Question : BES Enterprise 4.1 to BES Express

I know this has been given a basic answer here:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Handhelds_-_PDAs/Blackberry/Q_26187315.html

but I was hoping for a little more detail.

My environment:
Exchange 2007 SP3 running on a VM
BES Enterprise 4.1 running on an old SQL2000 server (physical box)

I want to install BES Express on a separate server (not Exchange), but perform a manual migration of our Blackberry users from one BES server to the other. ie - I am fine to delete the user from the BES Enterprise server, add them to BESX and reactivate.

We have less than 40 users, so it's not a big deal.

I just wanted to confirm a few things.

1) The server I want to install BESX on is also a VM with SQL2005 installed. It is currently running Microsoft OCS 2007 R2. In that sense, the server will not be "dedicated" to BESX, but the load from OCS is not very much.

Anyone see any issues with this?

2) Are there any other considerations for installing BESX as a 2nd installation of a Blackberry server? We only have the 1 Exchange server.

Do I basically just install BESX and then begin migrating users?

Can I use the same Active Directory account for the services (besadmin)?

The goal here is to have both BES and BESX working indefinitely at the same time and not to cut service for any Blackberry users. I want to be able to take my time with the migration since I'd have to contact each user.

Thanks!

Answer : BES Enterprise 4.1 to BES Express

1) I'm not completely sure with OCS 2007R2 running with it as you might experience a port conflict. However the ports required by BES Express are listed here on page 281: http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/deliverables/14333/BlackBerry_Enterprise_Server_Express_for_Microsoft_Exchange-Administration_Guide-T487521-984726-02162010-001-5.0.1-US.pdf

2) The main consideration is that you can't install BESX onto the same besmgmt database as your 4.1 server. That means that users will need to have their devices wiped and re-activated as you're moving them from one database to another. You could use enterprise transporter (see this article: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Handhelds_-_PDAs/Blackberry/A_1094-Using-BlackBerry-Enterprise-Transporter-to-move-users-from-4-1-x-to-5-0.html) BUT it's not supported and may not work. If you are going to try enterprise transporter, try move yourself and see if it works. Even if it does, I would still move users one and a time and be prepared to do a wipe/re-activate.

You can use the same besadmin account as it should have the right exchange permissions. Just ensure that it also has permissions to perform ldap queries in active directory, as BESX uses that to lookup users in order to add them.

Good luck!