Domino 9 on Ubuntu – The most complete how-to I have seen …

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… lately.The how-to is from a friend of mine, who runs the whole Domino setup including Traveler on Ubuntu boxes. It’s in french, but since the yellow bubble is made of a bunch of extremely clever girls and boys, that should not be a problem, right?
Christophe Boss, who gets all the credit for that work, is way ahead of me, regarding anything from Linux to Domino administration and he has done the Ubuntu thing for years. It works. No support from IBM, but who needs them anyway.
I must admit, I tried to install it on VMWare Fusion and failed. I just could not get the shared folders to work and therefore I could not get the Domino files to the Ubuntu server. Don’t ask for the CD drive, unfortunately that does not work either.
Disclaimer: Whatever you do, don’t come running to me or Christophe, because you broke something. It’s entirely up to you. No warranty whatsoever.

And since that damm download does not work and it is 9.30 PM, here is it …

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Installation Lotus Domino 9.0 64 bits (avec composants OpenSocial) et IBM Traveler 9 (optionnel)
sur Ubuntu Server 12.04 64 bits LTS

Matériel nécessaire :

  • CD ou image ISO d’installation Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04.x 64bits
  • Packages nécessaires :

    o roverex-dserver_1.0_i386.deb
    o webmin_1.620_all.deb(ouversionultérieur-optionnel)
    o DOMINO_SERVER_9.0_LINUX_XS_64_EN.tar(ServeurDomino)
    o DOMI_SE_EMEX_AO_9.0_LIN_XS_64_EN_FW.tar(ComposantOpenSocial) o SiserveurIBMTraveler9:NOTES_TRAVELR_9.0_LINUX_XS_ML.tar.gz

  • Autre composant nécessaire : ID du futur serveur Temps nécessaire et connaissances nécessaires :
  • 2-3h de travail nécessaire pour l’installation de l’ensemble des composants. Prévoir du temps supplémentaire pour la configuration du serveur Lotus Domino et du serveur Traveler.
  • Bonne connaissance des environnements Linux recommandée. Maîtrise de la ligne de commande indispensable, Ubuntu Server ne disposant pas d’interface graphique.
  • Connaissances en configuration des serveurs, IBM Domino et IBM Traveler requises.

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3 Page 1

INFORMATION CONCERNANT UBUNTU SERVER 2012

Depuis 2010, les Unix propriétaires et les distributions Linux migrent vers le système de démarrage UpStart en remplacement du Sysinit (Système V). Ce changement important ne permettra plus à l’avenir d’utiliser Sysinit pour l’arrêt, le démarrage ou le redémarrage des services via la commande /etc/init.d.

Depuis Ubuntu 10.04, les services systèmes et une grande partie des services serveurs ont été migré vers UpStart, mais cette distribution reste compatible avec Sysinit.

Par exemple, l’arrêt et le démarrage de Samba doivent utiliser UpStart par les commandes suivantes :

sudo stop smbd
sudo start smbd
sudo restart smbd

Pour l’instant, UpStart n’est pas compatible avec la commande “reload”.

LSBInitScripts

Avec les modifications apportées par UpStart, les scripts utilisant encore Sysinit doivent désormais utiliser une description LSBInitScripts. Voici un exemple :

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: scriptname #Required-Start:$remote_fs $syslog

# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start:
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description:
# Description:
### END INIT INFO
$remote_fs  $syslog
2 3 4 5
0 1 6
Start daemon at boot time
Enable service provided by daemon

