Domino 7 too complex for IBM to support on Linux?

While perusing the supported Linux distributions for Domino 7.0.1 I found the number to be in stark contrast to the number of distributions supported for DB2 UDB. According to the technote Domino 7.0.1 is only supported on 3 distributions while DB2 UDB is supported on 15 distributions! (To be fair DB2 UDB is only “recommended and validated” on 5 of the 15 distributions but still…)

Why the difference?

From the perspective of smaller installations the support of DB2 UDB on Ubuntu 5.04 is very nice since it together with DB2 UDB Express provides a almost no-cost entry into the world of DB2.

Domino 7 Redpapers available

2 new Domino 7 Redpapers that might be of interest to those not yet having made the move is now available from the IBM Redbooks website:

The first one is showing concrete examples of how the ITSO application was enhanced using the Domino/DB2 integration and webservices. The latter has a section for those still on Domino 5 who are looking into going directly to Domino 7.

Re: CD to MIME Conversion Error: “CVS: Failure”

Problem solved – sort of… Downgrading the server from Domino 7.0.1 to Domino 7.0 has solved the issue we were having with CD to MIME conversion.

Now I have to decide whether to report this to Lotus Support. The problem is that the server is a production server and the customer can’t really afford us playing around with the server.

CD to MIME Conversion Error: “CVS: Failure”

After upgrading a customer server from 6.5.4 to 7.0.1 I am having major issues with CD to MIME conversion in e-mails sent via LotusScript (normal e-mail sending is OK):

14-03-2006 13:44:55   Begin CD to MIME Conversion(Process: Router (000008CC:0000000D), Database: E:DominoDatamail.box, Note: 00305AEE)
14-03-2006 13:44:55   CD to MIME error (Process: Router (000008CC:0000000D), Database: E:DominoDatamail.box, Note: 00305AEE): CVS: Failure
14-03-2006 13:44:55   End CD to MIME Conversion(Process: Router (000008CC:0000000D), Database: E:DominoDatamail.box, Note: 00305AEE)
14-03-2006 13:44:55   Router: No messages transferred to 192.2.4.9 (host 192.2.4.9) via SMTP

I tried enabling debugging for the conversion process using some notes.ini settings (CONVERTER_LOG_LEVEL=40, DebugMIMEConversion=1) but they doesn’t provide anything useful.

Anyone with ideas? I’m currently downloading Domino 7.0 to see if downgrading will help.

Show ‘n Tell Thursday: Migrating Outlook Express e-mail to Lotus Notes (2 Mar 2006)

Introduction
Please note that this post does not address the complexities of migrating entire Microsoft Exchange installations. For this there are IBM tools as well as some 3rd party solutions that I really prefer. After reading through the below example you’ll see that this approach really doesn’t work for larger migrations but might work well for migrating individual users coming into your organization with an existing Outlook Express installation.

Migrate contacts from the address book by exporting them as vCards and then import these into the personal NAB of the user.

Requirements
Well for starters make sure to install the migration tools as part of the Notes Client install package. There are a couple of different mail systems you can migrate from but here I’ll focus on Microsoft Outlook Express since it is the most common scenario for single user migrations. It is also required that you run the IMAP server task on the Domino server.

From here on I’ll assume:

  • That you succesfully installed the Notes client, including the migration tools, on the machine where the Outlook Express client is installed.
  • That you already created the user using Domino Administrator and configured the Notes client accordingly.
  • That the user mail database is using the Extended Mail Template (or above).
  • That the mail server is running the IMAP server task.

This post covers Notes 6.5.x/7.x (but I assume Notes 6.0.x will work as well).

Steps to migrate Outlook Express
Open a command prompt and navigate to your Notes binary directory (e.g. C:Program FilesLotusNotes). Running the nupgrade.exe tool with the “/?” command line option will show the list of available options.

C:Program FilesLotusNotes>nupgrade.exe /?

Notes 7.x Notes.6.5.x

As you can see from the screenshot on the left the command line option “4” means Outlook Express so we go ahead and run the command again using that option. As you can see from the screenshot on the right, the prompt from Notes 6.5.x (and probably also Notes 6.0.x) is wrong. Although the command line option “4” isn’t listed it is still available.

C:Program FilesLotusNotes>nupgrade.exe 4

After being prompted for the Notes password the following dialog box is presented. Make sure the information on the right is correct.

  • User Name
    It is pretty common having to change is the specified username. The username should be a username valid for logging in using the IMAP/HTTP protocol.
  • Account name
    This can be anything and is only used to create an account in Outlook Express as shown later.
  • IMAP server
    Specify a DNS resolvable hostname to the Domino server containing the mail database of the specified username.

Click OK and (very) quickly hereafter the process is complete.

A common error message at this point is the “Internet Address Is Missing” dialog box. To resolve this refer to technote 1091375. The message basically means that the user doesn’t have an e-mail address specified in his Person document on the server.

Now when you open the Outlook Express client you should see something like the screenshot below. Aside from the existing account a new account has been added at the bottom (in this case called “Domino Administrator”).

Select the account on the left and click the “IMAP Folders…” button in the right pane as shown below.

You will be presented with a dialog box showing the existing folders in the Notes mail database. Select the individual folders you would like to make visible and click the “Show”-button. A little icon will indicate that the folder is visible. New folders can be created as normally in Outlook Express.

Back in Outlook Express simply drag the e-mails from the existing Outlook Express folders to the folders added from the mail database or to newly created folders. You can select multiple e-mails at once.

Once you migrating the e-mails you should see the e-mails appearing in the Notes mail database as shown below.

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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.