Sembee Blog of Exchange MVP Simon Butler

Still using BES 4.1? Then this blog posting will be of interest to you. 

There were lots of announcements from Blackberry last week during their convention, but one that probably got buried in all of the handset news is probably of interest to Exchange administrators. 

If you are still on BES 4.1 then you can now get a free upgrade to BES 5. That is the full BES, not BES Express. 

http://uk.blackberry.com/business/blackberry-10/blackberry-10-ready/upgrade-path.html

You can use the transporter suite to migrate to the new version of BES with almost no downtime for the end users. 

Note - this is the full BES 4.1, not the older Professional or other free options. If you are using BPS then you should move to BES Express.

The reason for Blackberry doing this is to encourage moves to Blackberry 10 devices. One of the features of the BES 10 version is able to manage both Blackberry 10 and older devices from a single interface. However for that to work the older devices need to be on a BES 5 server. 

If you are using BES 4.1 now is the time to upgrade.

If you have devices still using OS 4.x then it would also be a good time to look at upgrading those, at least the OS, but preferably the device as well. 

If you are in the UK, then I can assist you with this upgrade, please use my business web site to contact me: http://www.sembee.co.uk/ 

If you were affected by the Blackberry Internet Service outage today (10th October 2001) and your Blackberry connects to an in-house email server running Exchange server (2003 or higher), then you really should be running a BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) or BES Express (BESX).

A Blackberry connected to a BES/BESX gives you the full functionality of the Blackberry with true two way synchronisation of Email, Contacts, Calendar and Tasks. It is an extension of your Inbox. No need to maintain two sets of data that kind of synchronises. 

If you use BESX, then the software is free and you do not have to change your device subscription/tariff. For smaller installations the software can be installed on your server in  a few hours and give you complete control over the devices that connect. 

If you are in an industry where the email traffic is sensitive, the data exchange between your Blackberry and the BES/BESX cannot be intercepted as the encryption is managed by your server, not the one at RIM. This provides a more secure mobile email solution. 

Through my company Sembee Ltd, I can install and configure a BES Express for you for just £250 plus VAT if installed on to an existing server (other terms and conditions apply). That includes post installation configuration and guidance on maintenance, handset setup etc. 

For more information, contact me through the company web site at http://www.sembee.co.uk/ 

Just spoken to the Technology Editor at BBC Online to provide them with some background information on the Blackberry infrastructure following today's outage. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15243892 

I briefly explained why Enterprise users were largely not affected. 

Does someone at RIM have a sense of humour I ask myself?

While playing around with a couple of Blackberry devices that belong to a client, I went through the common list of Blackberry diagnostic codes to see if they worked on an OS6 device (they do). 

When I came to the one for the Voice and Data use (BUYR), I had a surprise when the additional information was labelled "Buyer's Remorse". See the screenshot below. 

This is from my own 9700 that I have upgraded to OS 6. I only use it for Data, it doesn't have a voice subscription. 

Wondering if this was an OS 6 thing, I checked another device. This was a brand new 9780. 

Slightly different OS versions (6.5.0.54/6.00.294 on the 9780, versus 6.6.0.86/6.0.0.380 on the 9700). However no label on the sections. Therefore it would appear to be a 9700 only thing. A curious way to label that information - perhaps an indication of how addictive the Blackberry can be - not known as the Crackberry for no reason!

Currently migrating a client from BES 4.1 to BES 5.

All going well, except a few users didn't migrate correctly using the transporter suite. When selecting the user, it returned an error "The Request Could not be Completed". This stopped me from doing anything with the user account, including deleting them so I could reactivate them.

However a clever trick was shared with me, which I hadn't seen anywhere else, which allowed me to delete the troublesome user.

Select Manage Users, then Search. At the bottom of the page, choose manage multiple users. Select the user with the problem and then choose Delete User at the bottom of the list. You will get asked if you are sure. After selecting yes the user is then deleted and can be added back in again and go through the regular activation process.

A simple fix for an annoying problem.

With the release of official support for Exchange 2010 and BES 5.0, I thought I would have another crack at getting Exchange 2010 to work directly with BES 4.1. This is instead of using an Exchange 2007 server somewhere in the mix.

I used Blackberry Professional Server in my testing, installed on Windows 2003 separate to Exchange 2010.

To my surprise, I have managed to get it working - with no interim servers used. A clean Exchange 2010 installation was used, along with BPS 4.1.3A (so not even the latest version).

In addition to the regular installation of the Blackberry Server software (so logged in to the machine as besadmin etc), to get things to work I had to do the following.

1. Install Exchange 2010 rollup 1 on the Exchange server.
2. Install the latest version of the CDO on the Blackberry server.
3. Set more permissions than normal (see below)

The server I was using also had a public folder store created and mounted. I have not tested it with Exchange 2010 without Public Folders.
During the installation there was an error about being unable to verify the permissions, which I ignored.
 
