BES 5 upgrade & JDBC connector config?

[Ketchup]

Hi all.
I have a BES 4.1 and want to upgrade it to 5.0.
The BES is on one server and the database is on a seperate SQL 2005 server. (we currently have about 70 users on it)

I can't find any information on how exactly to configure that JDBC connector. I've copied the files and read the JDBC help, but can't seem to get that working.

I want to make sure I have all of the prerequisites done before I start the in-place upgrade.

Am I overthinking this, or is it really as easy as just runing the setup for BES 5 and letting it do all the work?

Thanks a bunch!

[GlenB]

It ought to be as simple as running the BES 5 setup. You can run both BES 4.1 and 5.0 simultaneously from the same config database (providing the two BES servers are using different licences) but bear in mind that installing BES 5 against this database will update the schema, the old BES server will continue to work but all admin tasks will have to be done on the BES 5 server.

[GlenB]

Another couple of thoughts on this.....
I would definitely want to be certain that I had a full backup of the database before doing the install against the existing database - but I am a pessimistic sod :-)

RIM also released the Blackberry Transporter tool in the resource kit and the documentation states that it can move users from one Blackberry domain (i.e. BES and associated database) to another Blackberry domain without the end users having to Enterprise Activate on the new Blackberry domain. This would give you two completely seperate BES systems and allow you to trial the new system with a handful of users without impacting the existing BES infrastructure in any way.

[Ketchup]

Thanks for the info Glen.

It's hard to find any definitive answers on this. I will be doing an in-place upgrade of my 4.1 system. Of course doing a full backup of everything before!

[GlenB]

No problem Ketchup. I fielded a question from a customer last week regarding the same situation - customer wanted to leave 4.1 in place and install BES 5.0 against the same database - answering these type of queries is my day job but BES 5.0 is new enough that we are still seeing new queries :-S.

I called RIM tech support as I wasnt 100% sure of my facts and they told me that you can do an in place upgrade like this, the only proviso is being unable to do any admin from the 4.1 server

[khanbaloch]

hi Glen, wondering if you can help me as well please.
i have production BES 4.1sp5 installed on a server which uses a local SQL 2005 instance and db.
we intend to trial BES 5.0 on a separate physical server. if during install i chose a different sQL server and a new db, would that affect the current production BES 4.1sp5? we would like to keep for a while both 4.1 and 5.0 running with separate configs against a single exchange server.

[chmaro]

Originally Posted by khanbaloch

hi Glen, wondering if you can help me as well please.
i have production BES 4.1sp5 installed on a server which uses a local SQL 2005 instance and db.
we intend to trial BES 5.0 on a separate physical server. if during install i chose a different sQL server and a new db, would that affect the current production BES 4.1sp5? we would like to keep for a while both 4.1 and 5.0 running with separate configs against a single exchange server.

No it won't affect it. I ran 3 BES servers with their own DB (2 {4.0 & 4.1} against a Exchange 2K and one {5.0} against an Exchange 2k7) all was fine. The transporter tool works remarkably well as well to migrate users from an old server to the new server.