I am researching the use of BlackBerry in my company. In one article I got from internet. It states that a copy of BES supports a maximum of 500 end users and requires a yearly maintence agreement to assure the latest version of BES.
Does it mean 500 concurrent users? or just 500 end-users? The total user base in my company is around 2000 sales. Does it means I need four servers/software or just only one?
Regarding the maintenance fees. How much for this? Did RIM upgrade the software frequently? Besides, does the development tools e.g. BlackBerry MDS Studio free of charge?
Any advice is very welcomed. Thx a lot
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I have no experience of the BES, only BlackBerry development. All of the development tools are free, however a signing key is required to make most useful programs, and that has a flat fee of $100 no matter how many times you need to sign the code.
There is no physical limit to the number of users you can have on a BES. 500 seems to be a recommendation that safely ensures you will have sufficient performance on the server.
How many users you can have depends on a lot of things. I have talked to people that have over 1500 users on a single BES, and I have heard others that have only 500.
If your users are strictly email users, then you can probably far exceed the 500 recommendation. If your users receive a lot of attachments, then you may want to stay close to the 500 (you also have the option to run the Attachment Server on a different system which would allow you to have more users on the BES). If your users are heavy internet users or will access a lot of internal systems, then you may want to keep the number of users under 1000.
My suggestion is you start off with a single BES and keep an eye on the performance of the server. As you add users and you notice a decline in performance, then its time to add another BES. If you can afford a second server up front, I would put the Attachment server on it which should allow you to have more users on the BES.