[ecctechservices]

I've been browsing these forums for the last hour or so, kinda new, so please let me know if I'm asking something that's been asked.

I have a client who was running SBS 2003, it had a hardware issue and crash. The guys here at the time restored it to a virtual machine, where it's been running since, kinda hanging by a thread.

Well the new year rolled around, and the budget came in to purchase additional hardware.

We'll now have two servers. One will be a DC, Exchange, App server. The other will be BES, SQL, and a couple other things.

While I'm pretty experienced with setting up windows servers and exchange in this small environment, I'm not as experienced with BES.

What pit falls am I going to run into when moving BES?

[stuwhite]

If you want to move your BES from the existing VM to a new box, can you supply lots of info for us so we can push you in the right direction. For example -

BES version
Current BES setup (number of users, anything funky it might be doing)
They were SBS (on a single box) but are they now going to full AD/Exchange etc (can't make out from your post but looks that way).

Basically if you tell us exactly what you have and exactly what you want to get to, we can give you more help. You said your second box will host "a couple of other things", you need to specify. Most of us on here would say that a BES should be for BES only, with SQL Server sharing the box at the most. What else you intend to put on there could make a big different to how things work. You may well want to have a third box for the other things, depending on what they will be.

A brand new BES installation is as easy as it gets, as long as all your Exchange permissions have been set right first. Moving your existing BES DB from one box to another (to preserve settings and avoid device re-activation) is more work but still not a biggie if planned right.

[CanuckBB]

It is also HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by MS to NOT run Exchange on a DC.

Your setup should have a server for Exchange, a server for SQL, a server for DC, DHCP, DNS, file serving, and maybe BES.

That is where running everything under VMWare ESX shines.

[gibson_hg]

If you move to a new Exchange Org in the process you will have to start from scratch with BES. The same DB cannot be used between Exchange Orgs, it cannot and will not work. Best bet is to uninstall the old BES, install it on the new hardware and activate your users again, you'll have to reactivate them anyways. Might as well start with a fresh BES.

When starting over you will have to make sure the new server has all the pre-reqs in place, go to BlackBerry Technical Solution Center and look for the install guide for the version you are installing. Also, set permissions for your BESAdmin account:

View Document

That doc will show you all the permissions needed. Then it's just a matter of installing the BES and activating the users. Not much to it really.

[stuwhite]

Wirelessly posted

Good call as ever gibson_hg. I totally missed the new org bit in the thread name.