Tested Functionality

I have tested the following:

• Full over the air Enterprise activation. 
• Sending and receiving email from the device. 
• Lookup against the GAL and the personal address book
• Adding a task from the Blackberry and seeing sync to the account. 
• Adding a task from OWA and seeing it sync to the Blackberry
• Adding a calendar entry from the Blackberry and seeing sync to account.
• Adding a calendar entry from OWA seeing it sync to the Blackberry

Of course functionality that doesn't require Exchange - such as Blackberry Browser access to the intranet continues to work correctly.
 
Permissions

To get things to work, I had to set additional permissions. This may well be related to the change in the database model, which is now at the Org level rather than the server level.

Exchange 2010 View Only Exchange Admin.

This permission is no more, so the equivalent has to be set:

Add-RoleGroupMember "View-Only Organization Management" -member besadmin

Store  / Server level permissions

The usual permissions used with Exchange 2007 set via the following command didn't appear to work:

get-mailboxserver | add-adpermission –user BESAdmin –accessrights ExtendedRight –extendedrights Send-As, Receive-As, ms-Exch-Store-Admin

I had to grant the permissions at the database level:

Get-MailboxDatabase |add-adpermission -user besadmin -accessrights ExtendedRight -extendedrights Receive-As, Send-As, ms-exch-store-admin

Get-PublicFolderDatabase |add-adpermission -user besadmin -accessrights ExtendedRight -extendedrights Receive-As, Send-As, ms-exch-store-admin

As the permission is being granted at the mailbox database level, if databases are changed/added/removed then the permission will need to be run again.
As always, the permission didn't take effect immediately, therefore I restarted the information store and the Blackberry services to get things to take effect.

CDO Installation

The latest version of CDO was used, which can be downloaded (At the time of writing) from this location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e17e7f31-079a-43a9-bff2-0a110307611e&DisplayLang=en

When I am working with clients and their Blackberry devices, particularly on new deployments, one of the issues I frequently have is  discovering whether the device is enabled for the BES use. It is very common for the service providers to NOT enable the Blackberry device for BES correctly. As anyone who has dealt with mobile phone provider support, when it comes to Blackberry, most of them haven't got a clue.

For some time I have been aware that RIM have a tool available to people with a support contract which allows you to query their database, but none of my clients have a support contract. I actually considered getting a contract just to get access to that database!

However I discovered that recently RIM have released a new web tool, which is free to register and use, which allows you to check the status of the device. In RIM speak "Enterprise Activation Readiness".

It is free for all users of Blackberry Professional Server, Enterprise Server, Server Express and all the other names they have used for their software in the past. All you need is your identifier and CAL key for the server.

You also get a complimentary support incident which is also another good reason for signing up.

From the site itself:

"The BlackBerry Expert Support Center is a Web 2.0 application, which is designed to allow direct access to Enterprise grade tools and resources, and to give you the ability to manage your Technical support agreement and support related inquiries easily and independently.

• One Complimentary Support Incident to receive expert advice from a member of the BlackBerry Technical Support team at any time 
• Online self service tools and resources designed to help with installation and ongoing management of your BlackBerry solution including step-by-step demonstrations 
• All the relevant guides, articles and other resources to increase your BlackBerry solution know-how "

https://www.blackberry.com/besc/dashboard/

Interesting little snippet posted on the RIM web site today.

"October 20, 2009 - Research In Motion (RIM) is pleased to notify you that we are working in close collaboration with Microsoft on compatibility and support for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010. Compatibility is expected later this year. BlackBerry® Technical Support Services for BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is expected within 30 days following the global availability of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010."

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/software/server_compatibility.jsp#tab_tab_news

No doubt that will mean BES only, as the Blackberry Professional version seems to be ignored. Looks like I will be giving up my Blackberry when I move across to Exchange 2010 shortly.

Blackberry - not a subject I usually touch on, but as I am using a BES variant with my Exchange system I thought I would post this little snippet.

Recently exchanged by very old 7230 Blackberry for a new Curve 8310. I found that my previously published applications of Google Maps and Google search were not appearing on the device.

A look through the event long on the server gave me this error:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: BlackBerry Policy Service
Event Category: None
Event ID: 20000
Date:  29/03/2009
Time:  21:15:32
User:  N/A
Computer: BES-SERVER
Description:
Device info for hardwareID 0x8d000f03 could not be found.

No idea what that meant, and I couldn't find anything clear on Google either.
However looking through older posts on some forums from when the 8700 series was released, I was pointed to a file called device.xml, which can be found in this location: "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research In Motion\AppLoader"

Apparently if your device doesn't appear in the list, then you will get the above error.

I am using Blackberry Professional Edition, which is currently on 4.1.4, whereas the current version of Blackberry Enterprise Server is 4.1.6 (or very close, at the time of writing). The device.xml file was quite out of date and the ID number in the error message did not appear in the file. I needed to update the file!

You can get an updated device.xml by installing the latest Desktop Software from Blackberry somewhere. (4.7 at the time of writing) I have seen references to the desktop software being installed on the server, but I already had it on my laptop for playing around with the device. It will be found in the same location on both the server and the workstation. I went from a file that was only 8kb in size to a 16kb file.

I simply copied the file from my laptop in to the same location on my Blackberry server re-ran the "loader /index" command and then restarted the Blackberry Policy service. The application pushed out to the device shortly afterwards.