Blog Entry

(View Disclaimer)

Today we reach a significant milestone. We have shipped the Data Synchronizer Mobility Pack.

The shipping mobility pack will be provided free of charge to all Novell GroupWise, Novell Teaming, Novell Open Workgroup Suite and Novell Open Workgroup Suite Small Business Edition customers with current maintenance coverage. You can find it in the Novell Customer Center

This release replaces GroupWise Mobile Server and supports the next generation of mobile devices. Platforms that we support are:
- iPhone OS 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 or later (so iPhone, iTouch and iPad are all supported)
- iOS 4.0, 4.1
- Symbian Series 60 3rd-5th Edition or later
- Windows Mobile 5.0, 6.0, 6.1, 6.5 or later
- Palm OS with VersaMail or Exchange ActiveSync Update software
- Palm webOS
- Android 1.5 and 1.6 with additional software OR 2.x
- Maemo Internet Tablet OS 5.0

We do not install anything on the devices – anything that can sync natively with Microsoft Exchange over the air should also work with this product.

This is obviously an important release for our customers, and is the most important release from the Collaboration Business Unit this year. Anticipation of this release has been huge – since we released the Technical Preview at Brainshare in March there have been almost 6,500 downloads of it. The forums have had over 500 threads and almost 3000 posts, so we are all extremely relieved to get it into the hands of our customers officially.

Just a couple of reminders on the requirements. This initial release will run on SLES 11 64-bit OS only, though we are looking to expand the platform support in the future. For those customers who don’t already have SLES 11 we include a SLES entitlement specifically for the Data Synchronizer product. What that means is that Data Synchronizer customers will get a SLES entitlement for as many servers as are required to run the Data Synchronizer product. There are the standard caveats – the only workload on the server can be Data Synchronizer, and it is the core services only – so if you install some externally monitoring app it cannot consume the same entitlement (as an example). It also uses a Postgres database, which the Mobility Pack install will lay down and configure for you. Installation should be relatively easy – you install a base SLES 11 server and then add the Mobility Pack ISO as an add-on product. The install will walk you through the base configuration of the service – you should be able to go from mounting the ISO to syncing the first device inside 30 minutes.

We have a number of resources available to you :

• Learn More About Novell Data Synchronizer
• Novell Connection Magazine Article
• Device Wiki
• Technical White Paper
• Cool Solutions Community

A couple of months ago we also launched our SugarCRM, Salesforce.com and Sharepoint connectors, which have been getting steady interest from our customers. As we move forwards we are expecting to see a number of connectors coming from our partner community – many of those are close to shipping so I will share more details when I can.

What other connectors do you need?

So, download away and get syncing. Let us know your experiences, and share any device specific details on the Wiki.

*******Update*******
A lot of you have been having issues downloading the Mobility Pack. Some of you get a message in the Customer Care Portal that there is no media available. The file you need to be downloading is under the License link and it is called novell-data-synchronizer-mobility-pack-x86_64-104.ISO . There seems to be something in our entitlement system that forces it to work this way.

The majority of you are getting an error:
"We're sorry, we are unable to complete the download at this time.

The Novell download site experienced an unexpected error condition.
Please try your download again later.
java.lang.NullPointerException"

This is an issue with our mirroring system that we are trying to resolve. The message from our Operations team is:

"Customers need to give the image (which is pretty good sized) time to
populate (the mirrored servers) from behind Novell's firewall to outside
it. Once they get to the download button, give it about 10-15 seconds,
then keep trying. Depending on how backed up the server is, it may take
a number of tries. We have a bug in for this, but in the interim, keep
trying."

Sorry for the inconvenience folks

Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.