The best defense is a good offense, including when it comes to your BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 settings for enterprise mobility management. By regularly reviewing your settings, you’re helping your business maintain its important connectivity to the BlackBerry infrastructure and ensure the best possible BlackBerry experience.

BlackBerry executives want to ensure our customers are fully equipped to maximize their investment in BlackBerry technology and services. “BlackBerry has invested in the expansion of our infrastructure in an effort to continuously improve resiliency and scalability to meet the ever-evolving needs of our customers and BlackBerry’s continued global growth,” said Jeff Holleran, Senior Director of Enterprise Product Management. “We want to help ensure our customers have the best possible BlackBerry experience, and one way to do this is by encouraging administrators to regularly check that the correct SRP and IP addresses are being used to connect to the BlackBerry infrastructure.”

Here are five tips to optimize your BlackBerry Enterprise Server connectivity to the BlackBerry infrastructure:

1. Review Knowledge Base (KB) articles KB16738, KB03735, and KB04359 available at www.blackberry.com/btsc/. These include technical information on the recommended BES configuration settings.
2. Conduct a BlackBerry SRP test before making changes on your firewall to confirm whether or not your firewall is configured properly and validate the intended SRP path. (This applies to both BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.x and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10)
• Fig. 1: Here is a screenshot of the “bbsrptest” tool what you will see when conducting a BlackBerry SRP test. Note: You would substitute the host name for the SRP address/host that your company connects to (or proxy if you are using a specific proxy), as well as a custom port.



• Fig. 2 If you’re a BES 5.x customer you can also go into the BlackBerry Server Configuration panel settings and click on the BlackBerry Router tab. Here you will find the Router settings which includes the SRP Address, SRP host port (outbound), and BlackBerry services connection port (inbound). There is also a “Test Connection” button which displays which SRP address and port it is attempting to connect to and whether it is successful.



3. Verify that the appropriate country SRP address and IP ranges are allowed through your corporate network firewall.
4. If you are using proxy servers, view recommended configuration for SRP connections through a proxy here KB19236.
5. BES administrators should review settings regularly as updates are added to the KB articles as required.

The knowledge base articles referenced will help ensure your BlackBerry Enterprise connectivity and corporate firewall settings stay up to date, are configured correctly, and help you determine if these changes apply to your business. To check for any changes that can impact your business, take a look at the KB article links provided in the tips above for more details.

So there you have it – five tips to maximize your BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 settings by ensuring you are configured correctly. We are committed to keeping your business moving!

If you have any questions that are not answered in the KB articles, please follow your standard BlackBerry support path. In addition, you can head on over to the BlackBerry Community Support Forums – Business Support Forums.

I’m Jeff Holleran, the Senior Director for Enterprise Product Management here at RIM. Since the launch of BlackBerry® PlayBook™ OS 2.0, which includes a native email and PIM client that is based on Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol, one of the frequent questions that I am asked is, “Why ActiveSync?”

There are a number of reasons that RIM made the choice to go with ActiveSync as the sync engine for our next generation of messaging on BlackBerry tablets and smartphones. Over the past decade, ActiveSync has matured as a protocol. We are able to use ActiveSync to provide a capable sync engine that is supported for both the traditional Enterprise email platforms that RIM currently supports, and for additional email platforms that support the Microsoft ActiveSync protocol. This ability to build a single sync engine increases the reach of BlackBerry devices, while reducing the complexity of the custom sync engine that exists in today’s BlackBerry® Enterprise Server (BES). By selecting ActiveSync, we are able to provide a set of additional options for email connectivity to our customers including growth to support multiple devices for each user. In addition, we increased scalability with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion when compared to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Customers also have expressed interest in taking advantage of different levels of security, from the basics that come with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync through to the advanced security and controls that come with BlackBerry Mobile Fusion and the BlackBerry Infrastructure.