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3

Page 2

Etape 1 : Installation Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04.x

  1. 1)  Insérer le CD d’installation d’Ubuntu server 12.04.x dans le serveur et démarrer le serveur (vérifier que le CD est le premier périphérique de démarrage du BIOS) ou monter l’image ISO dans votre VM.
  2. 2)  Le menu du CD doit apparaître. Choisir la langue d’installation (anglais recommandé) ainsi que la disposition du clavier (Swiss French) via la touche F3. Puis sélectionner « Install Ubuntu Server »
  3. 3)  Démarrage de la procédure d’installation. Choisir la langue du serveur (anglais recommandé). Choisir le pays. Pour la Suisse, choisir l’option « other », puis « Europe » et enfin
    « Switzerland».
  4. 4)  Choisir le nom du serveur. Attention : Nom court ! (pas FQDN).
  5. 5)  Choix du fuseau horaire. Le système propose automatiquement Europe/Zurich. Accepter.
  6. 6)  Partitionnement du disque dur. Veuillez préférer la méthode manuelle.
  7. 7)  Créer 4 partitions (il est possible d’utiliser LVM si besoin) :
    1. 1x partition racine (/) de minimum 25Go en EXT4 et primaire
    2. 1x partition home (/home) de minimum 10Go en EXT4 et primaire
    3. 1x partition SRV (/srv) d’une taille proportionnée aux donnée du futur serveur Lotus Domino (Notesdata). EXT4 et primaire.
    4. 1x partition SWAP de 1,5 fois et 2 fois la RAM à disposition. Partition logique.

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3 Page 3

Nous procéderons à la configuration IP après l’installation.

  1. 8)  Démarrage du formatage et de l’installation de base du serveur Ubuntu.
  2. 9)  Configuration de l’utilisateur de base et du mot de passe :
    1. Utilisateur : notes
    2. Mot de passe : A votre convenance
  3. 10)  Configuration du proxy (Si aucun proxy, laisser vide)
  4. 11)  Configuration des mises à jour du système. Choisir « Install security updates automatically »
  5. 12)  Choix des applications serveur. Si besoin, cochez « SAMBA Server » et « OpenSSH Server »

a. OpenSSH est vivement recommandé pour simplifier l’administration du serveur.

  1. 13)  Suite de l’installation.
  2. 14)  Choix de l’endroit pour l’installation du secteur de démarrage. Répondre « Yes ».
  3. 15)  Installation terminée. Retirer le CD et redémarrer (Reconfigurer le BIOS pour démarrer sur le disque dur en premier).

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3 Page 4

Etape 2 : Configuration du serveur

Ouvrir une session avec l’utilisateur « notes ».

  1. 1)  Configuration du réseau
    1. Editer le fichier des interfaces (sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces)
    2. Modifier le fichier comme suite : 
                # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
          # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).
                # The loopback network interface
          auto lo
          iface lo inet loopback

      # The primary network interface auto eth0
      iface eth0 inet static

                        address [adresse IP du serveur]
                  netmask [Masque de sous-réseau]
                  network [adresse du réseau : Exemple 192.168.1.0]
                  broadcast [adresse de broadcast : Exemple 192.168.1.255]
                  gateway [passerelle par défaut]
                  dns-nameservers [adresse IP du serveur DNS]
                  dns-search [domaine dns : Exemple : toto.ch]
  2. 2)  redémarrer l’interface réseau : sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
  3. 3)  Appliquer les dernières mises à jour
    1. Récupération des listes sur les dépôts publiques et appliquer les mises à jour 
              sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
    2. Répondre Y
    3. Mise à jour du noyau Linux (kernel) 
              sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
    4. Répondre Y
    5. Redémarrer le serveur

      sudo reboot

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3

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Etape 3 : Configuration de SAMBA (optionnel)

1)

Editer le fichier de configuration de SAMBA (sudo vim /etc/samba/smb.comf)

  1. Configurer les éléments suivants :

    workgroup = [Votre domaine / groupe de travail]
    server string = [DESCRIPTION NETBIOS DU SERVEUR]
    security = user (décommenter si nécessaire)
    usershare allow guest = no
    Les sections [profiles] et [cdrom] doivent être mises en commentaires. Remplacer « yes » par « no » pour les options des sections [printers] et [print$].

  2. Il est souvent pratique de pouvoir accéder aux fichiers data du serveur Domino via Windows. Dans ce cas, ajouter le partage [notesdata]. Si vous voulez disposer également d’un endroit de stockage pour les binaires par exemple, utilisez le partage [Software].

