Sending IT policy updates to BlackBerry devices - BES 5
Posted 02-16-2010 at 04:05 AM by hdawg
Tags send it policy
I've been reading through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange Version: 5.0 Performance Benchmarking Guide and picked up a few read-worthy things.
A somewhat English translation of how IT Policy works (in RIM's words)
Sending IT policy updates to BlackBerry devices
If you assign an IT policy to a user account or group, change an existing IT policy, or delete an existing IT policy, the BlackBerry® Policy Service sends an IT policy update to the BlackBerry devices that are associated with the IT policy. The IT policy update occurs in three phases.
In the first phase, the BlackBerry Administration Service determines which IT policy to assign to user accounts based on predefined rules for determining group membership and the priority of IT policies. The BlackBerry Administration Service creates jobs and job tasks that deliver the IT policy updates to BlackBerry devices.
In the second phase, after you assign, change, or delete an IT policy, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server waits for a default period of 15 minutes (which I still don't understand) before it sends the IT policy update to BlackBerry devices. During this waiting period, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server does not have a performance impact on system resources.
In the third phase, the BlackBerry Policy Service sends the IT policy update to BlackBerry devices. The IT policy data is throttled according to the throttling settings that you can configure. For more information about configuring IT policy throttling and settings for the BlackBerry Policy Service, visit BlackBerry - Manuals and Guides for Administrators to read the BlackBerry Policy Service Throttling Technical Note and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Administration Guide.
The maximum number of IT policies and service books that the BlackBerry Policy Service can send can be configured using the PolicyThrottlingMaxBESJobs trait in TraitTool.exe. For more information about TraitTool.exe, visit
BlackBerry - Manuals and Guides for Administrators to read the BlackBerry Policy Service Throttling Technical Note.
Two things that bug me about this are:
How do y'all feel about this throttling and the change in how this queue works versus with BES 4.1.x?
A somewhat English translation of how IT Policy works (in RIM's words)
Sending IT policy updates to BlackBerry devices
If you assign an IT policy to a user account or group, change an existing IT policy, or delete an existing IT policy, the BlackBerry® Policy Service sends an IT policy update to the BlackBerry devices that are associated with the IT policy. The IT policy update occurs in three phases.
In the first phase, the BlackBerry Administration Service determines which IT policy to assign to user accounts based on predefined rules for determining group membership and the priority of IT policies. The BlackBerry Administration Service creates jobs and job tasks that deliver the IT policy updates to BlackBerry devices.
In the second phase, after you assign, change, or delete an IT policy, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server waits for a default period of 15 minutes (which I still don't understand) before it sends the IT policy update to BlackBerry devices. During this waiting period, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server does not have a performance impact on system resources.
In the third phase, the BlackBerry Policy Service sends the IT policy update to BlackBerry devices. The IT policy data is throttled according to the throttling settings that you can configure. For more information about configuring IT policy throttling and settings for the BlackBerry Policy Service, visit BlackBerry - Manuals and Guides for Administrators to read the BlackBerry Policy Service Throttling Technical Note and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Administration Guide.
The maximum number of IT policies and service books that the BlackBerry Policy Service can send can be configured using the PolicyThrottlingMaxBESJobs trait in TraitTool.exe. For more information about TraitTool.exe, visit
BlackBerry - Manuals and Guides for Administrators to read the BlackBerry Policy Service Throttling Technical Note.
Two things that bug me about this are:
- IT Policy changes are queued and delayed up to 15 minutes by default ... WHY?!?!?
- There is no way to do an immediate push / change ... you've got to wait; #fail.
How do y'all feel about this throttling and the change in how this queue works versus with BES 4.1.x?
Total Comments 2
Comments
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The queuing is so that if you change a policy multiple times, it will reconcile and only send one. You can set the time delay as low as 1 minute, which is pretty close to instant.Posted 02-16-2010 at 08:30 AM by hooper
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ok ... but when I make a change, I want it to take effect immediately under most circumstances. Why / when would I want to change a policy multiple times within a 15 minute interval?
Yes, you can set the delay to 1 minute, but that isn't the point ... it is still a delay and frankly I don't want to make that change so that it does queue processing every minute; especially if I have a large set of changes to do. I'd rather make the changes in batches and know they're getting queued immediately. Not having the ability to manage the queue is the problem with using a queuing system that bugs me.Posted 02-16-2010 at 08:56 AM by hdawg