What this change didn’t mean was a move away from our core BlackBerry DNA: our full end-to-end encrypted email solution that our customers have come to depend upon. In particular, there is no need to open additional firewall ports or make any other changes that would cause an IT group to change their infrastructure. BlackBerry Mobile Fusion allows each PlayBook (and BlackBerry 10 in the future) user to connect through the secure BlackBerry Infrastructure. This configuration provides the same level of security as today’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server solution, with the encrypted message traffic flowing between the device and the BlackBerry Mobile Fusion server behind the firewall. The only difference is that we connect to the email server using the ActiveSync interface instead of the proprietary MAPI protocol that we used previously. Some customers may not realize that ActiveSync is enabled on their Microsoft Exchange server by default and no changes are required to get a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet up and running on BlackBerry Mobile Fusion.

How does all of this work?

From an end-user perspective, the steps to connect are straightforward. Conceptually, from a management perspective, there are three options to connect your ActiveSync-enabled BlackBerry PlayBook into your work messaging environment (and these steps will also work for BlackBerry 10 smartphones when they are in market):

1. Direct Connection – If the ActiveSync interface of your email server is exposed to the Internet, a user can simply configure their account by adding the email address and password of the account from their PlayBook. This will provide full email and PIM connectivity and adhere to ActiveSync configured policies (listed in the Knowledge Base article below):
Read more: Exchange ActiveSync support for the BlackBerry PlayBook

2. BlackBerry Mobile Fusion managed – An administrator can enable and configure an end user to use BlackBerry Mobile Fusion for device management, and provision the email settings so that when a user activates their PlayBook, their corporate email is configured, a work perimeter is created, and the IT policies set on the BlackBerry Mobile Fusion server are adhered to. Once the device is managed by BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, the ActiveSync policies are no longer applied or adhered to with the exception of the wipe command. This option also supports management of a BlackBerry PlayBook connected into a hosted email system (i.e. Microsoft Office 365).
Read more: ActiveSync policy behavior when a tablet is activated on BlackBerry Device Service

3. BlackBerry Mobile Fusion with Mobile Data Services (MDS) – Similar to a BlackBerry Mobile Fusion activation, this option differs in that all work traffic on the device can be configured to route through the MDS component of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, effectively extending the boundary of the corporate network to include the BlackBerry PlayBook without the need for a VPN solution or exposing ActiveSync to the Internet to allow for email/PIM access. One outbound connection over port 3101 provides secure connectivity to your PlayBook users for secure remote access to email and applications – just like the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. This is the solution recommended for security-conscious organizations that need to protect their corporate data.
Read more:

• Security Technical Overview – BlackBerry Device Service 6.0 and BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet 2.0.1
• BlackBerry MDS Connection Service Helps Make Connectivity a Simple Task

In order to understand the connectivity and Email/PIM synchronization differences between BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, let’s first take a look at a BlackBerry 7 smartphone connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server:

The BlackBerry 7 smartphone connects to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server using a 256-bit AES encrypted connection that carries email and PIM traffic from the server behind the firewall to the BlackBerry smartphone. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server connects to the email server using native email vendor-specific protocols.

Examining the connection to the BlackBerry PlayBook below, you can see the same BlackBerry DNA in place; we maintain the 256-bit AES encryption between secure endpoints on the PlayBook and BlackBerry Mobile Fusion server when using the MDS functionality to route the traffic.

The key difference is that instead of using the Mobile Fusion server to translate the native messaging protocols into BlackBerry messaging traffic, the PlayBook is making a connection directly into the mail server using ActiveSync protocols to synchronize email and PIM data to the device. This connection is then encapsulated within the 256-bit AES encrypted BlackBerry security connection ensuring that the same level of security that you have depended on for BB7.0 devices is also delivered on the BlackBerry PlayBook.

The use of ActiveSync also provides support for customers who are using hosted or cloud-based email providers. End users are able to access their email while the IT group is able to maintain device security, as well as providing behind the firewall access to the Intranet and other applications.

Our Enterprise customers are very pleased that we have continued to use the trusted connectivity model in use today. With this model, there is no need to expose ActiveSync to the Internet or increase the investment in VPN solutions to include mobile devices—the PlayBook is simply able to access and synchronize email and PIM data from the server behind the firewall. Of course, email isn’t the only data that can be accessed. When using the MDS functions of BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, employees also have the ability to access enterprise data and applications that are hosted behind the firewall.

This same architecture will be in place to support the launch of BlackBerry 10 devices. We’ve made a small change to the synchronization engine, and we continue to leverage the convenient connectivity and world-class security that the BlackBerry solution has provided our enterprise and government customers for over a decade.

