I recently came across a client who was having some problems with a transition from BES 4.0 to BES 5.01.  The reason for the transition is that they are in the process of migrating users from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010.  The process they are using is a gradual migration meaning they are migrating users from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 in batches of 25% of their user base.

The process they are using is that they will migrate the user from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 and then use the BlackBerry Transporter tool to migrate the users from BES 4.0 to BES 5.01.  What is occurring is that many of the users end up needing to have their BlackBerry device reactivated.  As a end result this process causes additional work load for their support staff. 

The problem that is that when migrating the user from BES 4.0 to 5.01 immediately after the Exchange user migration the BES server does not have time to rediscover the users new mail location.  A support call placed to RIM revealed that this is a known bug and the recommendation is to wait at least 30 minutes after the Exchange Migration.  Talking to the Admin at my client she suggests waiting 45 minutes, as this has reduced the likelihood of this problem from occurring again. 

Again, this problem is only occurring in the event where a company is migrating from Exchange to a new version and migrating to a new BES server i.e. 5.01.  I’m guessing many organizations won’t see this issue because they are either not upgrading BES at the same time, or big bang the Exchange user migration and then upgrade the BES database/server to the new edition.

Comments or thoughts?  Please share!