Kategorie: IBM Notes

ConnectEd in Zürich – Old Boys meeting

I am not going to bore you with a lot of technical news about IBM Verse and stuff, but first, I want to thank the IBM partners and distributors, who actually run the show. IBM provides rooms and some speakers, the partners do all the rest, as I was told. Great job, really.
This time, there were more C-Level tracks half as long as a technical session. I suppose that was to allow for the lower attention span of the C-Levels, therefore I will do the same thing here and give those with a lot of meetings waiting for, a management summary:

MANAGEMENT SUMMARY
ConnectED Zürich: 5 march 2015
IBM Verse: Very good. Strongly suggest to consider replacement of Microsoft Stack.
IBM Watson Analytics: Great technology. Not available from any other vendor.
IBM Notes: Will be supported for the forseeable future. Consider to move to Verse anyway.
IBM Connections: By all accounts and opinions even from some Microsoft Partners, still the better product. Consider to move as soon as possible.
END OF MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

Having now reduced the number of readers by half we can go to a more in-depth look.
IBM Switzerland must have reduced its workforce significantly again, because half of the building is now used by other companies. That isn’t really good news. And the roof leaks. Really. I got hit by drops twice during cocktail hour.
I and others had the feeling, we were at an old boys/girls event.

There are one or two things I found rather interesting.
Scott Souder stressed the point, that Verse isn’t just about mail (we have heard that before … for about 25 years) and IBM is looking into making classic Notes apps available in the browser without a plugin. As we were told, this is a sky-high priority, since most browsers could not care less about plugins and IE is as crappy as ever (I did not see a single hand, when Scott asked who used it). He also said, that we all have to realise, that especially Notes is 25 year old. There are things in there that make it hard, to make it a modern client. The browser is just the better and easier tool for the future. But Notes 9.0.2 is coming and a 64bit version for OSX, too (Scott said we shouldn’t tweet certain things he said, that would get him fired: Sorry, Scott, I forgot which, I didn’t tweet it and you say that every time).
Domino, XPages and Bluemix are really something to be considered. It really can ease some pain. IBM thinks, it is a tool to get new developers on the platform. We have heard that before, too. I rather think it is also a great tool to migrate slowly of Domino. I just wonder about the OpenNTF tools and Bluemix.
The thing that let my jaw drop to the floor was this: Jeff Schick apparently said, that IBM wants to have 500’000’000 users in the Verse cloud … half a billion … 5 times 10 to the power of 8. Err…. Dear Jeff, do you realize that the world has roughly 7.3 billion human beings? Only about 40% use the internet: 2.92 billion. Half a billion would be about 12% market share. Notes has less than half a percent. You would have to convince a few big ones to move to Verse. I see a few hurdles to this idea.

(Disclaimer: Below is what I have seen until now. It is subject to change by IBM and I have not seen the pricing. So I might be completely and utterly wrong.)

First: Not everybody has the 500-emails-per-day-problem. Many live happily and stress free with their current installation. Even if it is an Exchange server.

Second: Do you really think companies would trust a computer to filter their mail? Companies (and there are many) whose administrators day after day go through the quarantined spam and look for mails that might be important?

Third: We don’t need another email address. The domain of the free Verse is @ibmverse.com. From a marketing point of view, that is a nightmare. It sounds like a beta domain (apart from that the name „Verse“ itself is a marketing nightmare, for example in French „je verse“ is pouring something and in German it sounds just awful).

Forth: It is really sad. Again IBM does not understand small companies. Nobody will move from their free or almost free @bluewin.ch (change countries and providers as appropriate) address to a free @ibmverse.com address, if there isn’t a huge advantage. 500 MB file space isn’t enough. I think IBM should match Google Drive.
For small and micro companies there isn’t that big advantage that makes them change. None whatsoever.
Every single time IBM tries to get small companies in the boat, they mess up … every f+%&/* time (my blood pressure … breathe slowly). I can’t see any reason, why this time it should be different.

Fifth: IBM claims every time they announce some new feature for Worse – ups sorry, just the sound of it, I mean Verse – competitors come up with something similar. The only difference is: The competitors deliver. They are here right now.

And last: Nobody understands Watson. You can’t show it really. How do you want to sell that? There will always come up the argument, that users can do that with rules. I use that single button on my apple mail quite often and that works nicely for me. And just for the record. Most don’t understand „People centric“ neither.

