Domino Administration: Now and Future - ID20204/15/2008 10:35:50 PMLocation : Cleveland, OH
Six pages of notes on this session at Lotusphere.
Led by Chip Carter and Art Thomas of the Lotus Domino Administration team, this session was well attended and interesting (okay, you have to have a Domino Administration interest).
They began the session with a slide reaffirming that they, and their team, are dedicated to making Domino Administration easier. The first point that I noted was a Redpaper, Understanding Lotus Notes Smart Upgrade. The point here was that Lotus is continually working to make this tool easier to use and improving it. Case in point was the "Run as Admin" utility. I took some additional notes on their next talking point: Provisioning (Eclipse based). From my notes:
- Central control of Notes clients
- Add/remove features and composite applications
- Changes to layouts
- Central repository of end user updates
- Works closely with Smart Upgrade
- You can replicate Update Sites.
Policies (a feature of Notes/Domino that I really, really like).
- There will be more granularity in Domino 8.0.1
- A simplified UI
- About 95% (maybe more) of preference settings can be managed by policies
- Addition of Replication Settings to Policies!
- There is a lot of new policy content.
- Dynamic Policies - Assign policies based on home mail server, groups, or direct add of user name to policy. If a person changes groups, the applicable policy can change. This basically means that you can "set it and forget it" when it comes to policies. Just remember to maintain your groups. Finally, this is backward compatible with Explicit and Org Policies.
Chip and Art made a point to remind the audience that DDM is an object of much time and money at IBM and that they made significant improvements to DDM in 8.0.1.
On to Domino Configuration Tuner (DCT).
- A stand alone utility (NSF). Quicktune.nsf
- Checks and analyzes configuration settings
- Runs on the Notes Client
- Generates reports with solutions.
- Improves stability, performance, and security of your Domino environment
- Shipping in 8.5 as a separate "product"
- Free
- Easy to update; over the web like an anti-virus update
- Will assess Release 7 environments and newer
- Can be done as a scheduled or manual task
- Will include a "rule catalog"
- A demo of the DCT was run on an 8.5 server. It took less than 10 minutes to scan, it was really easy. The reports explained the problem, provided recommendations, including links to additional documentation (like TechNotes).
DCT was a very impressive utility.
Notes Shared Login
- Removes the Notes ID password prompt
- Passwords can't get out of synch
- No intervention by the end user
They then talked about an add-in, FIPS 140-2. Only on the Windows 32-bit platform. It provides new document encryption, more secure encryption on the Notes ID, and S/MIME for incoming e-mail.
ID Vault
- A special database that stores Notes ID's securely. IDs are encrypted and accessible by the Vault Server.
- Provides password recovery
- Recovers lost ID files
- Allows multiple IDs to be in synch
- Easy decryption of encrypted databases and documents
- Replaces ID Recovery (which is/was challenging)
- Easy to setup and configure, and easy to deploy for the users to get their passwords or lost IDs
- Can reset passwords on IDs
Messaging
- Message recall (there were mixed feelings on this new feature). ONLY with R8 servers and clients, R8 mail template, and the user has to have saved Sent mail. Enabled by default. Admin can configure this either in the Server Document or in a Policy.
- SMTP Outbound Authentication. Mail journaling of all recipient names (group expansion). Mail threads are now persistent (you will be able to see the context of the thread)
Directory
- Directory Assistance (DA) is simplified. They added a "Suggest" and "Verify" button.
- DirLint. Tool that shows you issues with your Directory (syntax, missing group members, and more)
- DDM to probe slow LDAP searches
- "Vastly" improved NameLookup performance
- In R8.5, there will be "directory independence." Will support Active Directory first, then other LDAP directories. It will eliminate duplicates and data synchronization.
Other Improvements in R8
- AdminP. Renames are improved. Unread synchronization (but this adds to CPU and Disk I/O on server startup). Direct deposit of requests.
- OOO service
- Inbox management and trimming
- Database redirects. Updates Bookmarks and Replication Page on Db Moves and/or Deletes
Large mail files? Chip and Art referred to this document (3 years old). then moved on to Inbox maintenance. Admins are getting a lot of control over mail files, such as moving mail out of the Inbox, running of Cleanup tasks, and more granularity in Policy Documents (Mail Settings).
Database Improvements
New column property to save index. "On demand collation." New DB property to compress the design and/or documents (this will save between 15-70% in disk space)
New in R8 - The Web Admin client now runs on Linux!
Lotus Widgets
- Admins will be responsible for these
- Maintain the catalog
- Push down to desktop with a Desktop Policy
Beyond 8.5
- Admin client. In Eclipse and overhaul it
- Continue to improve AdminP
- More content in Policies
- More DDM improvements
- Expose Admin APIs - DDM, Policies, etc.
- Expand DCT
Six pages of notes, remember? :-)
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