    Ajouter les lignes suivantes en fin de fichier :

    #—— DOMINO SAMBA GENERAL CONFIGURATION FOR CBSA —–

       [notesdata]
        comment = Lotus Domino data
        read only = no
        browseable = yes
        guest ok = no
        path = /srv/notesdata
       [Software]
        comment = Software repository
        read only = no
        browseable = yes
        guest ok = no
        path = /home/software
  3. Sauvegarder et quitter.
  4. Redémarrer SAMBA : sudo service smbd restart

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3

Page 6

Etape 4 : Création des répertoires et définition des droits

  1. Créer le répertoire /srv/notesdata 
            sudo mkdir /srv/notesdata
  2. Créer le répertoire /home/software (optionnel –> voir configuration SAMBA) sudo mkdir /home/software
  3. Changer le propriétaire du dossier « notesdata » 
            sudo chown –R notes:notes /srv/notesdata
  4. Changer le propriétaire du dossier « software » (optionnel –> voir configuration SAMBA) 
            sudo chown –R notes:notes /home/software
  5. Vérifier que les droits Unix sur le dossier /srv/notesdata sont 755 
            sudo chmod –R 755 /srv/notesdata

4) Redémarrer le serveur et tester SAMBA et OpenSSH.

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3

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Etape 3 : Installation de Webmin (optionnel)

  1. 1)  Installation des librairies nécessaire au fonctionnement de Webmin 1.6 depuis les dépôts

    sudo apt-get install apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions python

  2. 2)  Installer Webmin
    1. Télécharger la dernière version de Webmin

      cd /home/software
      wget http://www.webmin.com/download/deb/webmin-current.deb

    2. Installer la dernière version

      sudo dpkg –i webmin-current.deb

    3. Redémarrer le serveur
    4. Vérifier le fonctionnement de Webmin depuis un PC en tapant l’adresse :

      https://IP_DU_SERVEUR:10000

    5. Utiliser l’utilisateur et le mot de passe « notes » pour ouvrir Webmin
    6. Effectuer les mises à jour proposées si besoin (noyau), puis redémarrer le

      serveur.

    7. Dans une console, taper les commandes suivantes

      sudo apt-get autoremove sudo apt-get autoclean sudo apt-get clean

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3

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Etape 4 : Installation du serveur Lotus Domino 9.0

1) Modification des limites de fichiers :

  1. Editer le fichier /etc/security/limits.conf

    sudo vim /etc/security/limits.conf

  2. En fin de fichier, ajouter les lignes suivants :

root soft nofile Root hard nofile Notes soft nofile Notes hard nofile

20000
65535
20000
65535

c. Editer le fichier /etc/pam.d/common-session

sudo vim /etc/pam.d/common-session

  1. Ajouter la ligne suivante en fin de fichier :

    session required pam_limits.so

  2. Redémarrer le serveur
  1. 2)  Installation de Roverex DServer (Prise en charge complète d’Ubuntu Serveur pour Lotus Domino).
    1. Transférer le paquet « roverex-dserver_1.0_i386.deb » sur le serveur.
    2. Installer le paquet (sudo dpkg –i roverex-dserver_1.0_i386.deb)
    3. Taper le mot de passe de l’utilisateur « notes » 2x
    4. Vérifier que Roverex a créé le fichier « .domino.pwd » dans le répertoire

      /srv/notesdata avec les droits Unix 400

      ll /srv/notesdata

    5. Effectuer un test du serveur Ubuntu : roverex-dserver-test
    6. Si tous les tests sont passés (Passed), continuer
  2. 3)  Configuration de la session Root (l’utilisation de “sudo” pose problème à l’installeur IBM !)
    1. En ligne de commande avec l’utilisateur « notes », tapez :

      sudo passwd root

    2. Entrer un mot de passe pour root 2x (différent de « notes » et compliqué)
  3. 4)  Décompression de l’archive Lotus Domino 9
    1. Transférer l’archive TAR « DOMINO_SERVER_9.0_LINUX_XS_64_EN.tar » sur le

      serveur.