Dear IBM, the Verse offering does not show a USP that makes Tom, Harry and Dick/Sally, Susan and Diana move. None. Nada. No „wana have“. I did not say it is bad, oh no, it is great, but as ever IBM marketing su….. isn’t good enough. You have to come up with an offer that is so good, that about 2 billion users might consider a change (By the way, how about a run-your-business offering for business partners? I am looking into moving my this blog and mail to something else. But I want to keep my domain).

I have seen the Verse ad for the second time. The first time was in a blog post. It isn’t „everywhere“ as was claimed. At least not here. But Here and again, IBM fails again to „SHOW THE PRODUCT“ as what it is. If you don’t know, it is about email, you just wonder what it is all about and the ad was clearly targeted towards big companies.
IBM isn’t on the radar of small companies. Just isn’t. Not here, not there. Nowhere. It would be IBM’s duty to go to the small companies to change that. But this is hard work and by far not as interesting as the Global 500. Which have their act together and don’t need IBM to explain it to them.
Since I am generally a nice person (some say), I give you an idea, what I think the offering should look like and makes it different from others.
A difference would make: „Pay once, use forever“.
For example. I just need freebie Verse but I want my own domain. I give you 20 bucks and that’s it. Don’t need no support. I can point my MX record to your server myself.
Need another user with the same domain? 20 bucks.
Need guest access to files? 20 bucks.
Migration of old mail and calendar entries? 100 bucks (20 from Notes).
Just add features that are not important for everyone and I pay you if I need it … once, because there is just one change once.
Give me a choice.
If I want something that asks for more space or computing power? I would pay for it every year. That is fair. But just because I want my own domain, I don’t see, why I should rent that right from you.
I want an offering where I have the choice and the difference between free and full service isn’t a 1000 bucks. Sometimes I just want a salad and not the whole menu.
And now the last bit. I don’t want to be the product. Not even if I use the free Verse. Therefore NOBODY touches my stuff, I don’t know personally. Make that clear to everyone. And even more important. I want my stuff here in my own country.
IBM I make you an offer. If you get the offering right, I will personally stand on 10 Saturdays in 10 different shopping centers and on 10 Thursdays at SMB exhibitions around Switzerland. You just have to provide the marketing material and your name. I give you my time. The exact terms would depend what we agree on, but you don’t have to pay me for those 20 days or more than 100 hours of hard work. Deal? That should once and for all show, if Verse is the product for SMB.
By the way! Where is the business partners place in all that?
So far so good. Scott Souder, HP and Louis Richardson were fun to see as ever.
Other memorable sessions – because I went there – were those of the University of Zürich and the one of Klaus Bild about SDI (formally known as TDI).
The switch of the University of Zürich to Notes is one of the big success stories of the last years. Nobody knows about it, which is another IBM marketing failure.
They have rather interesting problems. 158 institutes that can do what they want. Central IT Services can’t even do something, if one of the institutes decides they want their own stuff. The institutes are completely free, as it should be at a research university. And they have from Amigas to the latest Apple gadget everything and it has to work (well somehow limited in case of an Amiga). And only Notes/Domino can do this. Now did we ever doubt that?
During the speech Dr. Roberto Mazzoni wasn’t all nice and cheery with IBM. Scott was sitting in the audience but probably didn’t get everything, since it was in German. I suppose he heard it before. Today the University of Zürich runs a huge Domino/Notes infrastructure for about 40’000 users. All that with just 2 Admins. Amazing isn’t it? And that isn’t all. The Uni-ZH has added Connections, too (needs a bit more manpower to keep it alive though).
Two words of warning came from Sandra Bühler of Belsoft, the company that helped the University: If you use Traveller on a Microsoft Server, be aware that Microsoft might come after you and wants you to buy CAL’s for your users. There is probably something in the fine print that says you must. Therefore: Linux. It’s anyway the better solution.
IBM always says to engage HR in the deployment of Connections. Don’t! They don’t have the time and „resources“ to do it.
My last breakout session was about SDI. Google it and you find „SmartCloud Desktop Infrastructure“ or „Software Defined Infrastructure“. We were getting a closer look at „Security Directory Integrator“ or better known as „Tivoly Directory Integrator“. When is IBM ever going to stop the product renaming circus? It does not make sense at all.
Anyway, it is still a great tool, but IBM should invest a few bucks to get some limitations fixed. It is very annoying that one has to write the whole XML code on a single line. That line can easily be a long as a cargo train. Is carriage-return-new-line such a big problem?

