So a client of mine has two BlackBerries (one Nextel and one Verizon) and he want's to access all email, contacts, tasks etc from both devices via their BES. I went though a bunch possible solutions and have actually been using an ExMerge script I wrote to "sync" the mailbox to a dummy user and forwarded his mail (it worked but was a pain to maintain). But from time to time it bombs out so today is the day where I bite the bullet and throw up a 2nd BES server for his single device. I have read on here that this will work so that is my plan.

Question:

Do I use the existing database for the install or do I have to create a new one?

What else should I be aware of during the 2nd install?

Anyone have additional advice?

Cliff Notes:
Want to Install 2nd BES Server
Single Exchange Server
Advice?

Thanks in advance!

You're bringing up a 2nd BES server so you can have 2 BES servers access the same mailbox?

It won't work ... information is stored in hidden folders (such as the users encryption key) within the users mailbox regarding the BES that she/he is connected to. Having 2 BES connected to the single mailbox would cause the 2nd one to overwrite the data the first one has put there and you'd end up with a single working BB at best.

Is there any other workaround you can suggest then? Can you point me in the right direction? Everything I have read (on this forum) said this was possible and that the user was going to try it out and just never followed up.

Where has it said this is possible? Maybe I'm missing out on something here, and if I am, I'm terribly sorry ... but I can't see of a way to make the sync happy happy like this.

The only work-around I could think of would be to use ActiveSync or GMM on another device.

Maybe I misread it all and they were saying it works for multiple BES accounts on a single device... I will go look it over again...

I believe you misread those posts.
You can't have more than 1 BES account on a single device.

I have a feeling you may have read these with people setting up forwarding to deliver messages to multiple mailboxes, or for people to use the BIS to pop mail ... you could use the other device to use push OWA ...

Nothing perfect, but you've got some options.

You can have two BES accounts on a single device by renaming the Desktop service books (via Desktop Manager). However, the limitation is that the second BES cannot use the same BES database, the same Exchange mailbox, or the same BES service account. The mailboxes can be within the same Exchange organization.

Anyhow, to get back to your question, with it being the same Exchange mailbox, it's not possible.