5.0.1 on server 2000 and connect to a Exchange 2007 server.

[troy12n]

I am surprised the Exchange 2007 admin tools installed on Windows 2000 which I think I remember being a prerequisite for BES, maybe not.

[knottyrope]

Only need CDO 1.2.1.

[southwestcomm]

You can always contact your Sprint rep and get a temp SRP and CAL's to build, bring up and test with.