High CPU usage for Blackberry service 1

[manners]

Hello.

We are running The Blackberry Enterprise server version 3.6.0.29. At the moment this is a trial run with only 5 users. The "Blackberry Mobile Data Service" (bmds.exe) seems to be running with a lot of active threads. The CPU usage is going up and down from 20% to 80% and the amount of thread bmds.exe has is usually 133 - over 70 more than any other process. Is this normal?, our concern is that when we roll this out to more users (potentially 30-40) then our server will need some hardware upgrades to cope.

Thanks

 

[pschwarz]

BES installation guide recommends 1.5 GB memory for all of the services if they are installed... the attachment service is most RAM/processor demanding (1 GB recommended for this service alone). Might consider running with out this particular service (none of my users can really figure it out). Keep in mind, this is amount of RAM reco. if BES is the only service running on that server. More maybe required if running Exchange, Antivirus, etc. Running some "Preformance monitoring" on the server will give you some hard numbers to go by (using MS Preformance monitoring MMC's).

 

[manners]

Thanks pschwarz, we will start running some performance monitors over the next few days. Adding some more RAM is almost a certainty as well. With the projected growth of the Blackberry for our company it may be worth investing in a new machine specifically for this service. At the moment due to the budget and lack of funds were having to run it on a DC! (not ideal i know)

Regards

 

[StevePruitt]

Pschwarz... you said your users can't figure out the attachment service. Maybe I can help, since our users find it highly valuable.

You need the service running on the server, and the corresponding software installed on the handheld. Once you have that... when you receive a message with an attachment in a supported format, you can download it and read it. DOC and TXT files are best, spreadsheets are usable but difficult. Other formats usually make too much use of graphics to be valuable, but that varies with the file.

To DL and read an attachment:
- open the message
- click, select Open Attachment
- select the attachment you want, and either Table of Contents (useful only in very large documents) or Full Content
- click, select Retrieve
- you can exit the message if desired. The message will be marked as unread when the attachment has been received.
- Open message, Open Attachment, select info. It should have a checkmark icon to show it's been downloaded.
- Click, select View to see it.


Steve

 

[pschwarz]

Hey Steve, I figured it out, thought it was pretty cool. I was recently hired (Dec.) to do quite a few things.. Exchange, BES, File server, Antivirus, etc. My users are still struggling with e-mail(yes, even e-mail attachments), calendars, saving to the file server, etc. Slowly, they are learning (I have hosted 4 user education groups).

 

[genith]

Does anyone know exactly how you get the attachment service installed? I don't see anything in the BES management console. From what I have read so far, it sounds like it is suppose to install the attachment service by default, but I don't see it. How can I check and test this software?

My users are not getting the options to open attachments and choose the TOC and download the attachment.

 

[pschwarz]

Check out page 24 of the BES installation guide. I believe that it is not installed by default (can't remember, since I did this mid-December). Also, might want to look through your services on the BES to make sure that the attachment service is running.

 

[stevenyc]

I know I say this a lot, but look at Goodlink. It just works. The users can automatically get attachments without you having to worry about installing extra services or buying extra RAM. For a while my company ran both RIM and Good, and once I was able to completely set up a user on Goodlink and have them downloading attachments while I was still on hold waiting to talk to RIM about why my users couldn't get attachments.