We are in the process of migrating from Notes to Exchange. I am looking for any tips and tricks on the BES side for folks that have gone through this before. Mostly I am concerned on the end user side. What did you all do to ease the end user support for migration on the BlackBerry? What kind of issues did you run into? Any valuable insight would be appreciated.

** Moved to the Bar & Grill **

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So ... you're going to have to wipe and reactivate every device. No way around it.

Best thing to do is to create a process and test it. After you test it, make the appropriate changes. Then get a small pilot grou: 5-10 users ... then get a larger test group 25-100 users ... then roll it out.

Recommendations:

1) Set the expecations that the users are effectively getting a new device and their custom settings will be lost.
2) Perform a complete backup of every device before you wipe it
3) Save each backup!
4) Upgrade the OS on each and every device to the newest available, or use this opportunity to upgrade the user to the newest available device you can
5) Make sure you have someone knowledgable in this process doing the upgrades. Users will have questions ... lots of whys ... make sure whomever they're working with understands it all
6) SET PROPER EXPECTATIONS ... yes I know I already said this ... but it is that important.
7) Do each and every upgrade manually, and by hand ... I guess this should be #2 ... but its one of those subjective things. This is a great opportunity to touch each device and assess it.

good luck!

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Having gone through this process somewhat recently... I can say by experience that hdawg is providing VERY good direction here.

And I'll add number 8 to his list... from the admin standpoint, be prepared to dearly miss your Domino console.

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Hmmm... I posed that question to RIM and they said it's doable with T-Support help. The above posts don't suggest it's quite that easy!

Per the docs I believe that an easy migration is not even possible in 5.0. Still a wipe and reactivate.

As for the general transition, I just moved from a firm with Domino to a firm with Exchange. It is sort of surreal, in that you completely understand 85% of what is happening with the other 15% being completely wacky.

Like the Controller service in Exchange, I believe hosts all the multiple mail "agents", whereas in Domino it was the NBES component (single agent) that lived within Domino, and the Controller service was pretty much a useless appendage.

Yes and it is odd not having a Domino console.... just the BES logs to search and tail...

It doesn't surprise me that someone said that ... but they're gonna have to do some serious massaging of your BESMgmt database (if they can even do it) ... and I'm guessing here that some custom registry keys will need to be implemented .... IF they can do it.

I guess the rule that plays here is that if you're willing to pay ... you can get what you want ... I just don't know what the price is.

Given that you're changing your entire mail platform ... I'd go with the supported and standard approach to the change ... then when you have a catastrophic problem you're not calling up at 3am out of luck because the person you've been working with to make everything perfect and happy isn't sleeping.

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We went thought this 2 years ago and followed a similar process as hdawg and others pointed out. Since I'm in the minority here in that I'm not an email admin, I worked out a process to make things go as smoothly as possible.

We literally had a schedule of the day that each and every user was being migrated. At the time, our BES user count was only 120, so it was manageable. We communicated to all BES users what the process would be to reactivate each BlackBerry after their mailbox was migrated. I then scheduled with each user ahead of time to backup, wipe and reactive their devices (most however when asked, didn't want/need a backup taken). Depending on the data on the device, you might be able to get away with backing up the data now instead of waiting.

We didn't care about the OS back then as we do now, so certainly taking the opportunity to upgrade the OS is recommended. Use the JSanders method of updating the OS's on multiple devices at once if you can.Updating OS on Multiple Devices and adding 3rd Party App Install

Thanks for all the suggestions! Unfortunately we are talking about 1000+ devices in total and we really don't want to have to touch each one.

If TSupport could keep us from having to touch every device and keep all user data it might be worth looking into. The sheer amount of time saved might offset the cost...

I say skip the backup of the devices then! LOL

Screw their settings and "other" data. Wipe from Notes BES and let them activate OTA on their own

You read my mind

To add to the comments above; if you have a large user base & want to minimise disruption to services I suggest you run two BES in parallel whilst email accounts are gradually migrated from Domino to Exchange I suggest taking the following into consideration:


I would suggest you do the following: Purchase BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange.

Purchase some additional CAL's (e.g. minimum 20) to allow you to gradually delete user accounts off the BES for Domino & add to the BES for Exchange.
(You can copy the spare CAL's that become available as users are deleted from the BES for Domino & add the CAL's to the BES for Exchange).

Replicate the current BlackBerry Infrastructure & configure IT Policies etc for the new BES for Exchange.

Once a user account has been migrated from Domino to Exchange you can then delete the BlackBerry account on the BES for Domino & create a new BlackBerry account on the BES for Exchange. Note all user configuration (saved preferences) will be lost.

Wipe all data & applications off the users BlackBerry device, upgrade the BlackBerry device software if running an old version, perform a wireless enterprise activation of the BlackBerry device using the user account on the new BES for Microsoft Exchange.

