Now Novell has released Support Pack 3, a lot of GroupWise Administrators are changing the connection mode of their BlackBerry Enterprise Server because Novell fixed all BlackBerry related issues with the SOAP backend.

The BlackBerry Enterprise Server has two connection modes:

- GroupWise 6.5 OAPI mode (for which you need to install the latest GroupWise 6.5.7 Win32 client)
- GroupWise 7.0 SOAP mode (for which you need to install the GroupWise 7 SP3 POA)

Using SOAP instead of OAPI has some significant benefits. Apart from reliability and stability, the most important one is that SOAP uses an event model. GroupWise® Web Services Events is an extension of GroupWise Web Services that provides access to events or actions that occur on a GroupWise user's mailbox. Using these events, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server can be notified in real time when a specific event occurs on a mailbox. In other words, GroupWise Web Services Events is a Web Service (similar to SOAP) that allows the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to programmatically configure and retrieve specific GroupWise Web events that have occurred on a user's mailbox.

For example, if the BlackBerry Enterprise Server wants to track when an item is deleted in a GroupWise user's mailbox, it creates an Event Configuration that tracks deleted items. During the configuration of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, you can provide the IP address and a port of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server which will be notified when the specific event occurs. This is far more efficient than using OAPI, which polls every mailbox configured on your BlackBerry Enterprise Server in intervals. So, it's the difference between push and pull which is key here.

Knowledge base article KB05385 on RIM's support website explains how to change the Connection Mode to SOAP:

1. Stop all BlackBerry services.

2. Go to Start > Programs > BlackBerry Enterprise Server, then select BlackBerry Server Configuration. On the Database Connectivity tab take note of the SQL Serverâ„¢ name and Database name. Select Change Database.

3. When the Database Wizard appears click Next and on the second window enter the SQL Server and Database names you documented in Step 2.

4. Continue clicking Next until the you reach the GroupWise server window, then change the Connection Mode from GroupWise 7.0 SOAP mode to GroupWise 6.5 OAPI mode as shown here.

5. Continue clicking Next until you reach the last window Start Services.