    2. Décompresser l’archive Lotus Domino à l’aide de la commande suivante :

      tar xvf DOMINO_SERVER_9.0_LINUX_XS_64_EN.tar

    3. Un dossier ./linux64/domino est créé.
    4. Fermer la session « notes » et ouvrir une session avec l’utilisateur « root »
    5. Se placer dans le répertoire linux64/domino

      cd linux64/domino

    6. Lancer l’installation à l’aide de la commande ./install
    7. L’installeur démarre. Lorsqu’il demande s’ il doit continuer en mode console,

      répondre Yes.

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3

Page 9

5) Installation du serveur Lotus Domino 9
a. Suivre les instructions à l’écran et répondre aux questions en fonction des besoins

nécessaires pour le futur serveur Domino.
Configuration proposée :
- Laisser /opt pour les binaires IBM Domino
- Modifier le chemin des données du serveur en /srv/notesdata (par défaut : /local/notesdata)
L’utilisation de /opt et /srv pour les données domino respecte le standard FSH. – Choisir le mode « manual » pour le paramétrage de Domino

  1. 6)  Décompression des composants OpenSocial pour IBM Domino 9
    1. Supprimer le dossier d’installation de IBM Domino 9 : rm -Rf linux64
    2. Transférer l’archive TAR « DOMI_SE_EMEX_AO_9.0_LIN_XS_64_EN_FW.tar» sur le

      serveur.

    3. Décompresser l’archive Lotus Domino à l’aide de la commande suivante :

      tar xvf DOMI_SE_EMEX_AO_9.0_LIN_XS_64_EN_FW.tar

    4. Un dossier ./linux64 est créé.
    5. Fermer la session « notes » et ouvrir une session avec l’utilisateur « root »
    6. Se placer dans le répertoire linux64 : cd linux64
    7. Ajouter le droit d’exécution sur le fichier « install » : chmod +x install
    8. Lancer l’installation à l’aide la commande ./install
    9. L’installeur démarre. Lorsqu’il demande si on doit continuer en mode console,

      répondre Yes et suivre les instructions à l’écran.

    10. Supprimer le dossier d’installation de IBM Traveler 9 : rm -Rf linux64
  2. 7)  Lorsque l’installation est terminée, il est nécessaire de configurer le script de démarrage de Lotus Domino.
    1. Editer le fichier /etc/init.d/domino 
              sudo vim /etc/init.d/domino
    2. Modifier les premières lignes du fichier comme ceci :
#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start:
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description:
# Description:
### END INIT INFO

domino
$remote_fs $syslog
$remote_fs $syslog
2345
016
Start domino at boot time
Enable Lotus Domino server by daemon

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3 Page 10

c. Modifier la ligne output=”/dev/tty12″ en output=”/dev/tty6″

  1. Mettre en commentaire la ligne LANG=”es_ES@euro”
  2. Décommenter si besoin la ligne #LANG=”fr_FR@euro”
  3. Modifier la ligne 62 comme ceci :

    if [ -d "/opt/ibm/domino/bin" ]; then

  4. Modifier la ligne 63 comme ceci :

    bin_dir=”/opt/ibm/domino/bin” # For Domino 6.5.x or older

  5. Enregistrer et fermer
  6. Démarrer le serveur pour la première configuration (via l’outil « Configuration du serveur à distance » depuis un PC Windows)
    cd /srv/notesdata
    /opt/ibm/lotus/bin/server -listen
  7. Une fois la configuration terminée, redémarrer le serveur

    sudo reboot

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3

Page 11

Etape 5 : Installation d’ IBM Traveler 9 (optionnel)

