Hi all

Is it just me or is there no clear statement of what constitutes the above? I am building a BES environment that will over time add up to 1000 users I suspect. Over the comings 6 months though i expect it not to surpass 300.

I want to keep my build very simple and have all components (DB held remotely however) installed on 1 BES VM with 2-4 Virtual CPU's and up to 8GB RAM. The backend storage is ISCSI based and our I\O should be fine (I may well baseline this anyway just to be thorough). I will then have a "standby" BES VM for failover.

2 questions really,
1) would 1000 users be considered small-scale
2) Does this design sound alright?

I have read a great deal about seperating the BAS from the BES but I really struggle to find clear reasons why and in which situations it is worth doing so.

Any advice gratefully received.

p.s. just checked my ISCSI and currently running 2500 iops accross entire SAN, capable of well over 20000 so I think iops shouldn't be an issue

Personally, I think you're over-spec'd.
Since your database is remote, I don't really see then need for more than 1 CPU on the VM and about 2-4GB of RAM.
Should be able to handle 1000 users with no problem at all.

BAS likes to eat RAM, so I assume that's why you're seeing suggestions about hosting it separately. I think with your setup you can get away with putting all components on a single VM.

Kewl, over-specced is good in our environment but I will temper it slightly.

On an unrelated topic Penguin if you have a moment. I haven't yet determined if we will require the functionality that MDS integration and the Instant messenger services provide, but I dont want to have to mess about with instaling components at a later date considering the process that this involves (Removes components from BES, then installs all "selected" one. I appreciate having the standby alleviates this issue but even so). Is it prudent to install all components in that case and just disable the services you dont intend to use until required? "Sharepoint" is the thought flocking in my mind because they want SharePoint integration with BES and I don't have time at the moment to figure out what that requires. Is the MDS integration service required for this? If not, i cant think of any other reason we would need the MDS tool (I'm not intending to develop custom apps for instance).

Sorry for the hijacking, no need to reply if this is poor form.

Tom

No, you don't need MDS-IS for Sharepoint integration. MDS-IS is only used for developing and deploying custom written BlackBerry applications.

For Intranet access via device BlackBerry Browser, you only need MDS-CS (MDS Connection Service) and that's part of the base installation for BES. It's a small component that can go on the same VM.

If you're thinking of offering Enterprise Instant Messaging (such as Microsoft OCS) then you'll also want to install the BlackBerry Collaboration Service.

Thank you Penguin, is there a mechanism for awarding points as with other forums? Your advice has shored up my knowledge nicely.

No, there isn't. I wouldn't accept them or participate in an points program anyway.
That's not why I'm here.

Appreciated. Well if you want any tennis coaching and if I'm ever in the states

Teach him a good back hand.

Also to keep in mind. I'm not sure how Hyper-V handles it, but I know that for VMWare, more vCPUs is not always better. The hypervisor waits until all the vCPUs are available before processing a request.