BES Licensing Thread

[Nielo]

Hi,

I have a Test Enviroment at home with an Exchange Server and a BES 4, which I obtained using the 'Express' offer.

I also got myself a 10-CAL license of ebay for some dollars.

Now as Version 5 is out, I don't know how to get a Key for that, upgrading for a few hundred dollars is not an option.

What version will todays express offer give me?
Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance
Nielo

[knottyrope]

BPS is at 4.1.4b today.

or

look at astrasync.com

[nobody7290]

Did you mean you cant spend a few 100$ or there is no upgrade for a few 100$ ?

Currently there is a 5.0 License for 899 on sale. Dont know, if this is for real.

[ivory1029]

Greetings all.

Our agency is at BES 4.1.6.22 for GroupWise, and are soon moving to 5 when available. My licensing question is thus: is there a way to manage licenses in a more granular fashion...say, as associated to groups or other user criteria, as opposed to just an enterprise solution? Thanks for any responses.

[Nielo]

Originally Posted by nobody7290

Did you mean you cant spend a few 100$ or there is no upgrade for a few 100$ ?

Currently there is a 5.0 License for 899 on sale. Dont know, if this is for real.

If I am not mistaken to get this option you have to get support first, which is not an option for a testing environment.

Will Version 5 also be offered as BPS? Any idea how long it took RIM earlier to bring latest version to BPS version.

Thanks
Nielo

[nobody7290]

That item which was sold on ebay, it did not look like you have shell out additional $$$$ for support. The seller did compare it directly to the same license you would get if you get the item from RIM for more then 3000$ (which includes one TS incident).

Sounds strange but not impossible. The risk is yours, especially if you do not live in the same country as the seller.

I dont think (but this is pure speculation) that there will be an offer soon like a BPS 5.0. If it is true, that BPS4 will still be offered for free, but wont be supported /no patches, then, it can take even longer - no patches means 0 cost for RIM. The only maintenance they have to do is for V5 and Enterprise V4.

[jaygsy]

Hi

Recently I have downloaded the BlackBerry Professional Software free software and obtained 1 user license got it all setup and working.

I then called my carrier Cable and Wireless Guernsey to change my BIS plan to BES and they say I have to pay £50 for a RIM License but I explained I already had a free one but they still insist I have to pay £50 for another.

Is this correct are they just trying to sell me another handset license ?? is it a waste of £50 or is this another type of license

Simon

[kmills]

Good Day. I am currently running Enterprise Edition ver 4.1.16 and have a question about our licenses. When I go to License management, it only shows 1 license in the window starting with BESX35-... However, it says I have 879 licenses with 775 used and 104 free. Why is it not displaying these BES CALs and is there anywhere I can view them? Does the BES and RIM talk with providers and do CAL management in the background?

On another Enterprise edition ver 4.1.20 it is showing all the BES CALs in the license management window. We are about to consolidate these servers in to one and I was curious how I get a listing of both servers BES CALs. I appreciate your time and knowledge.

Kevin Mills

[hdawg]

Originally Posted by jaygsy

Hi

Recently I have downloaded the BlackBerry Professional Software free software and obtained 1 user license got it all setup and working.

I then called my carrier Cable and Wireless Guernsey to change my BIS plan to BES and they say I have to pay £50 for a RIM License but I explained I already had a free one but they still insist I have to pay £50 for another.

Is this correct are they just trying to sell me another handset license ?? is it a waste of £50 or is this another type of license

Simon

If you have a CAL you don't need to pay for another. You do need to pay for a BES data plan however.

[hdawg]

Originally Posted by kmills

Good Day. I am currently running Enterprise Edition ver 4.1.16 and have a question about our licenses. When I go to License management, it only shows 1 license in the window starting with BESX35-... However, it says I have 879 licenses with 775 used and 104 free. Why is it not displaying these BES CALs and is there anywhere I can view them?

I'm guessing because you've got servers of different versions against the same database. Whenever you have a shared database with multiple BES you should have all BES at the same patch level ... if not, you need to only use the BlackBerry Manager from the servers using the newest version.

Use a SQL client and do SELECT * FROM licensekeys against your BESMgmt database and you'll see the keys.

Does the BES and RIM talk with providers and do CAL management in the background?

Not as of this posting.

On another Enterprise edition ver 4.1.20 it is showing all the BES CALs in the license management window. We are about to consolidate these servers in to one and I was curious how I get a listing of both servers BES CALs. I appreciate your time and knowledge.

Kevin Mills

See above.

[kmills]

Thanks for the quick response HDawg. Please see below for more info.

Actually, they are two diffferent Blackberry Enclaves. One is for one organization and the other is a second organization. We are going to be merging them in the near future and the problem arises because on the one that is going away I can't see all the BES CALs. When I first started looking at it, I thought it was an enterprise license. however, talking to the administrators, they never bought an Enterprise License. They have all the CALs filed, but they never input them into the server. Is there something I can do to check if the CALs are in the database? Is there an option that when it isn't selected doesn't display them in the license management? The one enclave that doesn't display them say it is Enterprise Edition with 879 licenses, 775 used and 104 available.

I am trying to prepare these enclaves for the merge, but it is not giving me all the info I need. Am hoping someone here has the info to get me where I need to be. Again thank you for the assistance.

Kevin Mills

[hdawg]

SELECT * FROM licensekeys will give you all the keys in the database.

If the key is in the DB it should display it.

[withanhdammit]

Looking at RIMs website for pricing, I see that I can buy BES5.0 for $3,000, but the upgrade is $1,000. I'm assuming that since I already have BES4.1 I will only need to purchase the upgrade.