In summary, BlackBerry is as secure as ever.

• We are using ActiveSync to give us greater flexibility and scalability to support more devices per user and more email platforms
• The use of ActiveSync gives customers greater choice in how they connect BlackBerry PlayBooks and BlackBerry 10 smartphones to server-based, hosted and cloud email systems
• The secure BlackBerry DNA remains; single outbound connection over port 3101, 256-bit AES encryption between server and device, no need to invest in additional VPNs and no need to expose corporate data to the internet

Gedeon Richter Vietnam (Gedeon Richter) is a representative office of the multinational pharmaceutical company Gedeon Richter PLC. The sales team of Gedeon Richter is already quite mobile, using motorcycles as their primary mode of transportation to meet with clients and navigate the traffic of Vietnam. As with any sales force, the team needed easy access to information and communication, but with maximum convenience and low bulk.

BlackBerry® smartphones were used to further mobilize their on-the-go sales force, allowing them to travel light without compromising the access to company data. With the abundance of Wi-Fi® hotspots available in the cities, they were able to cut data costs, further increasing the return on investment of the mobile equipment.

You may not live in Vietnam and ride a motorcycle as part of your work, but mobilizing a sales force with the proper equipment and keeping them connected to your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution is still a crucial parallel that can be drawn. BlackBerry® Enterprise Express allowed Gedeon Richter to manage the devices and plug into their existing CRM tools and Microsoft® Exchange mail server, rounding out the solution and representing cost efficiency. Check out the PDF below to read the full case study:

If you’ve got a customer success story, don’t hesitate to let us know at success@rim.com. Does your sales force use BlackBerry smartphones? How have they benefited from the mobility and connectivity? Share in the comments below.

BlackBerry® Mobile Voice System (MVS) 5.1 with voice over Wi-Fi® calling is now available for Avaya in North America, in addition to the existing North American Cisco® and Mitel® functionality to support BlackBerry MVS. BlackBerry MVS is available to the UK through the Cisco® platform. This connection system allows calls to be transferred between networks, further enhancing employee connectivity. For details, check out www.blackberry.com/mvs.

What is BlackBerry Mobile Voice System?

BlackBerry MVS provides the opportunity for unique cost savings by unifying the broad array of voice hardware into single handheld devices. Full control of the connection – as well as managing incoming and outgoing calls – rests with the company, and comes complete with a variety of options and settings for administrators. BlackBerry MVS was designed to: boost productivity, enable IT groups to manage calls, allow employees to remain easily connected to the organization without the need for a desk phone, and to deliver overall value through increased mobility and connectivity.

So What’s the Benefit?

Beyond conceptualizing the idea of unifying mobile communications and managing voice packets with ease, there are tangible bottom-line benefits to MVS. For example, consider the cost savings of voice plans once a percentage of your company’s calls are routed via WiFi. Concerning hardware, consider how much an average desk phone costs, and imagine the savings of cutting this expense time and time again. Lastly, picture a new employee that has less to learn due to less hardware and more unified systems, saving you the cost of time and increasing the speed at which he or she begins to contribute productively. Clearly the positive impact of MVS extends beyond the full list of features, beyond the supporting concepts and industry trends, and spreads throughout your organization in a surprising number of ways.

Real World Example

An example of BlackBerry MVS finding success in application can be found in LTT Vending Group, one of the UK’s leading independently-owned vending machine company. LTT Vending Group implemented BlackBerry MVS to further enhance their existing BlackBerry® solution, increasing phone and customer relationship management efficiency, as well as company image. Because the implementation of BlackBerry MVS unified all employee voice communications to one phone number each, the availability of employees increased and the customer experience was simplified. In cost savings alone, LTT Vending predicts that the solution will provide a 50% cost savings on their communications bills in just over a year, which would provide a full return on the investment.

Learn More

To learn more about BlackBerry MVS 5.1, head over to www.blackberry.com/mvs, and to explore the details of the mentioned example, view the LTT Vending Group (UK) Case Study.

Share Your Thoughts

Are control, organization, and simplicity just as important for your phone as they are for your email? Share your thoughts in the comments below!