Migration of BES, doesn't work

[alee]

Originally Posted by stich86

so.. i've to re-provisioning all 20 users?!?
that's no so good for my boss... i hope that there isn't necessity to do a wipe, because the BES db is the same, so the IT Policy may be the same..

there is an unsupported way of moving the .zdb files and the .idm files to another machine. i'm not too sure if this is going to work (that's why its unsupported). you would need to stop the BES controller and delete the BlackBerryManager and BlackBerryServer mail profiles. Then you need to export the profile related registry keys and import them on the new machine.
i believe the location is:

\\HKCU\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion \Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles

if there are already keys called BlackBerryManager and BlackBerryServer on the target machine, you should delete them.

then copy all the .zdb files and .idm files from the old machine to the EXACT same path on the new machine. if it is c:\program files\common files\system\msmapi\1033, then it needs to be exactly that on the new machine.

then you can try to bring the BlackBerry Controller service up and try to see if it works.

if it doesn't work, then you have to start from scratch. launch the BlackBerry Manager, delete all the users. stop the controller and then delete and recreate the BlackBerryManager and BlackBerryServer profiles and reprovision the users. this will mean that the users will have to wipe and reactivate their devices.

hope this helps...and again...unsupported.

--Tony

[rduric]

I need to migrate around 5o BES/ZCB users with BB to a new hardware. I had received a migration SRP license from RIM and followed their migration procedure as it were BES for Exchange. I could see two servers listed in the BlackBerry manager and I could move users from my old server to the new one. However, the user on the new server was not able to receive and/or send emails. I was able to send a PIN message from the new BES though. When I moved the user back to the old server it started to sync up.

I suspect that moving a user to a new server doesn't move nor create the zdb-idm pair which would be normally initialized when you add a new user.

I'm wondering if anybody was able to perform migration using ZCB GA and BES 4.1.6? I want to avoid a huge hassle of wiping out and reactivating 50 blackberries.

Thanks.

[eugener]

Have you tried to move zdbs over? Moving zdbs as well as registry keys over to the new server as described in the previous message may help. You may want to consider moving BES DB as well.

- stop BB controller on both new and old servers
- delete BlackBerryServer, BalckBerryManager keys
- export 'BlackBerryServer' as well as 'BlackBerryManager' registry keys from the old server and import them on the new one. These keys can be found at

\\HKCU\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion \Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles

- copy all data files (zdbs, idms) to the same location on the new server
- start BB controller

[rduric]

Thanks Eugene,

No, I have NOT and the problem is I'm not confident this would work!? First of all you said that moving the zdbs MAY help and in the previous message Tony had said this was unsupported. Also, I originally had installed ZCB BETA 3 a year ago, then upgraded to BETA 4 then to ZCB GA.

When I checked my zdb files I noticed I have almost 2 X more files than activated blackberries. I guess, when I remove a user from BES his/her files stay on the server. We decided to go from the scratch, i.e. delete a user on the old BES and add it to the new server.

I expect Zimbra would test similar migrations and publish KB articles how to do it and these procedures should be supported.

I'd like to see some Disaster Recovery Procedures, what happens when my system board fails, what happens if the ZCB hard drive crashes, how to backup and restore BES/ZCB servers etc.

I understand that the new ZCB GA version will support up to 250 users and I absolutely wouldn't like to migrate so many users manually. So, please give us some supported tools and procedures how to do our job efficiently.

Thanks again.

[pambuffington]

Originally Posted by rduric

Thanks Eugene,

No, I have NOT and the problem is I'm not confident this would work!? First of all you said that moving the zdbs MAY help and in the previous message Tony had said this was unsupported. Also, I originally had installed ZCB BETA 3 a year ago, then upgraded to BETA 4 then to ZCB GA.

When I checked my zdb files I noticed I have almost 2 X more files than activated blackberries. I guess, when I remove a user from BES his/her files stay on the server. We decided to go from the scratch, i.e. delete a user on the old BES and add it to the new server.

I expect Zimbra would test similar migrations and publish KB articles how to do it and these procedures should be supported.

I'd like to see some Disaster Recovery Procedures, what happens when my system board fails, what happens if the ZCB hard drive crashes, how to backup and restore BES/ZCB servers etc.

I understand that the new ZCB GA version will support up to 250 users and I absolutely wouldn't like to migrate so many users manually. So, please give us some supported tools and procedures how to do our job efficiently.

Thanks again.

This lack of recovery procedure is the reason we can not yet take our BES service into production. We have been told that reactivation in the instance of a server failure is not an option.

Pam