Now that "the date" has passed, I've been reading posts about the failures that occured and the ongoing issues still being experienced. Some of us have to have success stories in our environments. DST couldn't have dropped it's drawers and taken a big ol' [insert excrement here] on
EVERYBODYS Blackberry Server, Desktops or Devices.
Let's turn that frown upside down and put on a happy face!
(Maybe we can get a sticky for this? *HINT HINT HINT*)
I'll go first.
I started studying the DST changes back in the first week of January. Waited and waited for RIM & Micro$oft & Lotus Notes to release patches/hotfixes/etc. When they finally did, I again waited and waited to deploy. I watched the Forums and the updates to the RIM patch site. Only when I was sure it was mostly correct, did I attempt to deploy to a small group of folks. Out of those 4, only 2 worked. I tweaked the deployment and updated to 2.2 on the patcher. I send another deployment to my 2nd test group of 15; less than an hour later, 14 of the 15 worked! EUREKA! I found the formula that worked!
I wrote an e-mail to the Blackberry users describing what they would see, when they would see it, and what actions they needed to take. Finally, I described to them how to verify the patch and who to contact if it was not there. I set up the server to wirelessly deploy the patcher to a group of 25 devices at the end of the day and hoped for the best. Next morning, most of the devices had patched. Seeing as how the process was working, I deployed to the next group of 100. Most of those patched before the end of the day. And so the process continued in batches of 100 until everybody had a
DST configuration listed next to their name in the Handheld view.
After the mass e-mail and deployment, I monitored the server and the Query tool to see who got the update and who didn't. Folks who showed
Awaiting Patch received an e-mail from me asking them to check their devices and let me know if it was really applied. Folks with errors were asked to contact me individually for a walk-thru of a fix depending on their situation. The ones where
Helper not installed was showing on the Query report were badgered by several e-mails to "turn your device on!" Some did and some didn't.
Overall, my deployment was VERY successful. Out of all my devices spread around the organization:
3 - Helper not installed ("Turn your Blackberry on!")
1 - Error
All the rest are PATCHED and functioning as they should.
During this entire process, I also had to patch Commontime mSuite Admin Console for Lotus Notes, several Windows Mobile 2003/2005 devices and a variety of Palm OS devices. Not only did the mSuite software need to be patched, but the DEVICES needed patching. Although there weren't as many of these as the Blackberry group, there were still enough of them to be a pain in my [insert body part here]. I haven't heard any of these folks screaming yet, so I'm guessing they're OK.
Anybody else want to share?
I'm DarthBBerry, and I'm a Blackberry Systems Administrator and Telecom Ninja. And I DO NOT have a Blackberry DST 2007 problem any longer.
