Hi All,
I’ve been tasked with upgrading our mail system from Exchange 2003 to 2007 & have some questions regarding BES. We are currently running BES 4.1.6.9 with 120 users & one Exchange 2003 Active/Passive cluster.
Luckily I have been able to buy new hardware for the upgrade so I plan to install Exchange 2007 alongside Exchange 2003 & slowly migrate the mailboxes from 2003 to 2007. Once the migration has been completed Exchange 2003 can be decommissioned.

With regards to BES I think I have the following options:

1. Continue to run with the current version of BES & run both the Exch2003 & Exch2007 mailboxes on this server. Is it possible to have one BES serving two different Exchange servers? If so is the process of moving the users within BES easy if indeed they do need to be moved in this scenario? Would a device wipe be necessary?

2. Install the latest version of BES (V5.0?) on a new server. Leave the Exch2003 mailboxes on the current BES & as the users migrate to Exch2007 move them over to the new BES. Once all the users have been migrated to Exch2007 the current BES can be decommissioned. Once again what would the process be for moving the users from the existing BES to the new BES? Would a device wipe be necessary?

I hope this makes sense?

Any help/advice would be appreciated!!

Thanks
Andrew

When you setup the Exchange 2007 server you need to give the besadmin accounts rights to administer mailboxes on the server before you move any mailboxes using the command below.

add-exchangeadministrator <service_account_name> -role ViewOnlyAdmin

get-mailboxserver <server_name> | add-adpermission -user <service_account_name> -accessrights GenericRead, GenericWrite -extendedrights Send-As, Receive-As, ms-Exch-Store-Admin

Then you should stop the Blackberry services on the BES and replace the exchange system manager with the colloborative data object 1.2.1. This can be done before you setup the new exchange server as the files are backwards compatible.

Read: KB14502 - Migrate the BlackBerry Enterprise Server from Exchange 2000/2003 to 2007

You can keep both up and running with a single shared BES; just follow the procedures in the KB article above.

I have performed the above with much success, and moved my own mailbox to the Exchange 2007 server. The only issue I have at the moment has to do with "Accepting" or "declining" meeting requests. On the device such an action ends up with a red "x". The meeting can be accepted from the outlook mailbox just fine.

If you apply this registry fix the problem seems to go away:

1. On the computer, click Start > Run and type regedit.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\O utlook\Options\Calendar.
3. Right-click the Calendar folder and click New > DWORD Value.
4. Type "DisableMeetingRegeneration" for the new key name and press Enter.
5. Double-click the new key and type "1" in the Value data field of the Edit String screen.
6. Click OK and close the Registry Editor.



Question:
Is it better to have the BESAdmin mailbox on the Exchange 2003 or the Exchange 2007 side of things?

2007.

Thanks hdawg.