Faced with an aging version of Blackberry Enterprise Server running on equally aged hardware we were concerned that our service managers on client sites could lose contact with their email at any time.
The cost of hardware maintenance was proving prohibitive and so the decision to move the Blackberry Enterprise Server to new hardware became a "must have".
We had already started migrating other services to a virtualised Hyper-V environment and wanted to do the same with our Blackberry Enterprise Server using some Physical to Virtual tools we had.
The only sticking point was the need to connect new devices and those needing reprogramming to the server via USB to reconfigure the settings. Wireless activation is less than reliable in old Blackberry Enterprise Servers and so USB support was essential.
We kept putting the task off hoping Microsoft would introduce USB support into Hyper-V but each successive release did not offer us this feature. Eventually we needed to find a way to resolve the issue.
A few quick Google searches later and we found FabulaTech’s USB over Network. The free trial quickly proved that it worked perfectly for us and provided all of the features we required plus many more.
By Installing the free client software inside the Hyper-V virtual machine and the server software on a physical workstation we are able to connect our blackberry devices to the Blackberry Enterprise Server quickly and easily. An unexpected benefit is that we don’t actually need to let the Blackberry users into our server room so USB over Network has also improved our security as well.
I have to admit we tried a number of other alternative products but USB over Network was clearly the most reliable product.
Having used USB over Network for our Blackberry Enterprise Server we can now see many other uses for the software so no doubt we’ll be back to increase our license soon.
Gary Turner
Circle Computers Limited