[mlcasto]

We are migrating from MS Exchange 2003 to 2010. Doing such will mean migrating our separate server running BES 4.1.4.2 to the newer BES Express.

Our plan is to migrate our physical Exchange 2003 server to a virtual Exchange 2010 server. We'll actually run one virtual Exchange 2010 guest on one physical VM host, and then another virtual Exchange 2010 guest on a different physical VM host. Not an ideal setup, but we have a small and simple network, and this should give redundancy in theory.

I am telling you this because I am unsure where to build this new BES Express server. Again, we are small and simple, and only have about 20 phones hanging off our current BES server. My research shows I can build this new Express server right on an Exchange 2010 server, and be limited to 75 Blackberry users. That would be fine, as I don't see us ever pushing that limit.

So, are there pluses/minuses with putting BES Express right on a virtual 2010 Exchange server, or should I just spin up a separate virtual Windows 2K8 server and build BES Express on that? Thoughts? Thanks

[freakinvibe]

I would use a separate server for BES. I think it is possible to have both services on one server if you have the MS small business server, but I have never tried that. Expecially the BAS is using quite some resources and keep in mind that you need SQL on the box as well.