Taking BlackBerry Management a Step Further

IT administrators face several challenges when it comes to monitoring and managing BlackBerry users, including how to support more users without additional resources, how to judge how many BlackBerry servers are necessary for their environment, and how to maintain high service levels. In response to these challenges, many companies have come out with products designed to help administrators more easily monitor and manage BlackBerry users. However, Zenprise for BlackBerry goes a step further by not only providing monitoring and management functionality, but also by troubleshooting BlackBerry problems and prescribing ways to fix them.

            Zenprise for BlackBerry helps administrators maintain high service levels by quickly identifying the root cause of each problem and includes reporting modules that keep track of the most common problems each user has. The product also automatically troubleshoots alerts that are sent when a problem occurs and—after tests have determined the root cause of the problem—provides administrators with the resources to fix the problem. These resources include embedded knowledge software that's comprised of Microsoft and Research in Motion Knowledge Base articles as well as information from BlackBerry experts. Zenprise for BlackBerry's embedded knowledge software is updated every six to eight weeks and can currently help administrators solve more than 5,000 unique problems, according to Ahmed Datoo, Zenprise's vice president of marketing.

            Zenprise for BlackBerry also includes capacity planning functionality, which helps administrators ensure that their company isn't investing too much or too little into its BlackBerry infrastructure. "An organization without enough capacity to meet the growth in BlackBerry users will generally experience a slow down in user performance \[i.e., messages take longer to get delivered to the handheld, calendar synchronization takes longer, etc.\]," said Datoo. This functionality also helps administrators more easily manage performance degradation.

For more information about Zenprise for BlackBerry, go to http://www.zenprise.com/products/blackberry.aspx.