As you can imagine this will be a time consuming task depending on how many BlackBerry user accounts you have. I would say that you could easily spend 2-3 hours per device if there are no errors during the process (that does not include setting up the account on the new BES for Exchange).

Refer to RIM KB 11141 ( BlackBerry Application Error

Just went through this lovely process two months ago. We used a product called B*Nator, it worked good for us as most of our users are in remote locations. It sent out a wipe command, removed the user from the Domino BES to the new Exchange BES, applied the desired IT policy, and then reactivated the user to the new BES, all automatically. Backups can not be converted from one SQL database to another, I confirmed this with RIM. So users will lose all customization. Are you currently syncing your NAB with your devices wirelessly?

Hi bbfella,

I was looking into using B*Nator for this process as well but the B*Nator docs don't go into a lot of detail. Do you mind if I PM you for some advice?

Yeah I agree details are hard to find with B*nator, and to configure the migration portion of the product is a bit cumbersome. Shoot me a bbm if you want, i'd be glad to answer any question you may have. Since they are based in Europe, they have a small helpdesk in NYC with about three guys all named Mike, but they are very helpful as well, just a bit hard to understand as they all have thick German accents.

We are also facing a migration of our ca. 15000 BB devices from Domino to Exchange. Unfortunately, there is not an easy way for that, because it always means wipe + reactivate.
I know B*Nator, but I have not heard yet, that it can be used for migration. On the other hand, sometime ago we created some scripts for a merger to achieve more or less the same:
1) Send eMail to end user, that BB will be migrated at a specific date and include a (random) activation password
2) Delete BB user on the source infrastructure, create user on the target infrastructure and set the previously mailed ea password
3) Inform BB user, that migration is complete and he/she must now wipe and reactivate

We did that for ca. 2000 users in 3-4 iterations and it worked quite well.


I heard through the grapevine that RIM is evaluating the possibility of adding a feature to the Blackberry Enterprise Transporter to move users between Domino and Exchange ... unfortunately that feature won't be ready tomorrow ...


Greetings,
Neo3000

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BES 4.1.7 (20 servers) w/ Domino 7.0.3
BES 5.0.2 (6 server) w/ Exchange 2010 SP1 RU2

20000+ devices on Domino
2000+ devices on Exchange

@Neo3000
I dont envy you having to migrate 15000 users. B*Nator does offer migrations, but what you have done with scripting essentially sounds like the same process B*Nator does. The only difference is B*Nator makes the entire process automated, which is convenient for bb users. It just sucks that the devices have to be wiped per the SQL databases. Anyways best of luck during your migration.

Every year at Lotusphere they (Lotus/IBM) tout the number of customers using their software. Talking with my peers, it seems most everyone is migrating from Domino to Exchange or Google Apps for mail at a minimum. Same for Groupwise.

I would love to see the ET handle cross platform switches in the future.

we have migrated 11K user from domino to exchange and succeed, n we are trying intrategrate BES to our e2k7

We are working with Lotus Domino 7 . We have currently one BES server v4.1.6 SP7, one SQL server and one proxy server in DMZ. 470 users working on this server
And we will soon move to Exchange 2010.
So What is best way to do it on the servers part?
I already know that BES will required version 5 to be able to deal with Exchange 2010. will it be possible to use only BES with so many users? Will we need a new SQL server during move?...
any hints tips will be welcome

You'll need to wipe and reactivate each and every handheld. You'll need a new BlackBerry Configuration Database. It is like starting from scratch. 470 users is about the limit you'll want to use with MSDE; I'd recommend a remote SQL Instance (even SQL Express 2005/2008 would be fine)

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We have already a dedicated SQL server for our BES. So my question is in fact can we use the same server temporary for our two BES server (one for Notes , one for Exchange) during migration -and keep the same at the end of migration?

And another question is it possible to wipe devices centrally from server or other tools?

You can indeed use the same server / os installation, however you'll need to remove / uninstall BES for Domino, and then install BES for Exchange. You won't need to wipe the OS, but you cannot have both installed at the same time.

You could issue the wipe command from the servers, however that will delete all data from the handhelds and you might not want to do that. Given that every handheld will need to reactivate I think you're best having the users initiate a wipe so they can back anything up that they might have on the device.

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HI Everyone,
Just reading this thread and I am not looking forward to my task just handed to me. Yes we are moving our client from Domino to exchange. Checking out the tech note KB15361 it looks like RIM have a tool that can do the move.

I agree with what has been written in regards to setting expectations, wiping and reactivating.

Has anyone use the Migration tool and if so how did it go?

The "tool" doesn't exist. The KB references a migration kit in which RIM provides you with another SRP key and your current SRP works for 90 days ... that's the kit. You still have to wipe and reactivate each and every user; I guess I don't understand your question as there is no "tool".

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The views expressed by me on Port3101 and its affiliated sites are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.