LABS GALLERY: BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 Effectively Spreads Admin Load

When using the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server Web interface, administration credentials can be local to the BES system or tied to Active Directory credentials.

BES 5 features a brand-new Web-based GUI for administrators. From the Web interface, administrators can control all the policies, users and software configurations they have the rights to administer.

BES 5 now offers redundancy. Administrators, using the same license key, can create a second backup iteration of each BES server that comes online if problems arise on the primary machine.

Policies can now be assigned to groups and users to groups (lower right). Users can be in multiple groups, but only one policy can be assigned to each user. Administrators must rank policies by priority: Higher-priority policies overrule lower-priority ones, but a policy assigned directly to a user trumps all.

Administrators can finely control just about everything on a device via policies.

Administrators get at-a-glance insight into device status-including network connection, available memory, effective policies and remaining battery life-at last check-in.

BES 5 now supports administrator roles, allowing mobile administrators to assign front-line support staffers only the permissions needed to view or modify the users and devices for which they are responsible.

Here’s a collection of dialogs seen during the process of centrally wiping a device still in the field.

As part of the BES 5.0 setup, administrators input Active Directory credentials to pull data from the directory. New in Version 5.0, BES periodically pulls directory data automatically to quicken the lookup process when creating new users within BES.