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Old 01-09-2009, 06:14 PM   #1
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Default This may sound silly...

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But what is the usual requirements to become a BES admin.? I've been supporting blackberries for 2.5 years @ an AT&T call center. To be honest I like this job but wish it would pay better. So I was curious to see if I would have the skills to become one or not. Also working on retaking courses on the BB training website. Had done awhile back but lost my acct.
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Old 01-09-2009, 06:19 PM   #2
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Not a silly question, I have been thinking along those lines myself lately. I believe there is formal cerification that you must pass, but I'm sketchy on the details. I'll leave it the "more infomed" posters here to pick up where I'm leaving off...
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Old 01-10-2009, 09:43 AM   #3
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There a few certifications out there now, one for a System Admin and another for Admin/BB device support.

I've started supprting my agency BlackBerrys/BES a while ago. There is alot of good knowledge in RIMs KB articles, plus on this forum.

RIM also has training class around the US.. I will going to BES 4.1.6 training at the end of this month.
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Old 01-10-2009, 09:47 AM   #4
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I agree this is certainly not a silly inquiry

I have pondered a path like this as well
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Old 01-10-2009, 11:02 AM   #5
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The only requirements are what the company who's hiring their next BES admin want really.

As SteveO86 has said there's a few certifications RIM offer, and pleny of training courses, so it's probably best to have a flick thought the RIM site and see what best suits what you want to do.

Personally I've just booked myself onto a few ceritifcation exams for Feb, so fingers crossed for me!
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Old 01-10-2009, 01:19 PM   #6
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The classes are about $849 (US)... They run for 1 day.

I am probably going to schedule the exam in Feb after I take the 2 classes and use some the topics they go over.

(Definitly not stupid inquiry since many people are looking into this and actually persuing this as we speak.)
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Old 01-10-2009, 06:40 PM   #7
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I shall continue in my courses then online. and see where time leads me...taking training for Windows Mobile too just to be even better educated
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Old 01-10-2009, 07:06 PM   #8
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Definitly it's good to have knowledge about more then one technology especially with IT.

What type courses are you taking online? (if you don't mind me asking)
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Old 01-11-2009, 08:29 AM   #9
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I was lucky enough to be the lone guy who supported Blackberry here so as it grew my role became larger. At first I managed all deployments, user setup and once we got over 500 users I joined the email team (as they owned BES). The person who oversaw BES never really cared learning it so I took that over and pretty much live Blackberry / mobility 24x7 and now we have over 3,000 users.

It depends on what aspect of mobility you want to work with. If you want to work on BES I'd strongly recommend you get experience with email related systems (exchange, notes) as well any related services (spam management, enterprise fax, email clients etc). I lucked out and just was in the right place when this was taking off (2001). Now I'm sure there are companies out there that are looking for dedicated mobility staff and all things point to as mobility continues to be larger companies will have a seperate mobile professional group that supports all phases of mobility:

procurement
infrastructure
device / user support
mobile application development (via 3rd party or hand coded)

The Blackberry certifications will definately help you and show you understand the technology but the late 90's rush of paper certified people made the weight of that lose value.

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Old 01-11-2009, 09:30 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jletendre View Post
I was lucky enough to be the lone guy who supported Blackberry here so as it grew my role became larger. At first I managed all deployments, user setup and once we got over 500 users I joined the email team (as they owned BES). The person who oversaw BES never really cared learning it so I took that over and pretty much live Blackberry / mobility 24x7 and now we have over 3,000 users.
That kind of were I was a few months back, I've had BB for personal use for a while now and my boss/colleagues kind of left it to me.. However we are decent sized agency but I don't think we will ever have that many BlackBerrys lol. So far they got me managing all this BlackBerry/BES/almost all the Lotus Notes issues, I suppose it's a matter of time before they start pushing some Domino stuff off on me to lol.


Quote:
Originally Posted by jletendre View Post
but the late 90's rush of paper certified people made the weight of that lose value.
Is that how it happened?
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Old 01-12-2009, 10:37 AM   #11
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About the payment... Actually we (blackberry support professionals) have a good remuneration in this area? Here in Brazil I didn't find an expecific function to support a BES enviroment, and I don't know if will gonna be nice to work with this. I'm new with this job (BB Supporting) and i would like to commit in BES studying, but i'm confuse about the future of this technology. Can you tell me about this function there in your countries? Does many people works with BES? Its a very competitive market?

Thanks
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Old 01-12-2009, 06:08 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by felipeduamaral View Post
About the payment... Actually we (blackberry support professionals) have a good remuneration in this area? Here in Brazil I didn't find an expecific function to support a BES enviroment, and I don't know if will gonna be nice to work with this. I'm new with this job (BB Supporting) and i would like to commit in BES studying, but i'm confuse about the future of this technology. Can you tell me about this function there in your countries? Does many people works with BES? Its a very competitive market?

