We are currently running BES 4.1.6.16. I was wondering what other BES admin's are doing to update their user device OS's? Do you simply have them user desktop manager or is there a way to push from the BES itself? We do not have a huge user base, but like most we're stretched thin so anything to make updates easier and "seamless" is what I am looking for!

Thank you in advance for any insight, tips, etc.
Sean

It's my understanding that until the device is up to OS 4.5, you can't push an OS upgrade from the BES.

We just (like the last 2 weekends) upgraded to 4.1.6 MR4, and are in the same boat, and have users all over the US, Canada, and various other places in the world. I manually upgraded a bunch of users last week (got lucky with a big Sales meeting being onsite), and other users will be able to contact our Helpdesk (or me) and get assistance.

We packaged Desktop Manager 4.7 in Altiris, and can push that out to the user's PC, and then copy the device OS to their PC and kick off the upgrade for them. They are told to expect to not be able to use their device for ANYTHING for at least an hour.

We also told the users that they do not HAVE to upgrade, unless they want to nifty new features.

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Thank you for the update. We too have a desktop management system, I guess I could do the same for now to update those who want/need as you have mentioned. Once again thanks for your time!

I've been manually upgrading departments and user when I can, during departmental meetings, when new devices arrive, old ones have issues, etc.

We still have a considerable amount of users with 8703 models that we are going to be upgrading very soon with 8330s. Since those are shipping with 4.5 already, that eliminates updating those devices.

Also, we have not been actively upgrading personal devices connected to our BES. We are leaving this up to the users to do... for now.

Thanks for the insight, that makes sense and is something we may consider to make it easier on us for now.

If it ain't broke, we ain't fixing it.

my understanding is that you cannot do OTA device OS upgrades from the BES in v 4.1. Aparently this will be available in 5.0

You can't push OS updates at all. You can initiate the OS update, assuming they're at OS 4.5 and above, but it is still carrier-driven with regards to the version. If the carrier doesn't support OTASL, you aren't going to get an option for an available OS update to release to your users. At this time, Verizon is the only American carrier to release an OS through the OTASL channel and that was primarily to address the issues with the beta OS they released on the Storm to bring it to market before Black Friday.

When we first heard about OTASL, as administrators, we were extremely happy and pleased. It was a new way that we could deploy OS's to our users without having to touch the devices, without having to wait on the slow process that is carrier certification, etc - simply load the OS to a shared location and push it to the device. I believe this has a bigger impact on those of with access to beta OS's and a small albeit interested test user base of technophiles.

In all honesty, though, for companies who have a single GSM carrier or a single CDMA carrier, or those who don't readily comply with OS upgrades when they are available, the change in implementation of OTASL (reduction of flexibility for administrators) - that is, assuming this was not simply a misinterpretation of the implementation - really won't have much of an impact on the way we do things, to be honest. I would say this would have an impact on less than 5% of the deployments (my opinion, of course).

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BCSA (4.1, 5.0) | BCSD (4.1, 5.0)

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

Not to sidetrack the conversation per se'. But, in your organization, are the employee's provided with the BlackBerry's, or do they buy it themselves?

Here, we provide BlackBerry's for the Partners (12 of them), and the rest get there own. So, I don't do upgrades for the general user(s). As for the Partners, well, they are too impatient to hand the BlackBerry to me for about 1-2hours...

The only devices allowed on the server (at least in the US and Canada, since I order them all) are corporate purchased devices. Personal devices are not allowed only because I don't feel like listening to people complain about having a password on their device (which they probably expensed anyway, so technically it's a corporate device!).

There are a few devices connected that are personal devices, but that was before we locked it down.

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You may know me as Juwaack68

I'm currently working on a major device os upgrade I'm using the web loader forceload method to accomplish this due to most of the end users do not have the desktop manager- I also look a the webdesktop manager option and I think are the best method available to do do mass upgrade hope it helps.