1) Décompression d’ IBM Traveler 9

  1. a)  Transférer l’archive TAR « NOTES_TRAVELR_9.0_LINUX_XS_ML.tar.gz » sur le serveur.
  2. b)  Décompresser l’archive Lotus Domino à l’aide de la commande suivante :

    tar xvf NOTES_TRAVELR_9.0_LINUX_XS_ML.tar.gz

  3. c)  L’installation d’ IBM Traveler 9 nécessite normalement une interface graphique. Dès lors, pour l’installation sur Ubuntu Server, il est nécessaire d’utiliser le mode d’installation silencieux.
  4. d)  Editez le fichier « installer.properties » extrait à l’étape b :

    sudo vim installer.properties

  5. e)  Modifier les paramètres suivants :
    1. i)  ACCEPT_LICENSE=true
    2. ii)  DOMINO_PROGRAM_DIRECTORY=/opt/ibm/domino/notes/latest/linux
    3. iii)  DOMINO_DATA_DIRECTORY_1=/srv/notesdata
    4. iv)  DOMINO_NOTESINI_DIRECTORY_1=/srv/notesdata
    5. v)  LINUX_USER_NAME=notes (décommenter la ligne)
    6. vi)  LINUX_GROUP_NAME=notes (décommenter la ligne)
    7. vii)  NTS_WEBSITE_HOME=1(définiTravelercommeserveurWebpardéfaut)->Recommandé
    8. viii)  NTS_SET_EXTERNAL_URL=https://VOTRE_SERVEUR/traveler
  6. f)  L’installeur d’ IBM Traveler nécessite les librairies 32 bits pour pouvoir démarrer. Il est donc nécessaire de les installer :
    sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
  7. g)  Répondre Y pour terminer l’installation des librairies 32 bits.
  8. h)  Se connecter avec l’utilisateur « root »
  9. i)  Arrêter le serveur IBM Domino 9 : /etc/init.d/domino stop
  10. j)  Dans le répertoire de décompression de l’archive IBM Traveler 9, lancer la commande

    suivante pour lancer l’installation silencieuse :

    ./TravelerSetup -f installer.properties -i silent -l en

  11. k)  Suivre le processus à l’écran jusqu’à la confirmation du succès de l’installation.
  12. l)  Suite à l’installation d’ IBM Traveler, certains fichiers n’ont pas le bon propriétaire. Il faut

    réinitialiser les droits :

    sudo chown –R notes:notes /srv/notesdata

    sudo chmod –R 755 /srv/notesdata

  13. m)  RedémarrerleserveurIBMDominoetconfigurerIBMTravelerselonvotreconvenanceeten fonction de la documentation IBM.

Installation Lotus Domino 9 sur Ubuntu Server Edition LTS 12.04 – Version 1.3 Page 12

If you don’t want to listen, GET OUT!

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When I was sitting through the SNOUG conference, I had not as usual, a seat in the front row. I prefer sitting up front, because I hear better and I don’t have to look around heads, to see the slides. Now this time I was sitting probably in the fifth row and during the day, something struck me. There were a lot of “listeners” just doing other things. Replying to emails, look at their phones for the length of a speech. Some of them around me, never ever listened to the poor guys in front. They came, got their gear out and started typing. Why did they come in the first place? Just to have a quite spot to get some work done? Are their bosses against home office? Some of those were IBMers. Did they come just to get the seats filled?
Once I told an IBMer sitting beside me during a speech to stop typing, because the clack-e-di-clack was just annoying. I personally find this behavior highly impolite. That is just something you don’t do. That person in front is working his/her butt off, to give us information, that could probably be important to us in the future and all they do is showing absolutely no interest whatsoever. They are not even politely pretending it.
It’s like the management summary. I am pretty sure, you could write a technical report of 50 pages with “Lorem ipsum”-Text and add a management summary in front, most would not realise it. Why bother to write the report in the first place? Just write management summaries. If somebody has a question, they can still ask.
But for the future, if you have other things to do than listening to a speech, get out! If you want to check your emails, wait for a break (good anti-smart-phone-junkie-training BTW)!
It is nobodies intention to be impolite, but notebooks, tablets and smartphones have given us access always and everywhere. It takes just a tiny bit of common sense and empathy to realise, that showing openly no interest whatsoever in somebodies work isn’t nice at all.
Another tip. If you have a date with a very nice person, leave your damn phone in the car/at home/in the bin/in the Mississippi. If she/he is not doing it, get up, while she/he is on the phone and leave. She/he is obviously not interested in you and therefore she/he can pay the bill.

