[Mobilepartners] Blackberry users connecting to the BIS: Action Required

[Matthew D Sullivan]

Good Afternoon:

This past weekend (October 8-9th, 2011), IS&T updated parts of the Exchange email infrastructure in preparation for a complete mail system upgrade from Exchange 2007 to 2010. After the infrastructure updates were completed, BlackBerry devices connecting to the MIT Exchange email system using BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) did not automatically resolve this change and in turn stopped receiving email. Coincidentally, at the same time we were troubleshooting this issue, Research In Motion (RIM) announced a global interruption of BlackBerry service, which significantly hampered our ability to further troubleshoot.

Research In Motion announced that BlackBerry services were restored on October 12th, 2011. This allowed us to continue investigating the communication problems between BIS and the MIT Exchange email service.  At this time, we feel we've isolated the issue and have prepared documentation to walk users through reconfiguring their BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) settings to once again begin receiving and sending email from their BlackBerrys.

What’s needed now?
Microsoft Exchange supports a process for automatically discovering the correct server that your account should use to receive email.  It turns out that devices configured to use the BlackBerry Internet Service are unable to take advantage of this feature and were unable to reconfigure account settings appropriately after the infrastructure update this past weekend.  In order to begin receiving email again, you'll need to update the server settings on your device.  Instructions for doing so can be found below.

Setup documentation: Setup MIT Exchange 2007 via BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) for email-only<http://kb.mit.edu/confluence/x/1wC_Aw>

What's next?
The upgrade that took place last weekend was the first step in upgrading your email account to the newest version of Microsoft Exchange (Exchange 2010).  The next and final step of this upgrade is to move your mailbox from the 2007 server that it is currently stored on to 2010.  Each mailbox takes some time to move, so accounts will be migrated throughout the fall semester.  When your account is moved, your BlackBerry device will again have to be reconfigured to connect to the new server that your mail resides on.  This is an unfortunate limitation of the BIS platform.

You will receive an email approximately one week in advance of your mailbox migration that will include a link to instructions for reconfiguring your device.  You should also receive an email after the migration is complete.

We apologize for the inconvenience and truly appreciate your patience. If you have any further issues with your BlackBerry, the above setup documentation, or any mobile device related questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at mobile-help at mit.edu<mailto:mobile-help at mit.edu>.

Regards,
Matthew Sullivan
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Matthew Sullivan
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
IS&T | CSS | Service Desk | Mobile Devices Team
P: 617-253-6445
E: irishman at mit.edu<mailto:irishman at mit.edu>
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IMPORTANT: IS&T IT Staff will never ask for your password, nor will MIT send email requesting your password information. Please ignore email messages that request this information.

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