BES 5.0 newby deployment questions
 

Hi all,

Just migrated from a Linux email system to Exchange 2007 SP1. We had everything up and running with ActiveSync, but the boss has decided to buy a set of Blackberry devices and a 20 user BES server.

I have read through most of the documentation for the 5.0 server, but have some pressing questions which I would like to air before going further.

We are trying to implement as much now on Windows Server 2008, but the server that has been assigned to this is a 3.0 GHZ dual-core machine with only 2GB RAM (so will probably end up being Windows Server 2003 X64). The users will receive around 20 emails per day, and we have around 12 users who want to use the service. Will it be best to deploy all services on a single machine, and if so, is it best to install a full SQL server on the box, or just use the SQL Express?

Our Exchange server currently has no public folder database as we moved all clients to Outlook 2007. Am I correct in thinking a public folder database is required for BES 5.0? We just moved everyone off public folders from the old system, so I am probably going to be linched when I have to introduce them back again!

Thanks for now,
Andrew.

To answer your first question, doing all of that on one machine is fine. The number of users is small enough it won't matter. We used to run 900 users under 4.1.6 with a local SQL and everything else running on the same server. The decision on whether to use the full or express version of SQL really depends on your needs. It sounds to me like SQL Express would be sufficient for you. We ran the full SQL.

As for your second question, sorry but I can't be of any help. We still have public folders enabled so I'm not sure of what would happen. I can say that even if you enable public folders, it doesn't mean you have to tell users about them. :)

No Public folders
 

We are currently useing BES 4.5 without Public folders. Like you we have Exchange 2007 with no public folders. all the basics work. We are upgrading tonight we hope. Hopefully Blackberry addresses this as Exchange is going away from public folders.

There is no such thing as BES 4.5 ... do you mean BES 4.1 SP5?

Public Folders have been included in Exchange 2010 and thus will have support for another decade or more (with Exchange 2010's extended support life cycle). In other words, while the intention is to move Public Folder content into SharePoint and other Microsoft mediums, it's not going to happen in this upcoming release of Exchange (and it'll be 5+ more years before E15 is released). Your information about Public Folders going away is a common misconception about Microsoft's original intentions behind Exchange 2010, although things do and did change.