We are damn stupid or hindsight is 20/20

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We as partners are always quick in pointing fingers towards Boston, when talking about the declining market share of Notes. Lately I just thought a while about things, what the partners could have done, to prevent this. Right, we could not do anything about the message IBMers were shouting to the world 10 years ago, everything will be Websphere or Workplace and mail is dead anyway. But right before that, we had the means and the tools (most of them at least and the rest the clever guys could have made up) to prevent a large part of the decline and make lots of money on the way.
On my table lies a book named “GROUPWARE, Communication, Collaboration and Coordination”. It talks about messaging, leveraging shared databases, the message store and the WWW as a collaboration tool. About the same what we are talking about today, except that the word “social” is missing. That book was published by the Lotus Development Corp. in 1995. You can take that book and use it for consultant work today. Most companies still don’t get it, how to use email effectively, on the contrary, it is worse today, because every single fart of (non-)information today is send by email, just to be able to say “but I sent you an email about it”. It is used to cover the backs of millions of employees, whose managers still think in terms of slavery (and that is just one example).
Since my first day as a Notes developer I always thought, with Notes, I could do a very sexy mail client that fits my needs perfectly. I slowly started adding views and buttons here and there, nothing fancy, some color there but I never touched the whole appearance of it. I should have. Damn it, we all should have. We should have thrown the standard mail template out and make our own. One that fits specific business needs. One that can handle more than one email address (hell, we still don’t have that, I mean without changing the environment). One that can handle more than one domain. One that does project management at the same time. One that looks cool. One that links discussion dbs, teamrooms or CRM and CMS together. A very simple one, like NotesBuddy (somebody still has copy of it? I would like to try something), the possibilities would have been endless.
But since the darn mail template was so incredible complicated to understand (don’t even think about documentation) and in some versions we couldn’t even save changes because there was an error in the code somewhere, We didn’t do it. We all just relied on IBM bringing new features every now and than, which were often just new coats of paint or not important to the average user at all.
If we had taken mail out of the inbox and put it were it belongs, in project management applications and CRMs, we could have locked the customer in for a long time, because none of the competitors was able to integrate as we were. Yes, yes, I know, “locked in” is bad for the customer but it’s very good for the seller. And since we are good guys, I wouldn’t even have a bad conscience and because we would have delivered additional value. And customers couldn’t tell Notes is ugly, only your or my client would have been ugly and they would have the freedom of choice. Which isn’t a bad thing, even if you are locked in on a platform. Which you are anyway in one way or the other and most people just do not care about it.
Or we just didn’t do it, because we did not get it either? Looks like, does it?

Same procedure as every year, Miss Sophie – SNOUG-SR – Connect 2013 in Geneva

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Only Swiss and Germans will understand the joke in the title.

The yearly Snoug SR event finished with a  lot of news … we all already know. Except probably for the news about Sametime Next. Pretty cool that thingy, if you ask me. Video chat on the web client? Not bad at all. Otherwise it was the same old story for the Connect 2013 part. Nothing new there. Any news about marketing? No, and I did not dare to ask. On the other hand, I did ask the head of sales for the Alps region about a more small company friendly licensing scheme for the Connections VMs … he did not know but he promised to follow up. Since he did not ask for my name or my business card, hell probably freezes over until I hear something. Have to torture somebody else for an answer.
By far the best contribution was the one from Sika. They have deployed Connections in a way, that sounded more like an accident. No formal budget. The driving person is from marketing and he can be very proud of the achievement. They started with just 5 persons and today there are over 2000 on it. They use Connections out of the box and are pretty happy, it seems.
He made some interesting points. First lessons learned:

