Deploying AND Updating 3rd Party app via BES 5
 

Hello,

On 5.01, SP2. ~3000 users across 5 BES servers, flat domain, MS SQL2005.

Deploying various 3rd party apps without any real problem. This issue we are seeing is this:

Scenario 1:

Load App to BES
Create SW Config, add app
Assign to activated user --> SUCCESS

Update app to new version
Job/Task is created, but FAILS Looking at the job/task status, the logic of what the BES is trying to do makes no sense (some of it at least).

--> Task1 ... install IT policy
--> Task2 ... install app (new version)
--> Task3 ... uninstall app (old version)
--> Task4 ... install IT policy

Task 1 and 4 make sense, but why would the logic be to install the new verison of the app, then uninstall the old version of the app. Would make sense to uninstall then install.

We have seen this on 2 specific apps that we have focused on in our testing.

Scenario 2:

Load App to BES
Create SW Config, add app
Create Group, add SW config
Assign Group to activated user --> SUCCESS
Edit Group to remove software. Wait XX mins --> SUCCESS in unistall
Edit Group to add new version of software. Wait XX mins --> SUCCESS with install

Anyone else use this method to distribute. This is crazy if this is the method to manage SW distribution via BES, especially for large groups of users -- I would argue this method would not realistically work as certain users would not be updated correctly (assuming some would be off-line or would fail and need to be rebooted, etc).

Thoughts anyone? RIM docs do not discuss this idea (updating an existing application). What am I missing?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

-bird

My initial thoughts...It may be premature to assume that the BES has faulty logic. You make the assumption that the update package you are pushing is correct from the vendor. While BES is not perfect, I've run across plenty of 3rd party apps that put together some sloppy apps once 5.0 was released.

Here is how I understand the process of 3rd party apps being pushed by BES works. You have the shared location of your app. You assign it to users/groups. BES pushes it out per s/w config and app control policy. BES periodically checks this same location and compares it with what is on the device. This is done to make sure that you have not changed a setting in the config or app control policy. One every 4 hours, if I recall correctly. It arrives to the device and installs. All is good.

Now the update...You get the updated files. You place them in the same location as the original files. BES, uses the same s/w config and app control policy to check the updated version with the version on the device. There is an ID that BES uses to check against the updated and installed version. Once it sees the change, BES will send the update to the device.

I've updated two 3rd party apps this way and I can't recall seeing Step2 and Step3 in that order, though it's been 6 months or more. I think I would have recalled something off like that, since I wasn't sure how it was supposed to work.

Just my thoughts. I would check with the vendor to make sure your update is compatible with your BES version. I know one of my apps had to get a hotfix after BES 5.0, even though I was "assured" it would work and it didn't.

Hope that helped? Maybe not. :-)