BlackBerry® Enterprise Solution

[Alex_C]

Dear all,

does anybody have experience with the BlackBerry Social Networking Application Proxy?

I'm not sure if I corretly understand this best practice:

Install the BlackBerry Social Networking Application Proxy behind your organization's firewall, on a dedicated computer that does not run other applications or services.

source:

http://docs.blackberry.com/en/admin/deliverables/34592/Best_practices_installing_SNAP_1778086_11.jsp

Do I really need a dedicated server for that, or can I set it up on the BES as well? (assuming enough resources)

Thanks in advance for your help!

Cheers,

Alex

[fermanagh]

Hi there,

I've set this up before in a Domino environment and you do need to have a dedicated server due to the resources etc.

However, support for this will soon finish as IBM & RIM are abandoning the Lotus Connections - Quickr/SNAP concept in favour of accessing everything over the device browser, considering the advanced capability of the new webkit browser on O/S 6 and above.

If I were you I would'nt bother, i'll try and dig out the IBM article which mentions this.

[fermanagh]

sorry, just realised that this is for Exchange...I'm not sure where RIM are going with the SNAP/Sharepoint concept but I'll see if I can find out

[Alex_C]

Thanks fermanagh, much appreciated!

[Alex_C]

Hi again...
Anyone got experience with how many users per server allowed?
I didn't find any information about max. concurrent users either...

Is there any RIM expert around here, who could help me out?
Thanks in advance!

[knottyrope]

---

Alex_C wrote:
Hi again...
Anyone got experience with how many users per server allowed?
I didn't find any information about max. concurrent users either...

Is there any RIM expert around here, who could help me out?
Thanks in advance!

---

Max per BES is about 2000 if on SQL and about 500 on MSDE.

why? message agents limits.

there is some twaeking you can do to get more, but it is not for the average user to change

[fermanagh]

It looks like SNAP for sharepoint is still alive, it was only IBM that was changing it's direction.

The doc below should help you setup and install everything. Have you already installed SNAP?

http://docs.blackberry.com/id-id/admin/deliverables/34593/BlackBerry_Social_Networking_Application_P...

[fermanagh]

If you're worried about load, then you might want to consider using a load balancer, see below:

http://docs.blackberry.com/tr-tr/admin/deliverables/34592/Configuring_load_balancing_for_SNAP_171850...

Thie doc below (made for IBM Lotus Connections & Quickr but should also apply to Microsoft) tells you how to increase the number of concurrent client connections using a load balancer:

http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/KB22988

Read up on best practices too:

http://docs.blackberry.com/tr-tr/admin/deliverables/34592/Best_practices_installing_SNAP_1778086_11....

[Alex_C]

Thanks everyone for the replies!

knotty, I know that's the limits for the BES, but I wonder if the same limits go for the SNAP...?

I went through all the documents stated by fermanagh, but I don't see any numbers..

If there are some, can you point me there? I might be blind.. :-/

No, I did not do a SNAP installation before. I'd like to do an appropriate sizing before running into troubles.

Thanks for your support, much appreciated!

Cheers,

Alex

[fermanagh]

I don't think there is anything related to this in the docs. However, the device initiates a connection to BES first (MDS-CS) so all traffic would be going there first.

From the architecture doc:

The BlackBerry Client for Microsoft  SharePoint uses the BlackBerry MDS Connection Service, a BlackBerry Enterprise Server component, to communicate with the BlackBerry Social Networking Application Proxy and Microsoft  SharePoint server

If you have followed RIM's hardware recommendations with regards to the number of users on your BES, you should be fine. If you're still worried then why not create a remote MDS-CS instance that will connect to the SNAP or even create an MDS-CS pool?

If you follow the hardware specs for SNAP you should be covered as well.