  • Don’t call the first deployment “Pilot”. People will be reluctant to participate. Go for real from the start. Any content counts
  • Most of the support was self service. They underestimated the training needs
  • One technical glitch. They did not have the same password as for Notes

Success factors:

  • Top management support
  • Chose community leaders wisely
  • Use common sense for the rules and not too many of the later
  • Story telling. Success stories are better than statistics about klicks or whatever a bean counter can count.
  • DON’T LEAVE IT TO THE IT DEPARTEMENT.

The last point is very, very important. I met again that very frustrated guy from that famous bank, which deployed it without any content or useful help. Since users did not find anything interesting from the start, they never adopted it. Now management thinks it’s crap and they will deploy MySpace. One just hopes they learned anything. Probably not.
Bankers! Should I say more?
I said it before and even if nobody wants to hear it. IBM Docs is damn cool. I want that.
I do wonder, if I should move to the Smart Cloud. It’s not even very expensive. A lot less than Office 365 which I did not like when I tested it. Probably I am just biased towards anything that comes from Microsoft (while I don’t think the Windows 8 desktop is such a bad idea).
Since the Snoug event at Givaudan two years ago, I compare every time the catering with that of Givaudan (see, I am drooling again). This time, so lala. The buffet was nice to look at and we had seats. The appetizers were plenty and all right. Nothing special. The roast beef was hard, the crostini cold and a bit soggy. My main course looked good and tasted bad. That food was for tourists. It was really lousy. The cook wanted to do something special but lacks the know how. Deserts were OK again. A bit on the heavy side. Nope, no chance against Givaudan.
If you are interested in deploying Domino 9 on Ubuntu, come back later. I met Christian Boss from Camille Bloch again and he agreed to send me his how-to. I will test it and than you guys can have it, too.

Question for the experts …

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Does anybody out there know, what IBM means with Apple Cocoa support?
Googling only gives the information, that there is Cocoa support, but not what it is all about. Nothing in the Domino 9 wiki either.
The only thing I can find are 4 .jar files with cocoa in the file name.
Lot’s of classes in there for eclipse, but as far as I can see, eclipse does not support cocoa yet and apple does not support the cocoa-java bridge anymore.
I can’t see anything that helps me to understand, what that cocoa support means.
Have you got any idea?

And Jeff said … another 20 years of Collaboration tools

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Sorry about that, to all the FUD providers out there. Yesterday during the announcement web-cast Jeff told the world, that in 20 years there will still be some kind of collaboration tools from IBM. End of message. Notes/Domino isn’t going away, but since 20 years ago nobody knew what Notes would look like today, we just have to wait another 20 years, what it will be.

What was also interesting, for the first time, IBM said: “We have over 50’000 organisations running Notes/Domino today.” Normally the numbers are either useless, for example the total number of seats sold until today, or they were half official or you found them somewhere, as if they were not important. Today they say it loud a clear and call the competition names. Amazing. Did they get new marketing guys? No, sorry the question is wrong. Does IBM have a marketing department now? Do I have to change my view of IBMs cash cow marketing regarding Notes? Boy, that would make me happy.
While 50’000 organisations must be a lot less than Microsoft has, it is on the way up, as far as I can see. But, the number is also relatively meaningless, because it does not give us anything to compare it with. Look at it from this side, if all the companies in Switzerland had their own mail server, with 50’000 organisations, IBM would have 14% market share. On a worldwide scale, 50’000 is nothing. But who cares. IBM was always about the biggies and only because Lotus had also small companies as customers, IBM had suddenly a bunch of SMB to deal with. By now, they should have been gone, as have the small partners and IBM can focus on their marketing schema, sending IBM reps to important CIO’s. OK, sorry, that was sarcastic. But until now, I can not make the feeling go away, that IBM has turned it’s back towards companies smaller than 5000 seats.
Otherwise, I get the impression, that something inside IBM has changed regarding Notes/Domino.