Thanks
I'm in the UK but supporting a BES here and in the US, and users worldwide. I can only really comment about my area but generally the previous comments hold true for here. That is, mostly you aren't a mobility admin, you are a messaging admin who does mobility, coz it's messaging . Yes I know some strictly mobility guys in the UK but not many that I have come across outside of huge corporations who can afford that function.

They tend to be messaging guys who either do the mobility when they can fit it in (like me) or who get so overwhelmed with mobility, they evetually get to do that full-time. I would love to do mobililty full time but have never seen the job advertised in my area, it's always an add-on to messaging. I think that as long as you have a solid understanding of the messaging infrastructure behind the mobility (as jletendre says), paper is never as important as experience. We always take provable skills over paper due to the ease with which the paper can be bought.
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Old 01-13-2009, 05:31 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stuwhite View Post
I'm in the UK but supporting a BES here and in the US, and users worldwide. I can only really comment about my area but generally the previous comments hold true for here. That is, mostly you aren't a mobility admin, you are a messaging admin who does mobility, coz it's messaging . Yes I know some strictly mobility guys in the UK but not many that I have come across outside of huge corporations who can afford that function.

They tend to be messaging guys who either do the mobility when they can fit it in (like me) or who get so overwhelmed with mobility, they evetually get to do that full-time. I would love to do mobililty full time but have never seen the job advertised in my area, it's always an add-on to messaging. I think that as long as you have a solid understanding of the messaging infrastructure behind the mobility (as jletendre says), paper is never as important as experience. We always take provable skills over paper due to the ease with which the paper can be bought.
It's true, but we don't have an administrator. I would like to know if would be nice to be a mobile admin. So, there are many people there who works just with mobile support... I didn't know.
Thanks
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Old 01-13-2009, 05:46 AM   #14
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I'm kinda with stuwhite and jletendre here. I started out as a Domino Admin and Designer, pure and simple. Then BBs came along, the CEO said "I want one" and I had a BES server thrown at me. It's grown and grown and now is rooted into the business. It still falls under the messaging category for my users though.

Learning BES and BB is only half of the equation, you need a firm understanding of all components of the messaging system, be that VoIP, IM, collaboration and email. Users want all of it on BB, and nowadays it is possible. It's all very well to be a BES Admin and add IM to the BES, but your users will come to you asking how it works, and why X is different in their mail client. It helps to know the whole infrastructure. Thus why I would never try and fix an Exchange BES - my hat is firmly in the Domino camp. Not because I am MSoft hater or anything like that, just that I have always worked for Domino companies. Domino is my "thing".
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Old 01-13-2009, 05:49 AM   #15
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I am sort of the same as stu. I am the second in line Domino admin and initially management wanted some form of mobile email and after trying something else and discovering roaming data charges were too high we tried BBs.

The BBs have just worked and it has sort of been left to me to watch it and manage new users as they appear. So far not very many and in the current climate I don't see many new ones for a while.
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Old 01-13-2009, 08:16 AM   #16
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So I got it! It's needed I study more about messaging and IT services in to become a BES admin. Thank you guys for the explanation!
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Old 01-13-2009, 08:49 AM   #17
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BES Admin exclusive for me. I have some experience in Domino messaging but nothing in the Domino admin circle. It's just a baseline understanding of how and why it works, but not actual hands-on admin work.
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Old 01-13-2009, 08:51 AM   #18
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BES Admin exclusive for me. I have some experience in Domino messaging but nothing in the Domino admin circle. It's just a baseline understanding of how and why it works, but not actual hands-on admin work.
And you know something, you were the first pure BES Admin I ever met, lucky bugger! I am pretty sure it's coz they don't trust you with anything else though mate :->.
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Old 01-13-2009, 09:20 AM   #19
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Wow, I didn't know that being an exclusive BES admin was rare.
I'm also one and have to say I really like it.

I have an exchange background and have also done networks and hardware. I was lucky enough to just kind of fall into it when my company purchased a BES with left over budget money that had to be spent. Like someone else said....right place at the right time.
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Old 01-13-2009, 09:59 AM   #20
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Wow, I didn't know that being an exclusive BES admin was rare.
I'm also one and have to say I really like it.

I have an exchange background and have also done networks and hardware. I was lucky enough to just kind of fall into it when my company purchased a BES with left over budget money that had to be spent. Like someone else said....right place at the right time.
Oh man, another one for my list . Yeah like I said to the OP it may just be over here and I guess it's the size of the country as well. I know they exist but I only know mobility-only guys here, never met a pure BES Admin here (unless I did at WES and then got drunk and forgot you, sorry).
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