That was about it. I am really a bit annoyed, that I never got the chance to test Verse in its early stages. I have registered several times and never got a reply.
Whenever it comes out, I want to test it thoroughly. Is anybody out there game to do a group test? Sending emails to myself is a bit boring, but if anybody wants to find out what is all the fuss about, we could do it together. Some real life testing.

We will see what happens next.

 

I told you, didn’t I?

THIS I wrote almost two years ago and surprise surprise, I was quite close to what happened lately with IBM and Apple. Quick read? I’ll wait.

(Dumdidumdi… have to mow the lawn again. Stupid rain … Oh, the cat (Floh, because he had flees when we got him) under my table is dreaming again. Sounds like a fight with someone. Haven’t heard him growl like that since that stupid orange tom attacked him)

Ready? Good. Overall it seems that I had the same ideas than IBM and Apple. Their products do not overlap, Apple needs, or rather wants more foothold in the B2B market. Only IBM doing something in the customer market, isn’t mentioned at all, which I think is a mistake. But I am getting ahead of things again. Let’s read the Press Info. (Dumdidum and so on)

Does somebody strike something there? Mostly it talks about what IBM is going to do. There is hardly any mention of Apple, bar the enterprise care plan.

The landmark partnership aims to redefine the way work will get done, address key industry mobility challenges and spark true mobile-led business change—grounded in four core capabilities:

  • a new class of more than 100 industry-specific enterprise solutions including native apps, developed exclusively from the ground up, for iPhone and iPad;
  • unique IBM cloud services optimized for iOS, including device management, security, analytics and mobile integration;
  • new AppleCare® service and support offering tailored to the needs of the enterprise;  and
  • new packaged offerings from IBM for device activation, supply and management.

Apart from the selfworshipping in the first part, it’s more or less IBM stuff for iOS. Apple will certainly help with the design – meaning look-and-feel and IBM needs every help it can  get – but otherwise, it’s all about IBM’s cloud offering.

For me, that does not sound like a partnership between equals. Taking in account IBM’s current problems with declining revenue, that looks more like IBM’s grasp at a straw.
If that concept fails Apple has still its consumer market, where it shines and if Apple decides it can do it without IBM in B2B, it will. For IBM it would be a lot of lost money it can’t pay to share holders, a lot of lost time it does not have to turn around and again lots of pissed off customers and partners.
Analytics also comes into play again. I don’t believe in a huge market. Analytics can become quickly much too complicated for most people and specialists in that field are in short supply. Most companies will do without or will try to mimic it by using SQL and spread sheets.
But IBM has 400 mathematicians(!) that can help. That will be the same problem as with business ratios. Most managers do not understand where the numbers come from and with analytics it will even get worse. Ratios and numbers that change with time without any clear meaning because nobody remembers the algorithm. That’s like being on the Titanic. The music is still playing, therefore it can’t be that bad. As of lately it was estimated, that of all companies using analytics, only about 40% of managers or employees understand what they are doing. That isn’t a too good ratio. If the numbers are wrong and management does not know it, they could be in for a surprise. (But hey, if a new product fails, managers now have a new culprit. „Not my fault, Analytics was to 89% positive, couldn’t help it that we happened to be in the last 11%“. And they can never be proven wrong. What a job security mechanism.)

But let’s look at the latest news from Mail Next. Kramer hints that about 60 % of all the stuff on mobile devices is mail and calendar. There is hope for a iOS based mail and calendar client from IBM? And Apple is doing the look and feel? Nice idea, isn’t it.
Somehow the whole story isn’t consistent, regarding Mail Next, Mobile First, Cloud first, Apple and IBM. For the mobile devices, IBM will have to build apps, which are „rich“ clients. On the other hand, there is no mention of any rich client on „traditional“ clients. PCs and Macs should go to the Mail Next web client.
Both IBM and Apple have rich clients for Macs and mobile devices. Logically I would think, something has to go. Apple will not let go of the Apple Mail client, neither on iOS, nor on OSX. Quo vadis Notes? Using Outlook as a front end, the browser plugin for Domino applications and the browser for XPages? That’s a three window hell (And it will not work for me anyway, since there is no browser plugin for anything on the Mac). A mail app from Apple, a mail app from IBM, two calendar apps and two „Notes“ apps. Does that look good for Notes on iOS or OSX?
But what about the applications? It would certainly be nice to have local Domino apps for iOS. Xpages could do it. Is IBM planning on an app for iOS for all these Domino applications out there? About ten million as somebody once estimated?
I don’t see the browser plugin come to iOS, but who knows, but if that app does not happen, Domino will be relegated to what every half backed migration expert out there thinks it is, just a mail server. On the other hand, if IBM comes up with an app for that, happy days, suddenly we would have a whole new market to play with. One, where nobody knows or cares about „Notes is Dead“ rumors. (And if it works on iOS, it could also work on OSX, which would be right down my alley). They just want apps that work and do not require a server farm at home for connections … ups, sorry, we are supposed to move to the cloud.
But again, I am just putting Lego pieces together and completely leave out politics.

