BES 5.0 and Exchange 2010
 

Recently I have deployed some servers with the Exchange 2010 beta running on Server 2008 for testing the beta before it goes public. Currently RIM does not officially support Exchange 2010 with the BES but I was wondering if anyone had gotten or seen a working instance of BES and Exchange 2010.

Currently BES 5.0 will connect to Exchange 2010 with no problem in cdomapi32.dll however when I try to EA a user the user doesn't recieve the full activation email and the BlackBerry device shows: Activating ...
Retrying...
Retrying...

Then it gives a generic error. I have looked into this issue and BlackBerry has suggested it is because the EAP.dat file does not get to the users inbox. It does, however the nicely formatted activation email doesn't seem to.

Do any BES experts either know what I might be doing wrong or can blatantly tell me a reason why Exchange 2010 wouldn't work on BES. E14 just seems so similar to 2007 in terms of UI and Infrastructure.

I appreciate any help I can get.

Currently no chance
 

Hi,

I am interested in using BES5 with E14, too. The problems are known to MS and RIM.
Be patient afaik a working version of both E14 and BES will be available soon :-)

Greetings,
Neo3000

Did you properly setup permissions per the 5.0 install guide? ...

E14 just seems so similar to 2007 in terms of UI and Infrastructure.

Umm ... yeah maybe UI; that's like saying Windows ME is like XP.

Well I think the biggest difference between the two is the Exchange 2010 (from a management perspective) is alway remote. When you load up the Exchange Management Console even on the same server as the Roles it accesses Exchange 2010 as if it was on another server. I know this because I had a huge Exchange 2010 beta issue where changing the certificate wouldn't let me access EMC.

And in terms of permissions. Yes I did do them properly. It is not my first BES Install either (and I have redone this BES and E14 twice) so I thought it might be something more then coincidence.

does anything show up in the BES logs with regards to the activation? if the message is just sitting there its either an E2010 thing that hasn't been implemented in BES yet, or permissions aren't properly set.

From what I've heard through the grapevine, E14 will be officially supported with SP2, which is due out early next year (likely around WES time frame). Exchange Calendar Web Services, Exchange Web Services, no direct access to the mailboxes, etc. If you can get it working with BES 5.0 or BES 5.0 SP1, please let us know :)

Well I am rebuilding my BES 5.0 tomorrow for the last time and this time going to make sure every single permission is perfect. There may have been an error before.

In terms of SP1/SP2. I didn't even know there was an SP1 released for BES 5.0 yet.

After installing BES 5.0 and verifying permissions today I can report that I cannot get it working with Exchange. When the BESAdmin tries to send an activation email it just never ends up in the users mailbox.

Send As Right for BESAdmin
 

Have you made sure you have send as rights on the BESAdmin user?
You can check this by typing
get-mailboxserver <Exchange2007> | get-ADpermission -user <BESAdmin> | Format-List

I can't set 'send as' rights for my BESAdmin user for some reason, how did you go about doing that?

I am currently working on the same thing, I don't see any reason why this should not work.

Regards

SendAs permission
 

Thats a good point. When I run the command I do not see "SendAs" listed.
PS] C:\Windows\System32>get-mailboxserver MAIL | get-ADpermission -user BESAdmi
n | Format-List


User : LIFETECH\BESAdmin
Identity : MAIL
Deny : False
AccessRights : {Self, WriteProperty, GenericRead}
ExtendedRights :
IsInherited : False
Properties :
ChildObjectTypes :
InheritedObjectType :
InheritanceType : All

User : LIFETECH\BESAdmin
Identity : MAIL
Deny : False
AccessRights : {ExtendedRight}
ExtendedRights :
IsInherited : False
Properties :
ChildObjectTypes :
InheritedObjectType :
InheritanceType : All

User : LIFETECH\BESAdmin
Identity : MAIL
Deny : False
AccessRights : {ExtendedRight}
ExtendedRights :
IsInherited : False
Properties :
ChildObjectTypes :
InheritedObjectType :
InheritanceType : All

User : LIFETECH\BESAdmin
Identity : MAIL
Deny : False
AccessRights : {ExtendedRight}
ExtendedRights :
IsInherited : False
Properties :
ChildObjectTypes :
InheritedObjectType :
InheritanceType : All

Were you having an issue with the SendAs on the Exchange server or on AD?

