Lotus Domino – the killer API for DB2? Why I think the DB2/Domino integration makes total sense

The aforementioned application is being developed for a small media company producing print material and some B2B and B2C web portals. The problem with this particular customer is that they have really grown used to having barebones Domino as their platform for mail, calendar and applications. Having Domino in a small shop really means a no fuss, always available platform that just works, so when confronted with having to manage, support and backup a separate system they really wasn’t that interested.

In the end we, as the ever-wise team of consultants, still managed to convinced them to go with the combined Domino/relation solution since it was really the “correct” thing to do. With MySQL as an affordable (in this case read free) database capable of supporting the load the customer gave the thumbs up.

Please note: With the recent introduction of DB2 Express-C which is a free “entry level” version of DB2 we will probably start the customer of on DB2 instead of MySQL. This will make it easy to move the customer to another edition of DB2, if applicable at a later point in time, using a simple backup/restore operation.

So why does the Domino/DB2 combination make total sense?
As part of the discussions we have had with the customer it has become clear to me just how much sense the Domino/DB2 integration will make once it really goes public1. From my perspective the Domino/DB2 is a real God sent – also for the smaller clientele.

When DB2 is deployed in the organization you can leverage the DB2 server for all your storage needs. Once DB2 is there whether you have one, five or one hundred databases don’t really matter – creating the first database is really the pivotal moment. Having the relational infrastructure in place and having the option of storing all your data there, means that Domino becomes just another application you install on top of the storage facility. Through those glasses Domino really becomes an API to easily access loosely structured data stored in DB2.

This has a number of important implications:

  • One unified database backend across IBM products.
  • One place to manage the necessary storage.
  • One place to manage the necessary backup – no more need for separate backup clients since all data reside in DB2 (I assume backup can be conducted entirely through DB2).
  • No need for specific Domino I/O tuning skills – you can focus on managing DB2.
  • Relational data becomes a “native” data format of DB2.
  • Domino data becomes just another federated data source for existing DB2 applications.

I’m not saying it is going to be easy to get customers like our small media company to move to a DB2 backed Domino infrastructure but I think it really makes sense. Of cause the skill set needed is going to be different from the current but I think it is small price to pay for the power and flexibility it affords.

I think the integration is really going to bring benefits and the possibility of creating applications that seamlessly combine data from, what seems like, very diverse sources. We of cause know it is just DB2.

Sorry for the rant.

Footnotes:
1 The inclusion of the DB2 backend in the current Domino 7.0 release is only for evaluation and you need an agreement with IBM to use the functionality in production with support. The agreement isn’t hard to get and is a matter of filling in a form on a webpage.