BES 4 to 5 migration best practice?

[davidphi]

Hi,

We've got a BES running at version 4.1.7 and want to upgrade to the latest version of BES 5. We have a BES with it's own local database and a BES Router in the DMZ. The environment has about 50 users, but a fairly complex policy setup.

What would be the best option for migration to the proposed environment?

As far as I can see it's either in place, which will have some downtime whilst the services are taken down, upgraded and then restarted (how much downtime would this be?) or a new bes environment alongside with a temp SRP ID and recreate all the policies and migrate the users using the migration tool.

Is this correct? Is there a better way to do it?

Thanks.

[TRlPPlN]

build a new BES 5.0 in your current infrastructure and use the transporter tool. use the export and import command for your policies. create a test user and associate a BB device to that test user. use the transporter tool to migrate that user. conduct several tests not just with one test user to be safe.

[TheScionicMan]

Yes, if you have the resources in your environment, I would second the idea of setting up a new BES and migrating the users and policies. Our BES is a VM which works very well.

If you don't have the resources, an install in place shouldn't take too long and should be fairly easy.

Don't forget to back up first, whatever path you take!

[NinjaRAT]

also, be aware of this issue with the tranporter, or you'll have intermittent users reporting they lost their contacts on their device. took me about a month to migrate 1200 devices and it wasnt until i finish did this start being reported. enable Trigger Slowsync in the transporter tool.

KB28462-After migrating users from 4.1 to 5.0 using Enterprise Transporter contacts disappear fom the Address Book

KB20760-Contacts are deleted from the BlackBerry smartphone after the BlackBerry smartphone user is moved to a destination BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 SP1 via the BlackBerry Enterprise Transporter

incidentally, RIM has known about this issue since at least sp1, but have yet to patch it. thanks RIM!

(in my experience only performing a wipe and reactivate works 100% of the time)