UPDATE: It will work
 

On Tuesday Microsoft announced the Release Candidate for Exchange Server 2010 which is feature complete. Previous to this, the public beta would not work with any other versions of Exchange. The RC will work with 2003 OTB and will work with Exchange 2007 SP2 (unreleased) when the Service Pack comes out. The good news is that the service pack is coming out early next week. This means you will be able to deploy Exchange 2010 RC (and direct upgrade to RTM is supported) and also deploy 2007 for the BES to interact with.

My only question to senior BESAdmins is what roles will be required for the BES to communicate with 2007. Just the mailbox role?

You'll need the CAS role too as there is no direct client <> mailbox server communication ... it all goes through a CAS

Thanks.

So CAS 2007 SP2 and Mailbox SP2.

I will let you guys all know how it goes and details of my install.

Or would you be able to get away just with a CAS role in 2007 and get away with using the 2010 mailbox? (To reduce server load)

Oy, sorry ... I read your question incorrectly.

For Exchange 2007 you only need the mailbox role. BES doesn't need a CAS role to communicate with an Exchange 2007 mailbox server, as you can talk direct MAPI/RPC to that server.

For Exchange 2010 you'll need a CAS to communicate with a mailbox server as there is no direct MAPI/RPC communication with a mailbox server ... all goes through a CAS.

Sorry for the confusion.

OK. Thanks. So for my current environment I will be using a 2007 MB server for communication to BES. But when BES has a SP upgrade and it natively supports 2010 and I remove the 2007 servers I do need a MB and CAS minimum for communication to the BES.

correct.

So you're going to respond back on Tuesday to let us know if it worked or didn't work? :)

I have to wait until Microsoft releases Exchange Server 2007 SP2. They said "early this week". So I hope they will release it today or tomorrow. If they do I will probably have it up by Thurs/Fri. So if they are on time I will respond by the weekend.

it is out now http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...b-2cc9afe3216a

Any word on if RIM will be releasing a SP to support BES 4.1 with Exchange 2010 (E14)? Or will people have to upgrade to 5.0 SP2 in order to go to E2010?

FYI: Exchange 2007 SP2 was released.

Thanks for the info. I checked an hour ago and It hadn't been released.

It was released on 8/24

I highly doubt we'll see support for Exchange 2010 in BES 4.x.

Hmm. Just while installing SP2 into my 2010 Environment it gives me an error saying it is not supported. Has anyone else had this error?

Weird because I never saw the post on msexchangeteam until today. It took them a bit to report it.

yeah msexchangeteam posted it today ... it was released yesterday however. MS typically doesn't get the announcements everywhere out as quick as the bloggers

I believe once you are in an Exchange 2007 only or Exchange 2010 only, you can't install a previous version. I'm pretty sure that's the case with trying to install a E2003 server in your E2010, but haven't seen anything, but I suspect it's true, that you won't be able to bring up a E2007 server in a E2010 environment.

Found it:
Coexisting with Exchange 2010: Exchange 2010 Beta Help
"After you deploy a new Exchange 2010 organization, you can't add servers that are running earlier versions of Exchange to the organization. The addition of earlier versions of Exchange to an Exchange 2010–only organization is not supported."

Sorry dude, beta is beta, and if it's RC, waiting a week could have saved you time, but think of it as practice :)

Yeah. I am running the RC.

Hmm, now I am going to see if I want to redo my whole organization...or just wait for RIM to release a SP.

be mindful of course, that's beta info, not the RC, and not pretaining to what e2007SP2 is, they're still updating the info. It would seem another site mentions that E2007SP2 is the same schema level as E2010, but that may not necessarily mean you can install a previous exchange version.

I'll try to be more vague and uncertain in my future posts...

You won't. 4.1.6 MR7 is out and that's the last of the line for the 4.1 series.

In a greenfield deployment you can't go backwards. If you had 2003 or 2007 in the environment when 2010 was deployed then you can keep adding 2003/2007 servers until you remove them all.

