Sorry to take so long noname. 3 days turned into 4 weeks before I knew it.

(1) What are the things to watch/beware in GroupWise that could potentially break the BES?

There are several things that will help to avoid issues with the BlackBerry service.

• Upgrade your GroupWise Post Office Agents to the recommended supported version I believe it is currently v7.0.3 HP3. Install the same version GroupWise client on the BES.
• Enable SOAP on all the Post Office Agents that contain BlackBerry user mailboxes. Configure BES to use SOAP mode. Using SOAP instead of the OAPI will improve reconciliation times.
• Turn on the Minshall Algorithm set parameter on the GroupWise servers. This will help improve performance downloading attachments.
• Enforce mailbox size limitations & enforce GroupWise clean up options to ensure GroupWise mailboxes are a reasonable size. Large mailboxes will cause delays in message delivery & reconciliation for all users on the BES.
• Enforce cleanup options to empty the Trash folder after 7/14 days. If the Trash folder contains more than 4962 items, any new email deleted from the mailbox will not be deleted from the BlackBerry.
• If the mailbox contains 4941 or more folders the GroupWise object API cannot return the results & the users BlackBerry will have problems with folder reconciliation. Additionally, the BlackBerry device user is unable to send or receive messages.

(2) How is the BlackBerry message flow like? E.g. Domino router (of the BES) is the delivery mechanism for the MFH (Message from Handheld) and BES polls every 20 seconds on users' mail files for new messages (MTH).

It’s pretty much the same. When using OAPI mode, the GroupWise Connector polls the GroupWise server every 20 seconds & updates the BES configuration database with the GroupWise ID & timestamp of every new message. When using SOAP mode, the GroupWise SOAP Connector is notified by the GroupWise server when a new email arrives in the users mailbox. The Messaging Agent passes the message to the Dispatcher & then the Dispatcher passes it on to the Router.

(3) How defects/changes in GroupWise could potentially halt the BlackBerry message flow? E.g. Unavailability of mail servers and non-working state of the Domino Router task on BES could stop the flow.

Obviously if a GroupWise server goes offline then any BlackBerry user who has their mailbox on that Post Office will not be able to receive new data on the BlackBerry. It won’t cause an issue with the BES.

(4) What are the different types of organizer data items in GroupWise that can be synchronized wirelessly with BES? E.g. in Domino, contacts sync is with the Personal Address Book (names.nsf) and memo sync is with the Journal NSF file. Calendar and To-Do (task) items are built-in with mail files by default etc.

Same. GroupWise Address Book e.g. Personal Address book or Frequent Contacts Address Book (not recommended to sync the Frequent Contacts as it can grow to an unmanageable size as by default it automatically adds any internal & external contacts that you reply to. This can be changed), GroupWise Tasks, BlackBerry Memos (syncs with GroupWise Posted Messages).

(5) Which are the top major issues that you constantly see that they re-occur between GroupWise and BES? E.g. in Domino, we constantly have hung threads issue due to Notes mail databases corruptions (can be views or documents or database file itself). We also have read/unread reconcilations issue due to Access Control permissions and unstable Domino clustering of mail files etc. Just to quote a few.

Hung threads & reconciliation problems are also common with BES for Novell GroupWise. The problem with BES for GroupWise compared to Exchange is the BES only has one Messaging Agent connection, whilst BES for Exchange has multiple (4 if there are less than 500 BlackBerry user accounts). Therefore if the if the Messaging agent connection gets hung threads it stops message flow for all BlackBerry users on the BES. Whereas with BES for Exchange, only users with accounts on the Exchange server the Messaging Agent connection is assigned to are affected.

Enabling the Minshall Algorithm on the Novell GroupWise servers & using SOAP rather than the OAPI will help reduce reconcilliation issues.

(6) Which BES logs should you start looking when there is an issue? E.g. In Domino, we always start with the Messaging Agent (MAGT) log and start looking for keywords like "No Response" to lookup hung threads.

Same for the majority. One which springs to mind is the GWQM log

GWQM – Novell GroupWise CheckNew. Look for errors like “Check New: Failed retrieving new list”. If the error appears for multiple users it could indicate a problem with the process that checks for new email (GWCheckNew.exe). If there is a problem with the process the BES will not push new email to any BlackBerry devices. The process needs to be terminated. It will automatically restart.

Refer to Abbreviations for BlackBerry Enterprise Server debug logs -
View Document to see the additional logs created for a Novell GroupWise Environment.

(7) What are some of the online research websites apart from the Blackberry Technical Solution Center? Any good BESG forums or resource bases?

No, there are no online resources to my knowledge that are exceptional for BES for Novell GroupWise. My favourites are:

BlackBerry Technical Solution Centre - BlackBerry Technical Solution Center
BlackBerry Support Community Forum - BlackBerry Support Community Forums - BlackBerry Support Community Forums
Port3101 (of course)
BlackBerry Support Forum - Asia Pacific - BlackBerry Support Forum - Asia Pacific