I thought I could not believe my ears … what happend at IBM?

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I just finished watching the IBM Social Platform Launch broadcast. Despite some technical problems, the Q&A session was cut short and the screen showed “this presentation is over”, bugger that, I could not believe my ears when I heard at the end of the presentation Jeff Schick saying, don’t believe Microsoft and Salesforces FUD about Notes and Domino and IBM will help you to move from the LEGACY Outlook/Exchange environment to social business tools. Yeehaaaa. That’s more how I like it. After years and years of getting beaten over the head and not fighting back, IBM finally realised, that its competitors will not stop playing unfair¹. It’s nice to be considered as a gentleman/woman (oh, how I hate this political correctness, it makes writing so much less fun), but after a while, everybodys patience runs out. IBMs finally did now, apparently. It’s about time.
One can just hope, that now words are followed by action and IBM stops the drain of the customer base by doing some marketing.I missed Connections Documents. I like them a lot. Much nicer than Google Docs. Unfortunately for my work, I often need a tool that counts letters. If that was available in Connections Documents, I would use it a lot more in Greenhouse.

¹ But one has to admit, IBM invented FUD in the eighties and Microsoft mastered it in the nineties.

 

XPages Workshop … proudly presented by IBM

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The last three days were packed with XPages. I had the chance to attend IBMs free XPages Workshop in Zürich (which is also available online, if you need it).
This was the second try to attend the course, the first time it was cancelled. I wonder why. Not enough attendees? Who knows.
First, it was worth it. If you are like me, who likes classroom work, it really helps to focus several days just on one subject and have people around who can help, should you run into problems (which we all did).But there are a few things I would change, if I had the chance. I feel, and I asked others if they feel the same, still a lack of basic knowledge. Things like, how the different elements work together why I have just done what I have done during the lab. While the labs are really good, the time you get to explore them is a bit short. I only made it through all of them, because I worked on them during not so interesting parts of the presentations. While traveling back and forth, I reread them, because there was so much more information to digest, than just the steps to make something work.
The presentation were packed with information. No way, I could read them, understand them and listening to the instructor. I do not understand why IBM still does not get it to do good slides. For Oms sake, IBM look at Apples presentations just once and do less, that would help more. There were several hundred slides and that dug into the time we had for the labs. Unfortunately the slides had seldom something to do with the actual lab (or I did not get it). They had the same subject but did not explain anything helpfull. It looked like slides for technical sales, not developers. Some slides, like the XPages road map, appeared several times. That did not make the job of the instructor any easier, who was obviously very competent, but could not share his knowledge due to the slides. His explanations were extremely interesting, when he diverted from the slides and talked about his experience.
We were a bunch of old farts. Quite a few of us were there, just for good old times sake. More than half of us, don’t do any Notes development anymore. Only two young apprentices attended the course (apprenticeship is a highly regarded form of professional education in Switzerland). Both from the same company. There is hope …
But still, the discussions during the breaks were always the same. Especially the smaller partners don’t see a bright light at the end of the tunnel and Connections isn’t an opportunity either. To complicated, too many servers for small companies and so on. Even truly yellow bleeders turn their back at Notes, sometimes just because applications they need and can afford, integrate with Outlook and not with Notes.

There is one thing, that did struck me suddenly. Why the heck didn’t we develop a bunch of different mail clients, when we were still ahead of the game. That could have been a USP. Use Notes and take the client (sorry, app or whatever .nsf is called today)  that fits you best and change whenever you want. There was once a Outlook-look-a-like client. We should have continued doing that. And do a good consumer client. Maybe I am obsessed with the idea, but droping Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook wasn’t very clever either. Imagine what we could do today with the REST services. Does not matter, if they use Outlook, but the Domino server would still be there and Xpages could nicely integrate with both clients (with a few quirks I suppose). NonSQL is in vogue today and who invented it?
Oh my, I am an old sentimental guy.