Don't run the RC in production, it isn't meant to. RIM doesn't support 2010 RC either. I know a couple folks that got it working, but with caveats so it isn't even worth going through how they did it.

We've been using 2010 for over a year as we're a member of the beta progrma within Microsoft and BB support is one of the #1 things people are screaming for from RIM in order to speed up pre-RTM deployments.

Says who?

You likely won't see anything from RIM until at least RTM, maybe not even until GA. E2010 is still RC. The code can change. While RIM is most likely working on it, E2010 is still subject to change.

Has anyone managed to get a 2007 SP2 + 2010 RC1 environment working with BES 4.1.6 or 5.0?

This was the solution I was going to deploy and test until I found out I cannot deploy Exchange 2007 SP2 because my AD topology already had 2010 RC installed (oldest versions need to be installed first).

Liamdye,

I've been following you on a lot of the same forums i'm on (MS forums, exchange, etc.) and you and I are kind of in the same boat on our end goals. To answer your question, I had 2007 SP2 + 2010 RC1 + BES 4.1 coexisting and unfortunately when loading the MAPI profile app and selecting the exchange server, typing in my 2007 server would resolve immediately to the 2010 server. I didn't spend too much time playing (mainly due to hardware restraints on the VMs) as my primary goal was to migrate fully to 2010 and decommission my 2007 SP2 server (as I was on '08 R2 for all my servers).

If you ever come across anything, i would love it if you could also shoot it my way too and i'll be sure to do the same.

Cheers,
Garrett

Ok thanks for that help about the SP2 not working so I won't waste my time and redo my organization for nothing. I just don't get why 2010 has changed that much that doesn't allow BES to work with it. RC doesn't seem to have made any difference does it? Because I only tested with Beta. (Running RC now, haven't tested with BES 5.0 yet).

Read more about Exchange 2010 ... Exchange 2010 no longer allows direct access to a Mailbox server role, all goes through a CAS.

Thus completely making the idea of using an SP2 server as an inbetween Exchange 2010 and BES 5.0 completely irrelevant and useless?

SP2 2007? Like I said; architectures are completely different.

Try using 2 separate BES and 2 separate BES Admin accounts. ... but share the same config database.

Yes. Because you said how everything goes through its CAS it's irrelevant to have a 2007 SP2 server in between BES and Exchange because Exchange 2010 wants to talk to BES directly.

The manner in which you're phrasing your statements / comments is very confusing. I don't understand the comments you just made.

Initially I hypothesized that we could have an Exchange 2010 RC server with all roles installed. Then we would have our Exchange 2007 SP2 server with CAS and Mailbox role installed. Then we would have our BES 5.0 server. Since this current version of BES does not support Exchange 2010 the purpose of the Exchange 2007 SP2 server would be to communicate directly to the BES. However, after what you have said and GMCloud27's post saying he couldn't get his BES to accept the Exchange 2007 SP2 server as a mail server this work around wouldn't be possible.

Does that make more sense to you?

As I'm not an Exchange guy (MCITP), I'm eager to listen in on any ideas you guys have (hdawg, can you explain a little on the dual BES comment?) as I'd love to get BES back up and running as I was a bit bummed not being able to get BES to work in a coexist environment of 2010 and 2007 SP2.

Thanks guys,

-Garrett

As I've not testing E2010 enough I can't really state anything about workarounds ... that said I hope to shortly.

Do you know how soon you will be testing this "mixed" environment hdawg?

I took a look at the MAPI config through Exchange 2010 and read a little into Hdawg's link over to MFCMAPI (For lack of a better word : How to use MFCMAPI to create a MAPI profile to connect to Exchange 2010) and the whole system seems to work until activation. I can assign a password, activate via my BB, activation e-mail arrives in mailbox with DAT file, but then doesn't receive onto the BB. Again, not an Exchange and BES expert so still going through a few things. DM activation also didn't start up. I would love to do an activation via local port but unfortunately ESXi 4 doesn't support passthrough USB.

Says RIM 3rd level support and management when they were on site helping fix a problem with 4.1.6.

Thanks for the info.

No problemo. I wonder if it'll hold true or not.

Any progress with testing or with getting in touch with RIM?

