BlackBerry Forums Support Community

morser · 11-03-2009, 01:01 PM

Hello,
I'm weighing the options I have available to move the user base from BES 4x to BES 5 and possibly introducing High Availability. Would appreciate any comments on what path you took and any issues that arrose.

TargetIT · 11-03-2009, 01:23 PM

There's a big difference between 4.0 and 4.1 BTW...

morser · 11-03-2009, 01:29 PM

To clarify. A phased upgrade requires that the current BES be at 4.0 SP7 or 4.1 SP3.

Also, I mistakenly left out "Cutover" as an option for upgrade path.

morser · 11-09-2009, 11:27 AM

Thanks for the results.

Did anyone out there try a phased upgrade? It is where you install a new BES 5.0 server and point it to your BES 4.0 database. Bes 4.0 users are not interrupted in this process. You can then "move" devices to the 5.0 server at will. After all are moved, you can upgrade the 4.0 server.

I ran into a problem performing this phased upgrade approach, link to other thread below. We are still continuing down this path though and once both SRPs are on support contract we will revisit with RIM.
(http://www.blackberryforums.com/bes-...es-tested.html).
I guess this path is not taken by many...

troykent · 11-10-2009, 01:25 PM

i installed BES 5 onto a new server, joined it to the bb domain then moved the users slowly over to the new server. this has worked great but anyone have some guidance on how i can do the following...

-Move the DB over to the NEW BES server
-Remove the Temp SRP license on BES 5.0 and apply our regular SRP license from our old bes install

I need to do this before Dec 15th... or bye bye mobile email.

mystics7 · 11-11-2009, 08:05 AM

I'm running into the same problem i have a trial SRP and that gives me 20 users. I need to move over 60 users and then move my SRP from BES 4. From what i've heard if you have Support with RIM they will give you a miagration kit that will give you a new SRP. But my company will not pay for support. Any one else have a work around?

cyclmpc · 11-11-2009, 09:18 AM

I recently moved to 5.0 from 4.1.6 and took the path of what they call the phased migration. During the preparation, speaking with RIM peeps, and execution, we ultimately created a new DB for 5.0. RIM support recommended that a new DB be created. While RIM said updating the DB was possible, I got the notion that this could cause more issues down the road than just starting a new DB. This method proved to be very easy.

If you have a temp SRP (migration kit) to set up the 5.0 server, the temp SRP becomes your permanent SRP after the 90 day period. In this instance, your current SRPs do not continue.

At this time, we are running our current 2 BES as well as our 2 new BES. I would have moved everyone over to the new BES by now, but due to a software configuration that has not been compatible with 5.0, I am waiting on the vendor. The 90 day period is a lifesaver. Mixed mode.

morser · 11-11-2009, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by troykent

i installed BES 5 onto a new server, joined it to the bb domain then moved the users slowly over to the new server. this has worked great

Troykent, In testing I installed BES 5 onto a new server, joined ti to the bb domain and moved users over from BES 4.1 to BES 5.0. Every single device went through the EA process and hung, requiring a reboot. I saw articles stating that this could happen when the two BES servers are not set to use the same encryption (AES and DES), but in my situation they were set to the same. I then went a step further and blew away my development bes servers and started from scratch; also totally wiped a new curve and new bold. The problem was still there. Did you not encounter this problem?

Quote:

Originally Posted by troykent

but anyone have some guidance on how i can do the following...

-Move the DB over to the NEW BES server
-Remove the Temp SRP license on BES 5.0 and apply our regular SRP license from our old bes install

I need to do this before Dec 15th... or bye bye mobile email.

- To move the DB, is it MSDE or SQL? Google how to move the data from one server to another. Then you just change the configuration information in the blackberry server configuration program.
- The SRP information is located in BAS for BES 5.0. you can change it there. My dev 5.0 server is down otherwise i would direct you to the area but it's in there

cyclmpc,
It is shocking that RIM support would give the notion that it is better to move users over rather and do a phased migration. There are many RIM online BlackBerry Webinar presentations touting this method as a great way to upgrade BES 4.0. Still we are going to perform the phased upgrade. We have the overpriced support and will use it should we have a problem.

