Ok, so patching any server is never just a walk in the park… but it’s not supposed to be the sort of thing which has to be attempted more than once.  Each failed attempt makes “higher ups” more and more wary of the competency of the IT staff.  So what types of concerns are there with the BES patch process?Well it’s not so much the process… actually, it’s not the post-patch issues.  Once patching has occurred, the BES needs to make connection with each and every device to push out new service books and “re-scan” the users’ mailboxes.  While this process really isn’t all that complicated, the time it takes to re-connect with each device is significant.  This time is increased exponentially when there’s a hefty amount of users.

Let’s just say an organization has about 2000 users on a single BES which they’d like to patch to say 4.1.6 or 5.0.  As it stands, post-patching connectivity would probably take in the neighborhood of about a day or two.  What self-respecting business has that much time to have users without connectivity?  So as a word of advice… When implimenting a new BES environment, go with the highest possible version to delay having to patch.