Okay, so I'm curious. I have about 450+ Blackberry users on my BES. I'm running 4.0. Has anyone noticed a delay in reconcilliation/OTA Enterprise Activations or just plain slowing down? I'm using a SQL db and have over 3.5 gb of RAM.

Am I seeing this delay because of the amount of users on my server?

Is the SQL Server remote?
How many Exchange Servers?
How many Messaging Agents have been initilized by BES?
(Easy- Check logs for MAGT1,2,3 ....)

That many users in one BES shouldn't be a problem, are you Exchange or Domino? Do you have any other services running? What are the PING times between the BES and Mail Server? How big are the log files?

I believe that we have 3 Exchange servers. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to most of those questions. (I'm currently asking someone who does). I'll repost once I know the answers.

Email reconciliation can take up to 20 minutes.
Where is the delay in OTA activations? does the activation message sit in the Inbox for a long time? Does the activation stall at 86% - 88% for a long time? How large are these people's mailboxes? How big is the database? If you restart the BES and/or SQL server do things speed up?

There's so many different variables that can play a part of this that it's hard to say where a slowdown could be.

Zro

Well let me just tell you where I was going with may questions:

450+ users , more than 3 Exchange Servers,using MSDE
if the above is true,upgrade to SQL server

MSDE limits BES 's ability to spawn a new Mail BoxAGenT if required for thread optimization to 2 Mailbox agents only

If using SQL, ignore above

Then

Look for ping times to Exchange Servers and find out if any of the Exchange server was in an unavailable state for a long time?

RIM recommends ping times less than 35 ms.

if does not apply,

Look for Memory Leaks in the Event and BES Debug logs on the Windows server hostng BES

Does reboting the BES fix the issue for few days?

Good one. Didn't even think of that.

And blackberry1 is 100% right about MSDE. You can only have 8 concurrent connections to it. There is a concurrent connection checker on the MS website that can help you check for that.

But the more info you can give on the environment, the more people can assist you with possible solutions.

Zro

We upgraded from MDSE to SQL when we upgraded the server from 3.6 to 4.0. It does seem that when we reboot it fixes the problem every now and again.

I know that when it stays stuck on 88% or so that it is because of their address book or calendar entries. I had a few that wouldn't get past "activating.....". If I cancelled the EA and tried again, it sometimes fixes the problem, but not often.

If I can get it to the "waiting for services" then it's not bad time, it's just getting it to that point that is driving me bonkers.

I'll check the PING times to see what those are.

If rebooting fixes the issue,memory leak cannot be rules out.
I say investigate possbile memory leak.

Do existing users experience message latency aswell?

Check the BES MAGT log for keywork " ALLOC " if you find it post the snippet ..

One server has a Ping time of <10ms

I don't mean to sound ignorant, but do you mean the Position or Equal Allocation HASH?

Our users do not experience message latency, just reconcilliation latency. I sometimes notice that my device hasn't connected to the server in 10 minutes, but then again in that 10 minutes I've not received an email...

Position or Equal Allocation HASH?

Where do you see that?

So if ping time is less than 10ms- Exchange Latency can be ruled out
If there is never a message latency- Memory Leak can be ruled out too

Reconcilations works on a 20-100 rule (20 mins or 100 changes) in general,atleast that is what RIM says.

I don't see a problem with you BES then.(from the facts produced)

If EA is the only thing that is slow, it may just be because of user's mailbox sizes,No# of folder,address book size or corrupt address book.

EA there can be a latency problem getting it started. Once it starts, it's fine. It's just moving from "Activating this persons e-mail" to "email enabled" that is the problem.

Also the latency from email reconcilliation can be days and not minutes. I know there is a possible 20 minute rule on that...

I guess I should tell the BB users that they will have to push reconcilliation by using "reconcile now"