When I started working for my new employer, one of the biggest problems staring me in the face was an aging BlackBerry Professional server. Running on an aging Windows 2000 server, this BB Professional version 4 server was licensed for 11 users, but was supporting over 20 BlackBerry users.“ It looked like the previous admin would set up users, and then delete them, adding other users.“ The deleted users would keep syncing until the server was rebooted.“ Not an ideal situation, to say the least.
The solution was obvious – migrate the users to the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express software.“ It’s free, has better support for Exchange 2007, and did I mention, that its free?“ I had it downloaded and installed on our Exchange server in a matter of minutes.“ I set up my BB on it, and soon had email flowing smoothly to it.“ The big problem was: how do I get 22 BlackBerries spread across two states in the hands of very non-technical users?“ I wasn’t about to drive to four different plants to set these users up! I tried walking a couple of users over the activation process over the phone, but it was no bed of roses.“ So I set out looking for an easier solution to the problem.
I found a couple of forum posts that indicated that you could use the BlackBerry Enterprise Transporter (part of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Resource Kit) to move users between BlackBerry servers, no matter what version they were running.
I downloaded the BlackBerry Enterprise Transporter v5.0 Service Pack 1 from the BB website, and installed it on the server running the older BB server.“ After an pretty straightforward install, I was able to launch the Transporter. You’ll need to configure the software with the information for both the old and new BlackBerry server software.“ Once that’s done (and saved as a manifest file so that you don’t have to re-type it by hand every time), you’re ready to move users.
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Click on the “Details” button to select the users you want to work with.
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You can use the “Find Users” button to select the users you want to migrate.“ I’d recommend doing just one or two at a time until you’re sure everything is running OK.
Returning to the main screen, you’ll want to click on the “Preview” button (in Step 4) to preview the migration, and once it completes (successfully) click on the “Migrate” button in (Step 5) to perform the actual migration.“ Once it completes, you should see and be able to manage the users in the BlackBerry Administration console of your BESX server.