[Osh]

Evening guys,

Love my PB and I'm a big BlackBerry fan.

I have a 9900 (that I think is superb) which is connected to our BES. I've seen PB's attached to the BES and would love to do the same, how do you CrackHeads connect to your BES....??

Do you need Fusion to do this and is there a minimum BES version that a PB can connect to...??

Any help and advise much appreciated..


Osh

[CrackBook77]

Fusion is the answer. I will also assume that your not the IT guy either so you should talk to your IT team and ask them since depending on how many users have a PB it may not be feasible $$$ wise.

While you may use the PB without fusion, fusion is the best route as the PB doesn't directly connect to BES. This may be a whole other story when the 4g PB comes out though.

It's a bit bigger of a topic to have answered here so head over to the BB web site a read up a bit

[coppcopp]

If your just looking for email than just bridge it.
If you think you need native ?
Your probably on an outlook server ?
Your work probably has outside email setup. In a browser i can type "mail.mycompany.com" and access my work mail.
This should get you started just start reading the forums, happy hunting.

[Osh]

Morning guys and thanks for the answers

CrackBrook77: no m8, I'm not in IT I'm in sales (read I know nothing!). However we are a blackberry partner so we get free software - what minimum version of BES does Fusion sit on....??


Osh

[Angus_CB]

Blackberry Fusion requires a minimum of Enterprise Server or Express Server 5.0.3.
Read more info here.

[Osh]

Cheers Angus. Need to bribe our IT suckers guys to consider upgrading the BES and adding Fusion; hoefully they'll see new software equals shiny stuff to muck about with...


Osh

[Altarocks]

What are you looking for that bridge doesn't give you? It should give you email and calendar. What else is there?

[cletis]

Cheers Angus. Need to bribe our IT suckers guys to consider upgrading the BES and adding Fusion; hoefully they'll see new software equals shiny stuff to muck about with...


Osh

Sounds like you're still on BES 4.x? Normally, this would be a big deal, because it's NOT a free upgrade from 4 to 5 -- but you said you get free RIM software due to a partnership, so cost shouldn't be an issue.

[Osh]

Hi Cletis - i'm always woried about words like 'should' and 'if' - my old sales manager used to say to me 'IF' is a very small word with a very big meaning...

I'm not so owried about getting the software - its persuading our IT guys to load it. I just know they're going to come back with "our server is too old - we need a nice new shiny one"...


Osh

[singleturbog35]

NO Fusion is not the ANSWER!!

Fusion is just a front end that can manage BES, BDS and their UDS service in one console. Your Blackberry uses BES, Playbook and BB 10 will be using BDS. The UDS is the one that manages the iOS and Android devices. All three services are independent and can run without Fusion.

To answer your question, you need the BDS to manage your Playbook in a corporate environment. I have been running the BDS for over a month and so far it's ok. The BDS MDS connection only accept HTTP/HTTPS connection so if you think you can use Citrix to access your corporate network just like BES then think again. Also Fusion can only do basic management, so if you want to clear any pending data packet on your Blackberry, you still need to log into your BAS console to do any advance troubleshooting. So far RIM has failed to deliver all their promises... With Exchange 2010 using Active Sync now, there is nothing the BB can do that an Iphone or Android can't do. The BB10 will be using active sync and also ditching the MAPI concept because of MS Exchange so this will level the playground and I'm afraid RIM is losing its strong hold on the corporate world. I'm the Blackberry Admin in our firm and I handle all our users in Europe, Asia, South America and US offices and it hurt me to say this!!!

[pinkert11]

singleturbog35 is right on in this: "The BDS MDS connection only accept HTTP/HTTPS connection so if you think you can use Citrix to access your corporate network just like BES then think again." I have had the BDS and Fusion rolled out for a while. BDS works nice and does allow HTTP/HTTPS access to the corporate LAN. This is great for us as we leverage SharePoint quite a bit and it runs very smooth on the PB. However, I was expecting that other apps would also be able to connect via the BDS MDS. In the current state the MDS has a lot of catching up to do to get to the same state as the MDS on a BES. You can make VPN connections and push those to the PB but it is not as smooth as a BES MDS connection. To that, the VPN connection on the PG is kinda limited as well.

I really hope RIM gets the MDS in line prior to BB10 release, the sooner the better. They also need to up the anti on the policy side. The BES policy kills the BDS policy and controls. You can't even disable the camera or disallow the downloading of apps.

[Osh]

Singleturbog35/Pinkert11,

Thanks for replying guys. Now – considering I am NOT a techie (as stated earlier – I am in sales so no nothing!!) are the services you mentioned, above, available in BES 4.1.0 (which is what we are running) or can we just link the PB through to Exchange using HTTPS…??

Any help much appreciated


Osh

[Superfly_FR]

I'm no BES admin or whatever.
But from what I'm experiencing right now, bridging your PB to your 9900 will do the trick. You can set the native mail/contacts/calendar to access your Exchange server and rely on the phone connexion via bridge.