Now there is another thing that came up in the last few years with cloud offerings. Today many companies outside the US like the idea of mobile first but not the idea of cloud first. In every webcast about IBM’s cloud offerings questions about on-premises come up. Every single time. Why is that? Do customers not trust IBM? The problem is not limited to IBM, every US cloud service, inside or outside the US, has to provide data to the US government on request (secret judge and everything). It does not matter if IBM (MS, Oracle or whoever) tells you, that the customer always knows where his data is. Neither does it matter if IBM firmly believes, that with its data encryption and with the customer only having the key, the data should be save from everybody. Nobody outside the US does trust it.
If IBM wants to shine in that market, the only solution is to sell (in selling and then they own it, not just selling the usage) the cloud software to european, russian, chinese, japanese, swiss and so on companies. These companies can set up the cloud offerings with IBM’s blessing and help, but no piece of hardware or software can be owned by IBM. There should not be any cloud or data contract between IBM and the customer. Only then, some more companies might be reluctantly be ready to move to the cloud.
(BTW, there is still an unused Yahoo data center around the corner. If anybody wants to set up a data center for anything big, Yahoo might want to be willing to sell. I would help to make it work).
Costwise IBM is in for a hard game. Cloud will become cheaper over time until enough players drop out. IBM will need a lot of money and breath to survive this and become a important player. But if you believe in the latest rumors, cloud isn’t the big money maker as the hype makes us believe.
IBM, how about the on-premises offerings? Probably Apple can help there to, how to make updates without anything crashing.
One big argument for cloud always is, from IBM’s point of view at least, the faster upgrade cycle, because IBM does not have to test on several OS’s and hardware configurations. If IBM would just sell the VM’s it uses anyway in its cloud, that wouldn’t be a problem anymore and we could all continue to use our on premises installations or move to the cloud and back without so much as a mouse click. They had them once. Where are they now? I know, some companies just don’t want shrink wrapped VM’s, but if the price tag is right, many arguments will just disappear into oblivion.
Whatever happens, it will be interesting to see where Notes and Domino goes with iOS… if they are really part of the package.

 

