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.
During a recent migration from Exchange 2007 to 2010 I found I was unable to remove the public folder store from the Exchange 2007 server.
It was returning the following error when using remove-publicfolderdatabase or using EMC on Exchange 2007.
Remove-PublicFolderDatabase : Object is read only because it was created by a future version of Exchange: 0.10 (14.0.100.0). Current supported version is 0.1 (8.0.535.0).
Obviously the Exchange 2010 server had touched the database in some way, probably due to the Offline Address Book migration.
The fix was quite simple - remove it using the Exchange 2010 Exchange Management Shell. Can't use the GUI as the Exchange 2007 public folders do not appear in there.
Get-PublicFolderDatabase -Server EXCH2007 | Remove-PublicFolderDatabase
Where "Exch2007" is the name of the Exchange 2007 server.
After removing the database I refreshed the GUI and was then able to drop the Storage Group and complete the removal of Exchange 2007.
