[rcabls]

To clarify what I would like to know, I am not looking for specifics into how many servers they are running or what not. I was wondering about the single point of failure issue that brought the network down a while back. I imagine RIM has server farms set up in Ontario, England and Asia Pacific, but I can't find official documentation to verify this.

Why does this matter? For instance, if the Ontario servers go down does the traffic route through England or Asia Pacific? If not, what is the plan for fault tolerance? Is there a guaranteed time frame for when my users can send and receive messages on their devices?

This isn't about the network specifics, I am looking at a higher level and it's also worth pointing out that if one of the other server regions goes out, will that route all of that traffic through the other servers as well? It might make more sense to stay with a cellular provider who does not have a central point of failure in this case.

[hdawg]

If an entire region were to go down RIM would have to make a transparent change for failover to occur as SRPs are tied to specific NOCs ... they connect to a NOC and that is their NOC; you can just change from srp.na to srp.eu

If an entire srp network goes down, I know of no plan. example:

My company has 2 data centers ... if both go down, the plan is to go to our tape backup location and restore the network at the presidents house (or my house or something) ... The fault tolerance is that we have 2 data centers; if both die that isn't fault tolerance but rather disaster recovery. RIM hasn't had a disaster yet ... but you raise an interesting point about what happens if an entire SRP network goes down.

I guess I kind of accept the fact that they'll be there; much like the root servers or my ISPs mail servers that I route through.

[rsnadel]

Originally Posted by rcabls

To clarify what I would like to know, I am not looking for specifics into how many servers they are running or what not. I was wondering about the single point of failure issue that brought the network down a while back. I imagine RIM has server farms set up in Ontario, England and Asia Pacific, but I can't find official documentation to verify this.

Why does this matter? For instance, if the Ontario servers go down does the traffic route through England or Asia Pacific? If not, what is the plan for fault tolerance? Is there a guaranteed time frame for when my users can send and receive messages on their devices?

This isn't about the network specifics, I am looking at a higher level and it's also worth pointing out that if one of the other server regions goes out, will that route all of that traffic through the other servers as well? It might make more sense to stay with a cellular provider who does not have a central point of failure in this case.

My advice would be to find another provider. Clearly you have no faith in RIM and you seem to have a paranoia complex that rivals anything I've seen. If the security issue is that big a deal for you, I don't see how anything short of you actually rebuilding the system yourself will satisfy you. The executive branch of the U.S. government uses BB, but you find them woefully short in data integrity protection. Go figure.

[BBAdmin]

You do seem to be more paranoid than a bag or rats in a burning meth lab.

[CanuckBB]

A balance needs to be struck between fault tolerance and costs. Personnaly, I don't want to pay more to support the kind of infrastructure that will avoid a down network overy few years. I've been in I.T. for far too long. I do understand 'Shit Happens'.

If you think that access to email is that critical to YOU, YOU need a contingency plan.

[joginder]

i donno how much info we have got hre thru this thread because so far everything is hypothetical and ideas or guess work. I dtrongly believe that RIM's NOCs are operating with fail safe and fail over and would route the traffic thru other relays. the only issue that I would see if they x-fer the info thru other relays like all the BB data for fed govts starts flowing thru Asia/China and that will be a concern for NSA or others and thats why i would see RIM not routing the messages thru other networks.
just my 0.002$

[Keyscan]

This is one question you will not get full answers to, I can pretty much promise you that.

[Keyscan]

Originally Posted by CanuckBB

A balance needs to be struck between fault tolerance and costs. Personnaly, I don't want to pay more to support the kind of infrastructure that will avoid a down network overy few years. I've been in I.T. for far too long. I do understand 'Shit Happens'.

If you think that access to email is that critical to YOU, YOU need a contingency plan.

RIM goes down twice a year for 6 hours. The carriers go down all the time. Most times when people think the BIS is down, it is actually their cell phone providers connection to the BlackBerry Infrastructure that takes a nose dive.

[Berry One]

Originally Posted by rcabls

It might make more sense to stay with a cellular provider who does not have a central point of failure in this case.

Name one.

[CanuckBB]

Originally Posted by Keyscan

RIM goes down twice a year for 6 hours. The carriers go down all the time. Most times when people think the BIS is down, it is actually their cell phone providers connection to the BlackBerry Infrastructure that takes a nose dive.

The BIS infrastructure may g down more often. The BES always never does. Certainly not twice a year for as long as 6 hours. Other than the one last year or do that lasted 12 hours, I can't recall the BES infrastructure going down long enough to notice.

[Keyscan]

Originally Posted by CanuckBB

The BIS infrastructure may g down more often. The BES always never does. Certainly not twice a year for as long as 6 hours. Other than the one last year or do that lasted 12 hours, I can't recall the BES infrastructure going down long enough to notice.

You are right, the BIS technically does go down more often by the looks of it. But entire 100% outage of the BIS really only happens a few times a year. Almost every time I see it is because of a carrier outage.

When the "BES" so to speak goes down, that means everything is down, including BIS. Everything needs to run through the "BlackBerry Infrastructure" and that is what went down. You are right though, that hardly ever goes down at all and thank god for that...