Quote:
Originally Posted by dtw
Stupid question: how does this work? I would have thought that each org used their own servers. How do blanket outages occur for BB services?
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Basically RIM provides with a secure tunnel
You device, wherever it is, connects to RIM's Backend
The Corporate BES server, does the same from within your company's firewall/network..
The 2 meet in the middle , RIM connects the 2
That's the BES side of things
the BIS (BB internet services) works different, there BB connects to the BBserver @ rim and that BB server then polls your mailbox.
BIS is less secure then BES because essentially your mailbox must be accessible on the internet.. As would be with Android, Ipod or Activesync devices.
BES is a great system, because the tunnel is almost impossible to hack without access to the device.. so if you lock down the device, it's very secure.
But it all depends on RIM's backend that has to connect device to BES.
And that's where it horribly went wrong the last days.
My prediction : they burnt themselves badly now... pisspoor crisis communication 3 days outage.. anybody who was up for a decision will now decide not to go with RIM... Anybody who's been down for days, will now start looking elsewhere.. and since RIM was already feeling the pressure due to strategic mistakes (playbook for one thing), they will now be taking punches like nothing else.. Because this was the core of everything Blackberry that went down it voids their main advantage over "the others" and makes it a negative.
the only thing they could do, is open it up, release the new QNX devices with the option to connect to non RIM relays @ the companies.
But if they do that, 1 RIM looses the monthly kickback per user, they get via the Operator , they loose the revenue & control
2 the NSA's of the world will flip out because then it becomes truly a black hole to them.
At least now up to a point, they (NSA) still can do some magic if the have access to RIM's infrastructure , which they do if it involves national security , if that goes open, and the keys are upgraded, it becomes next to impossible to hack for even the NSA..
So i don't think they will/can/want to go that route. even though it is the only way they can remove themselves as the bottleneck/point of failure.