I'm still keeping my eyes on the various forums and hoping someone has had some luck figuring this out :/ I'm really missing BES over BIS /w OWA

Yes that's exactly what I'm using in the mean time :). However it is a pain without calendar sync. On a side note I am really mad at Mac Desktop Manager because when I set it to "merge" my BB contacts with Exchange it just deleted all of the BB ones.

This looks interesting: http://www.blackberryforums.com/rumo...4-bes-e14.html

Whitepaper on Deploying Exchange 2010 w/ BES
 

I just finished a Whitepaper that gives a great overview of installing BES with Exchange 2010 for greenfield, or new environments. Just send me a note if you would like a copy.

Read the paper. It shows how to use 2007 in a 2010 environment.

I dont see the full 2010 support.

Snip
Our Solution
With all of these requirements, and issues, we came up with a very simple solution; we would deploy Exchange 2007 in a new Windows Server 2008 Active Directory forest. This would require deploy both a Client Access Server and a Mailbox Server based on Exchange 2007. The reason we had to deploy the Client Access Server even though we only need a Mailbox Server for BES integration is because the first Exchange 2007 server in a new Exchange organization must be a Client Access Server. Once the Exchange 2007 server is deployed, we would then deploy BES. Only after we have our Exchange 2007 xxx8220;environmentxxx8221; implemented, would we begin deployment of Exchange 2010. First we would install a Windows Server 2008 R2 server as the operating system for our first Exchange 2010 server, which would need to be a Client Access Server, just like Exchange 2007. We would then install the Exchange 2010 Client Access Server, and the subsequent roles of Exchange 2010, based on our individual design specifications. Using this methodology, we are able to provide Blackberry access via BES to our Exchange 2010 environment.

Thanks so much for the white paper and information. Once you have installed 2007 SP2 Mailbox and CA roles and linked them in with BES. Do you then install all roles of 2010 on a different machine?

So I followed the whitepaper. Installed AD on a Server 2008 R2 machine (at a 2008 Forest and Domain level). Then I installed Exchange 2007 SP2 Mailbox and Client Access roles on a Server 2008 x64 machine. Then I installed BES 5.0 on a Server 2008 x86 box which worked fine (pointing to the Exchange 2007 SP2 server). I then installed all 4 roles of Exchange 2010 on a Server 2008 R2 x64 machine. Now here is where it get's interesting, BES works fine. However, I could not send or receive mail and had to install a Hub Transport Role on the Exchange 2007 SP2 server for send/receive mail to work even though I had a perfectly good HT 2010 server that was configured correctly. 2007 couldn't see my 2010 Hub Transport Role. Also, I can only use OWA 2007, not 2010. Has anyone had these issues?

Hub Transport should have no bearing on any of this as this simply controls mailflow between organizations/sites as well as potentially Internet in the absence of an Edge Transport.

I can understand the Client Access role requirement.

I have a BPS Server running a 4.x version of sorts. Are there any plans to release a version 5.x of BPS or will BES have a modest price tier to cover the smaller businesses?

Now Supported
 

From Exchange Team Blog:

BlackBerry Enterprise Server fully supported on Exchange 2010

I'd like to share with everyone some good news today— BlackBerry® Enterprise Server (BES) is now fully supported on Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 and BlackBerry® Technical Support Services are readily available.

This is the earliest customers have been able to deploy BlackBerry smartphones with a new Exchange release - ever. Customers who rely on BES as an important part of their messaging and collaboration infrastructure have told us that more rapid support for RIM's solution is critical to them. So we partnered with RIM earlier in the development cycle to ensure organizations moving to the new release experience no user downtime.

In order to enable full support, three updates are required:

* Roll-Up 1 (RU1) for Exchange Server 2010
* MAPI v6.5.8147
* BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0.1 Maintenance Release 1 (MR1)

All three of these updates are available to customers of Exchange Server 2010 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server v.5.0 with Service Pack 1 at no cost. BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5.0 Service Pack 1 and Maintenance Release 1 can be found on RIM's site.

Additional information on the solution requirements, preparing the BlackBerry environment for Microsoft Exchange Server2010, can be found on the BlackBerry site.

Been using it for weeks like a charm :) Fairly straightforward update process.