“Most organizations that use Microsoft Exchange as their corporate communication tool have staff that uses a BlackBerry device as well. Our clients are no different. During each deployment that I work on, I ask the question, “How many BlackBerry users do you have?”  Knowing that the high cost for BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) licensing usually leads to sticker shock, I cringed each time.

I recently learned that Research In Motion (RIM), the company that makes BlackBerry products, now offers BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express for free! Having your own dedicated BES server will allow for seamless integration between your Microsoft Exchange environment and BlackBerry mobile devices. This eliminates any delays, outages, and other limitations that are commonly found with shared scenarios or relying on your mobile provider.

The first question I asked when hearing about this new offering was, “What were the limitations?” Great news, the majority of customers that I would work with can get by with the Express edition without a problem.

I called BlackBerry to get more details and they filled me in on only a couple minor limitations. First, there is no support for BlackBerry Mobile Voice System which I was told is rarely used anyways. Also, you’re limited to only 40 IT policies. And finally, you are limited to 75 users in a shared environment but allows for 200+ users in a dedicated server environment. From our experience, it’s best to deploy a BES server in a dedicated environment for optimal performance. So for the clients LogicalSolutions.net will work with won’t be limited to the amount of users able to access the BES server.

For the small cost of a virtual dedicated server, we can install the free BES Express application and have you up and running in no time!"

When it comes time to start thinking about Virtualization, here are 5 important factors to think about:

1. Platform: Which is the most Suitable Platform?

There really are only three major competitors: VMWare, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Parallels Virtuozzo. Each one of these platforms offers Competitive advantages as well as different pricing models.  For Example, running Microsoft Hyper-V allows you to run unlimited Windows Operating Systems under a single License which would lower the license costs for your organization, but might it may not be the best candidate if you are a Linux based organization. 

2. Number of Containers: How many virtual servers can you fit on each Server?

This really depends on the current CPU/RAM usage of your current environments.  One commonly made mistake is overloading the host server with too many Virtual Instances which will cause poor performance. 

3. Domain Controller Placement

Another thing to take into consideration is failover and proper disaster recovery for your Domain Controllers.  Placing your Primary and Secondary DNS server on Separate Virtual Nodes is best practice as well as having enough failover machines to handle the event of a Virtualization Host Failure. 

4. Migration Strategy

Determine a Migration Strategy and evaluate all your current candidate applications to migrate to your virtual environment.  Note that not all applications should be migrated to virtual environments.  For example, some versions of Microsoft Exchange are not supported on select Virtual Platforms.  Doing your homework  is one of the most important step that needs to be taken before moving to a new environment and/or platform.

5. Failover and Backup Plan

Now that you are running more environments on fewer servers, backup and disaster recovery become even more critical.  Setting up a proper backup strategy for all of your Virtual Environments is crucial.  On the disaster recovery side, even if you run your virtual servers in house, you should secure a failover Virtual environment.  At LogicalSolutions.net, we offer failover Virtual Environments that will run your applications in the event of a failure.