Hi Everyone,

Hope you can help me out, I've been doing a lot of searches both here and on RIM's site but haven't found a clear cut answer. I currently have two servers, one here and one in another country sharing a SQL db and running on version 4 and Domino 6.0.3 and about 300 users. We'll be adding close to 600 more users so a dr plan is needed pretty quickly. Wanted to get your feedback and maybe some tips on how best to do it.

My inital plan was to set up an additional server in both locations as a hot swap in the event of hardware failure. I was going to cluster the two servers and disable the BES tasks on the hot swap server. If there was a hardware failure on server one I would load the BES tasks on the hot swap server. I just read a tech note on RIM's site though saying that's not supported?

http://www.blackberry.com/knowledgecenter/livelink.exe/fetch/2000/8021/728075/728850/728953/Known_Issues_-_IBM_Lotus_Domino_clustering_not_supported_in_Blac kBerry_Enterprise_Server_4.0_Service_Pack_1?nodeid =1001861&vernum=3

How do you do your disaster recovery? My other thought was to build the hot swap and have Domino running with scheduled replication of all databases and then if the main BES failed bring the hot swap down, replace the server id and notes ini, change the server name and ip and bring it back up as the original BES.

What do you think is best? Any tips?

For my DR plan in the event of a total site loss I plan on creating replica's of the state databases on both the BES here and the BES in another country and do sourceless moves but then how do I go about the SQL db?

Thanks for any help you can give!

One more question Does anyone know if I need to buy BES licenses for the hot swap servers? The BES task wouldn't be loaded until the main BES is down.

as long as always only one bes task is running you can use the same license

The one thing you are forgetting about is the SQL Server unless you already have that clustered. If the SQL Server goes you are screwed.

We've been looking at this for awhile but wanted an automated solution so we are to use 2 products from Neverfail Group (http://www.neverfailgroup.com); Neverfail for SQL Server and Neverfail for BlackBerry (the Domino version is not release yet but we are working with them on the product).

Check this out...Rim doesnt support clustering for dr in an event of a failure but when we brought this up 2 years ago, they said thats the best way it would work and thats what they would reccomend off the books.

1. for SQL, set up a SQL Server at your DR Site, set replication of the critical besmgmt files you need. Configure it to be the same way (login, apps installed, etc).

2. For Domino servers, set up the cluster server at dr site with their own lotus id's and bring them up online and let them stay online for replication purposes. Install BES and copy all the State DB's to the proper directories.

3. On the desktop, keep the ini and id file of the Headquarter's bes server.

4. In an event you need to switch, swap INI and ID file and bring up domino server.... this is of course you change the dns address, ip address, make the changes you need on the server document when you create the cluster server (s).

We have been using this solution and its quite easy especially with 4.0.

Thanks for the replys! So it's really that easy to do? Just nervous about it I guess.

When I install the BES on the DR server should I have the main notes.in and server id on there and run the installation as if it were the main bes or should I run the install as if it were another BES coming up? Sorry, I know that might sound confusing.

It was as confusing when we came up with it about 2.5 years ago. Yes you are right, keep the original ini and id file in the directory, perform the upgrade to the latest version of the software, swap back the ini and id file (I keep both on Desktop in folders) and thats it....I keep domino up to keep replication alive for key databases such as names.nsf, state db's....look up microsoft for a tool called Robocopy...This works well when under pressure to copy files from one server to another

I am curious, have they gotten anywhere with the Domino/BlackBerry solution?