JRV · 11-13-2009, 05:36 PM

4.1.6 MR6 to 5.0.0 to 5.0.0 MR3 in place here. Everything appeared to work well for about 10 days. But having problems on 12 (reported) of 125 devices with calendar sync, which MAY have been present from the beginning and just wasn't discovered for a while, and mail synch problems on 4 devices that started simultaneously with the discovery of the calendar problem. Opened a support incident. RIM is engaged in searching our logs for clues as I write this.

morser · 11-24-2009, 01:03 PM

I can finally report in after our upgrade. Performed a Phased upgrade and moved some users over to the new BES 5.0 with no issues.
This is great, as we are able to keep all the configuration information we have set up in the 4.x environment (IT Policies, groups, software configs).
Next step for us is to move all users to BES 5.0 server, upgrade the BES 4 server and then work on High availability.

JRV · 11-24-2009, 02:09 PM

Follow up to my prior post--

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRV

4.1.6 MR6 to 5.0.0 to 5.0.0 MR3 in place here. Everything appeared to work well for about 10 days. But having problems on 12 (reported) of 125 devices with calendar sync, which MAY have been present from the beginning and just wasn't discovered for a while, and mail synch problems on 4 devices that started simultaneously with the discovery of the calendar problem.

No solution yet, but it appears unrelated to the upgrade itself. The mail flow problem went away by itself (though it may yet come back by itself). The calendar sync problem is a permissions problem that, per RIM support, is "rare" (lucky us!) and occurs when moving mailboxes to a new Exchange server. The BES service account can access all of the mailbox except the Calendar.

We have also been migrating from EX2003 to EX2007, though most mailbox moves predated the BES 5 install by a couple weeks. Best guess is that it just took a while for the problem to be noticed.

So at this time, it doesn't look like a BES 5.0 upgrade-in-place failure so much as a BES 4.1.6 mail server migration failure that wasn't noticed for a while. In fact, the logs show it affects about 50 users; we still haven't heard from any but the original dozen.

Solution, briefly, is to create a new BES service account, which is a lengthy process they're about to walk me through.

Frank Castle · 11-24-2009, 04:44 PM

I pretty much nixed inplace as I heavily use groups and groups will not transfer so everything will be new once our BES 5.0 environment is running.

Been building this on and off for the past couple months and will be validating it Q1.

Agit8dchop · 12-14-2009, 09:14 PM

Good topic, our company is in the planning stages.
Quick question,

Is it possible to transfer the config database from a BES4.0.7 Notes to BES5 Exchange?

There's filters and other things id like to be able to bring across, but obviously going from notes to exchange during the upgrade will complicate things.

Is it possible?

JRV · 12-14-2009, 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JRV

Follow up to my prior post--

No solution yet, but it appears unrelated to the upgrade itself. The mail flow problem went away by itself (though it may yet come back by itself). The calendar sync problem is a permissions problem that, per RIM support, is "rare" (lucky us!) and occurs when moving mailboxes to a new Exchange server. The BES service account can access all of the mailbox except the Calendar.

The final update on what has turned out to be off-topic, posted in case it helps any lurkers: We ran Security Configuration Wizard (SCW) on the new Exchange 2007 server, which left it in a state where BES was unable to resolve mailboxes, which, apparently, it has to do every time it accesses a Calendar. Problems were both authentication and firewall-related. Rolled back the SCW changes and all was well. Will not try hardening again until when and if MS releases a new SCW config for EX2007. (And then, with caution!)

So (finally, back on-topic), we had NO problems with the BESX 4.1.6 to 5.0 + MR3 in-place upgrade.

scl8888 · 02-03-2010, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by morser

I can finally report in after our upgrade. Performed a Phased upgrade and moved some users over to the new BES 5.0 with no issues.
This is great, as we are able to keep all the configuration information we have set up in the 4.x environment (IT Policies, groups, software configs).
Next step for us is to move all users to BES 5.0 server, upgrade the BES 4 server and then work on High availability.

We are planning to do Phased migration also, does all your blackberry devices on and above 4.5.0.81 software version for the migration to go smoothly? Or older software version will also works as well? Do you need to activation again for device with older software version?

Any inputs to this is greatly appreciated

BlackBerry Forums Support Community

What method did you use to seamlessly migrate from BES 4.x to BES 5.0?