The second part of this is about the CALs. I have about 100 +/- CALs for the 4.1 BES, will I need to purchase new CALs for the 5.0, or will my 4.1 CALs work in the 5.0 environment?

Thanks!

h

[knottyrope]

All the old CALs will work with BES 5.0

[hdawg]

Originally Posted by withanhdammit

Looking at RIMs website for pricing, I see that I can buy BES5.0 for $3,000, but the upgrade is $1,000. I'm assuming that since I already have BES4.1 I will only need to purchase the upgrade.

Correct.

The second part of this is about the CALs. I have about 100 +/- CALs for the 4.1 BES, will I need to purchase new CALs for the 5.0, or will my 4.1 CALs work in the 5.0 environment?

already answered.

[TargetIT]

Originally Posted by knottyrope

All the old CALs will work with BES 5.0

God I wish MS would get on board with this practice...

[knottyrope]

Originally Posted by TargetIT

God I wish MS would get on board with this practice...

you mean M$?

[TheEricHarris]

Hrm. I can get 5 BES CALs for $300 on eBay BIN. Hell, there is even a 50 for $500.

That's $60 a pop, much better than the $83 I'm paying from CDW.

Anyone else bought CALs off eBay?

[pcorneillie]

Just a question that even sales don't give me a clear answer on.

I buy a BB 9000 and with the serial I can download Express with 1 CAL.
All is installed and works well.

I buy a second BB 9000. So I can download Express again with 1 CAL.
Can I add this CAL to the existing Express installation or do I have to buy a separate CAL for this?

[knottyrope]

Support will not look at your BES/BPS until they are removed.
Upgrades may fail with more than one free CAL.

Buy the CALs. They are not free and you are stealing

[pcorneillie]

Originally Posted by knottyrope

Support will not look at your BES/BPS until they are removed.
Upgrades may fail with more than one free CAL.

Buy the CALs. They are not free and you are stealing

What do you mean?
At be.blackberry.com (slash) services (slash) professional slash express.jsp they clearly say that 1 CAL is included in the download.
Also at be.blackberry.com (slash) services (slash) professional (slash) express.jsp#tab_tab_download you have to enter the PIN of your device so it is tracked and linked to the device (the CAL I suppose).
But then again, can I download this a second time for my second device and use this CAL for the first downloaded Professional Express?

[knottyrope]

Same still applies. After your first free CAL you must buy the rest of your CALs.

[pcorneillie]

OK. I supposed so but that was and still is not really clear on the info on those pages.
Thx

[knottyrope]

It clearly states in
BlackBerry

One copy of the BlackBerry Professional Software, with one user included (expandable to 30 users with the purchase of additional CALs)

What part do you not understand?

[svaldes]

We have and SBE BES with 5 CALL of 5 users each.
Our carrier just give us a new BES with new SRP ID and KEY and a new 20 users CAL.

The question:
Can we convert our current installed SBE BES to BES with the new SRP ID and Key and the new CAL?

Thanks.

[nobody7290]

if this is a SBE 4.1.x and not a BPS you should be able to convert your server by only adding the license key, then you should have a full bes.
Worked for me.

If you got a BESv5 license, you can install the new license key, and then do an in place upgrade to the BESv5.

[svaldes]

Thanks.

I delete all the keys in the DB an then install the new CAL and done, just that. I change the SRP ID and Key just in case.

[nobody7290]

You should be able just to add the new key. Then have 25 licenses avilible.

I dont think, the SRP must be changed. (I dont have in depth knowledge, but i think it is just an uniqu identifier for your server, not related to the licensing)

[Branners2008]

I think this was answered way back at the start of this thread but I want to be sure.

Can you 'over licence' a BES Small Business server? It has a 15 CAL limit but can you put more than that on without it complaining?

thanks
JB

[knottyrope]

Originally Posted by Branners2008

I think this was answered way back at the start of this thread but I want to be sure.

Can you 'over licence' a BES Small Business server? It has a 15 CAL limit but can you put more than that on without it complaining?

thanks
JB

Only 15 sorry.

[Branners2008]

Originally Posted by knottyrope

Only 15 sorry.

Thanks.

So it should actually refuse to take the licence code?

I think we have Small Business BES running 22 licences at the moment which is what worries me.

thanks

[knottyrope]

Maybe it is professional. Look at the other sticky to see your version
http://www.blackberryforums.com/bes-...e-running.html

[Branners2008]

Thanks, I followed the instructions on that link and the Support Info page says

Blackberry Professional Software for Microsoft Exchange

Use the following information blah blah
Publisher: Research in Motion
Version : 4.1.4 (bundle 143)

And I think I can see where my confusion comes from, in the licence manager it says I have Small Business licences, but they must be from when we had small business for Lotus Notes. We upgraded last year to Exchange and changed BES at that point.

So it looks like we have Blackberry Professional which should have a 30 user limit. Phew, thats better.

[voda_black]

....

[voda_black]

Cant seem to edit the above entry.....

A search did not give me 100% clarity on this - so will ask again:

A friend of mine has a BPS Cal. Can he use this in an install of BES SBE? Basically, he has the install files of BES SBE - but you can only sign up for BPS Express now. BES SBE having the advantage of being able to get HTML emails....

[knottyrope]

You need a SBE SRP to install it.

SBE CALs are different. you can upgrade to BPS but BPS CALs do not work on SBE

[voda_black]

Thought that would be the case. Thanks for clarifying anyway!