Notes X

Will IBM announce Notes 10 next week? I don’t know, but I think it would be about time.
Since Ed’s departure to mobile, I feel a bit cut off. Nobody within IBM is really satisfying my need for news. The only thing I heard, is a new project about connecting MS Outlook, which is a good thing, that will save a ton of money for companies who suddenly find themself in the hands of some Outlook fan boys/girls. But that’s about it.
Now what? Whenever the number „X“ comes into play, we expect something eyewatering (or naughty). OSX was something almost completely new, the Citation „X“ is the flagship of Cessna (and Cessna employees will look extremely annoyed if you say „X“, it’s „ten“, got that?).
What could be the big step forward, to make Notes even in the eye of the general public THE thing to have?
First, an absolute must for the normal user is the ability to have several mail accounts, preferably in one view. Shouldn’t be that big of a deal. And for the security freaks we throw in policies controlling that stuff for good measure.
Second, making little applications should become easier again. Otherwise it will be Excel as the number one management tool for the forseeable future. I am still convinced (I am probably a slow learner), that Notes is the best management tool, as long as they let me do my apps. Third party solutions always have tons of features, that are not relevant to the problem. On the other hand, only 80 percent of the problem is solved, leaving me with the remaining 20 percent, which generate normally 80 percent of the effort.
Third, putting files in a Notes document as attachment, should be a thing of the past. That is probably the hardest part, but as long as files can be stored as XML, they could be imported and „kinda“ rendered as Notes documents. Now wouldn’t that be nice? Since there is an ODF standard, that might even be possible without reinventing everything. I doubt that anybody could implement Microsoft’s „standard“ without getting suicidal, but who knows.
It is great, that you still can use a Notes 2 application in Notes 9 and IBM does a hell of a job here, to make it happen, but one day, it’s just time to put an end to it and move on. I think it’s about time. Lotus Expeditor is way behind eclipse and I fear that it’s a dead end. It was a good idea, but Expeditor could not keep up with the rest and Eclipse itself has more and more problems to keep afloat. IBM has to cut the link between Eclipse and Notes sooner or later. IBM gave the open source community the IDE of choice for many years, but nobody can expect IBM to finance it endlessly. The idea of open source is, to develop its own momentum. If it doesn’t, it slows down and will eventually stop. That’s just the way it is. On the other hand, IBM can not expect, that Eclipse is developed in a way, that supports Expeditor.
But another question pops up. Is there still the need for a Notes client? Why not go web entirely? As long as I can not have wireless connections everywhere (even in that stupid tunnel after Bern), I probably want a client that works offline. But that problem has been solved before. HTML 5 is pretty strong. Now why not just ditch that old-fashioned client and concentrate on web? The problem could be, that we suddenly would have to deal with WebSphere. Although one heck of a good product, but probably not the first choice for an SMB. Buuuuuut, Quickr has gone that direction, Sametime too, why not Notes? Worse could happen. As long as there is some kind of migration path, it would not be the end of the world. Frankly, I would rather have a Connections Mail server based on Domino and easy to develop XPages applications, which work with a Connections installation, than continuing the beaten path which eventually is leads into oblivion, because as of today (that’s now, next week probably have changed my mind) Notes is sold as email with a twist. But that twist is not going to change a lot of minds anymore. Apparently IBM had success getting old customers back onto Notes, for whatever reason. Often only because the promised easy migration to SharePoint failed (and here we have to fight hard, not to look smug. That would be very unprofessional). That proves, that IBM is not abandoning Notes, but I am pretty sure, that some IBMer are also fed up with the old Notes and would rather start something new and leaving some ballast behind. After 25 years of backwards compatibility, that would be ok with me. And if it is still called Notes, I can pretend, that’s my old friend, but that only works if I (and that’s just me) get more of the daily general management stuff and not just some new email feature. Otherwise I can live quite happily with Apple Mail. That thing does what I need. It has its quirks, but so does Notes.
Oh and yes, there is all that cloud stuff. I am really thinking about moving to SmartCloud, but the on premises solutions will always have their market. More today than ever, because nobody likes the feeling, that some guys in trench coats and dark glasses are looking over your shoulder. It’s a matter of principle. Some will say, what the heck, the price to keep my own installation is too high and what does the NSA want with my CRM data anyway, others will pay for having better control over their stuff (or just the feeling). That’s ok. And there are those who had Notes for decades and use it to the max. They need something that replaces it without too much cost. And here comes the question that nobody today is ready or willing to answer. Can we live just with XPages? Can LS and Formula Language be abandoned? They are already on the move to the sideline and one day, there will be a Domino server without it. I personally am looking forward to it.
But since IBM and I never agree, next week will bring a lot of surprises. Either good or bad. Let’s see.

I hope I don’t have to see THAT again. Adobe Reader messes up my Mac big time.

I would almost go as far to call Adobe Reader XI „Crap Ware“. And I am not even alone. What are they thinking.

Here is the scenario:
Yesterday I had to fill out a pdf form. Unfortunately the Apple preview app can’t do that. Hey, no problem, I am just going to install the latest Adobe Reader and off we go. That worked for the form … apart from the sending by email button with Notes … and I got it done eventually. But I should have taken the problem with Notes and sending the email as a hint. When I clicked on the icon, Notes would not come in front. Other things started to behave awkward, too. In the afternoon my Mac was blocked on the screen safer. I had to kill it. Can you imagine? A Mac completely blocked? (just kidding)
It was slow before and I thought, give it a bit of time and it will sort things out eventually. Not so, it looks like it filled up in the background with tasks, until it slowed to a crawl. Not nice. This morning, Time Machine informed me, that it could not back up. The volume was already in use. Sorry, what? Restart Mac, restart Airport Extreme … nothing! Notes still behaved funny and since Adobe Reader was the last thing I changed, it was the first thing to go. Oh wonder, now the backup works again, Notes is back to its old beauty.
Normally I want two proofs for conviction (I probably could find one in the log), but this time I will make an exception. That thing will not come to my trusty old MacBook Pro again.

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

… 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.

Here it is:

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

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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)  Redémarrer le serveur IBM Domino et configurer IBM Traveler selon votre convenance et en fonction de la documentation IBM

We are damn stupid or hindsight is 20/20

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?

Question for the experts …

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?

XPages Workshop … proudly presented by IBM

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.