Why we shut down our Sametime servers

I have been getting shocked looks the last couple of weeks when I told customers that we shut down our Sametime servers as part of the move to our new offices. Why would we do such a thing? Well it’s not like we didn’t utilize Sametime heavily in our day to day work and it’s not like we haven’t touted the benefits of Sametime far and wide.

So why did we do this? Well it was a simple calculation of hours spent on maintaining our own environment vs. the benefits of having our own environment.

After installing Sametime 8.5.1 internally and getting it to run we realized that it didn’t make any sense for us, a 25 person company, to operate our own Sametime environment. A community server maybe but then what about meetings? (and yes we know about “Sametime classic”) It made sense from a training and test perspective but that’s about it and as we don’t mess with the production system for testing purposes we needed multiple systems. So it was actually an easy decision. So as of 3 weeks aro we drew a line in the sand and shut down all the Sametime related servers (all 5 of them).

Instead of running our own Sametime environment we’re now mixing it up by combining on-premise and in-cloud services by signing up for LotusLive Engage. We’ve registered all employees with our company account and we’re now using Sametime as part of LotusLive. As an added benefit we also get access to communities, activities and meetings as part of LotusLive and it’s great. We’re loving it.

Making the switch from on-premise to in-cloud hasn’t been without issues and questions that needed to be addressed. Some of what we’ve been discussing internally has been

  • what do we do now when there are no central groups for departments within the company?
  • what password do I use?
  • what does it mean to be part of a bigger infrastructure such as LotusLive?
  • what does it mean to be a network contact?
  • who can I contact on Sametime in LotusLive?
  • how do I control my visibility within the greater LotusLive network?

While some of these questions have easy answers some of them also highlight key weaknesses. For instance when moving from on-premise Sametime to in-cloud Sametime you loose public groups – there’s no way of adding all from Sales to my buddy list. You loose privacy controls in Sametime (who can see me online when). You loose the ability to see Sametime awareness in Lotus Notes applications as you’re known by your e-mail address in LotusLive and not your Notes qualified name.

Some of these points can be worked around and some can be addressed by training but some are more serious and needs to be addressed. The lack of awareness in Notes applications is severely limiting and frustrating – I hope something will be done about this. As to the groups thing I’m working with IBM and a Dutch business partner on addressing this using plugin technology.

Overall however we’re happy with the move and although there has been bumps along the way our server room is a lot quieter and we’re drawing fewer watts. As of now we’re one happy on-premise/in-cloud customer and we’re still chatting away in Sametime.

See it wasn’t as bad as one could have thought… 🙂

Lotusphere 2011: Two sessions accepted

If you’re following Lotusphere and if you sent in abstracts you know that Friday was abstract-reply-day. I too got my replies and keeping with tradition I would like to tell how it went. I sent in three abstracts and had two of them accepted. I’m honored to be co-presenting both sessions with IBM’ers – one session with Bob Balfe and one with Ryan Baxter. Both sessions are on plugin development as you might imagine.

Below are the abstracts and if you have comments or input to what you would like to see in the sessions let me know by commenting, by e-mail or on Twitter.

Jumpstart Your “Jedi Plug-in Development Skills” with the Masters

Two hour jumpstart session on Sunday with Ryan Baxter.

Come to this session to get up and running on plugin development for Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime and Lotus Symphony and learn the ropes to get started. We will take you from getting the Eclipse IDE and Lotus Expeditor Toolkit installed to configuring, testing and verifying your setup. Next you will learn the basics of plugin development and based on real life examples you will see just how easy plugin development can be and how to reap the rewards. As there’s no good in having great plugins if they never reach user workstations we will finish of the session with end-to-end information on plugin signing and widget deployment. This is a must see session it you want to get started with plugin development but never knew how.

How the Jedis do plugin development

One hour regular session with Bob Balfe.

So you did your first sidebar plugin for Lotus Notes and deployed it to users but now you’re stuck… If you want to do more with your Lotus Notes or Lotus Sametime client, you want to learn cool extension points, learn best practices and see real life examples then this session is for you. Learn about object contributions, fly the magic carpet and do OAuth authentication from plugins. This is how the Jedis do it – may the Force be with you!

TwitNotes v2 beta 3 released

TwitNotes v2 beta 3 is now installable from my update site at http://update.lekkimworld.com/twitnotes2. Comments are more than welcome either here or via twitter as a reply to @lotustwitnotes. This release adds additional hover action support (search for patterns in tweet text such as username, email addresses etc.) and better width handling.

Known “issues” of the top of my head:

  • Need to figure out the best UI for the tweet list
  • Additional context actions needed?
  • Need to add retweet support
  • Need to add drag’n’drop support
  • Need to add LiveText integration

It’s not installable by widget as well. Simply drag the link to your MyWidgets sidebar.

Please note: I use the client as my primary Twitter client and I feel it’s ready for general usage although it is a beta so please treat accordingly.

Why all the talk about recycle() – how about dispose()?

Let me start by saying that I agree that recycle() could and should be handled by the API and there are numerous ways around it. I however also think that the majority of Notes developers out there will never have the need to call recycle() in their Java agents. There is a lot of talk about recycle() this and recycle() that but let’s face it – it’s not really a problem. If ever there is a problem with the Java API it’s not recycle() it is the fact that it has been left to stagnate and that it’s not keeping up with the Java language as a whole.

All this being said I wonder why so much talk and energy is being spent on recycle() and how come it is constantly being used as a reason not to move to Java and embrace the language. Looking at other API’s there are stuff that needs to be done. In the Java API it’s recycle() (whenever it’s actually needed) and in SWT it’s dispose(). I never see any SWT discussions on the dispose() method and DisposeListeners and using it as a justification for not choosing SWT and Eclipse as the fundation for an application. You judge a framework on what it does for you and not a single method in an API. Every API and language has quirks. Deal with it!

My post from 2006 (!!) has a lot more information on recycle() and why it’s there: Java in Notes/Domino Explained: The story on recycle()

When should I use Connections and when should I use Quickr?

As all I’m often asked the question on what exactly the difference between Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr is. And like most it’s often a wavy answer I give. I just recently was pointed to a blog post by Luis Benitez Louis Richardson (When should I use Connections and when should I use Quickr?) which is really is a good resource. Besides being a good read Louis list 5 good points about Lotus Quickr that sets it aside from Lotus Connections:

  • Membership
  • Ownership
  • Purpose
  • Duration
  • Content Control

Go read it!

Please note: This post was changed to give credit where credit is due. Thanks Luis.