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I LOVE being a Domino Administrator

Mat Newman  November 25 2010 20:54:50
Being a Domino Admin is simple ... but it's not easy.

A Domino Admin's role is to ensure communication and participation within the Domain.

That's the simple part.

Now the corollary, it isn't easy being a Domino Admin, but mostly it is simple.  Take what I've been doing for the past couple of days:
  • Upgrade 3 servers to Domino 8.5.2,
  • Upgrade the SameTime server to 8.5.1,
  • Implement Transaction Logging on all,
  • Implement DAOS on all,
  • Move Lotus Protector to the ESX,
  • Implement a new ID Vault (tip – move your Vault from your old server BEFORE you decommission it),
  • Resolve 5137 DDM reports,
  • Change the Domain's mail routing and replication topology,
  • Roll out 8.5.2 clients via Smart-Upgrade to the users,
  • Roll new policy features available in 8.5.2 (YAY – MANAGED REPLICA'S!!!),
  • Recover 110 Gigabytes of disk-space on each of the Domino Cluster Server members that host mail

OK – the last one wasn't me, that was DAOS.  By-the-way, did I mention DAOS ROCKS!

DUE TO DOMINO CLUSTERING THE USERS DID NOT NOTICE ANY SERVER BEING DOWN, NOT ONCE, PERIOD.

If you are a Domino Admin and haven't upgraded your servers to 8.5.1 FP3 + then you need to covertly ignore your IT manager, bypass your Financial Requisition system and take advantage of the '90 day trial' feature from http://www.lotus.com/downloads.  Argue with your CIO/CTO/CEO later … after you've shown them how moving forward you can give your organisation REAL ROI (Return On Investment) that the more recent versions of Domino server can bring to your organisation ... yes, I grew up in the country (can you tell?), we may not do things by the book, but our results speak for themselves.

DAOS
will save you disk-space, Transaction Logging will improve server performance,  SameTime's latest version and ODS 51 is “smaller, faster and more manoeuvrable” (Top-Gun quote, sorry!)

Throw in Design Compression, Data compression, and all of a sudden you have no-shit real disk savings!

BONUS ANSWER REGIS: DOMINO DATA STORAGE REDUCED BY 50%

I admit – YOU might not gain the same level of savings - but hey, my experience with DAOS hasn't yet resulted in anything less than 30% (BTW - have I ever mentioned that the SEND method of work-flow IS NOT REAL Collaboration - despite what certain other vendors will have you believe!).

And TRUST me on this one, if you don't touch the design of your mail databases, you can get all of these benefits, even if your USERS are still on Notes 5!!!  (shame on you if they are!)

(Yes - it's YOU I'm talking about, and yes; your new dual quad-core with 8GB of memory and 2TB of disk-space is more than enough to handle Domino 8.5.2, AND you'll get 25%+ of your existing disk-space back!!!)


Being a Domino Admin is simple, but you need to do the hard yards to ensure that other's believe it's anything other than easy!

At this point I could wax lyrical about how difficult it would be to achieve what has been done in the last 2 days using another vendor's 'equivalent' product-line.  You and I know I don't even need to bother.

Now it's time to take off the Domino Admin hat and become a Developer for the next 3 weeks so that I may bask in the adulation that results from a functional and intuitive user experience, yes - all Developers know that feeling!

I DO love being a Domino Admin!
Comments

1Edwin Mpofu  11/26/2010 0:14:25  
I LOVE being a Domino Administrator

Good stuff! Are you on 64 bit Domino or 32 bit? I am interested in exploiting the large amounts of RAM in the new servers and I am not sure whether the performance impact of 64 bit is significant and would love to know what your experiences are in this area.

Thx

2Frank Docherty  11/26/2010 2:24:55  
I LOVE being a Domino Administrator

I love this line from your post:-

"Being a Domino Admin is simple, but you need to do the hard yards to ensure that other's believe it's anything other than easy!"

Very well said sir! You have a new fan :-)

3Albert Buendía  11/26/2010 3:31:29  
I LOVE being a Domino Administrator

So do I. But, Mat, are you talking about Sametime "Classic" (Domino) or the WAS Sametime? Thanks!

@Edwin, only remember than Domino 64 bit with BES Express for Domino is not supported :(

4Mat Newman

11/26/2010 8:34:30  I LOVE being a Domino Administrator

@1, Edwin: In my experience Domino does love x64 architecture. Ask anyone who's been running Domino on 'big iron' and they'll tell you that Domino just gets on with it's job on a stable, robust operating system. The key to a successful Domino system is optimising the OS so that as many resources are available for the Domino server (service) so that it can serve user requests. Once Domino loads a process into memory, it then uses the speed of the processor to execute the operation, which more often than not is then reliant on how fast it can I/O the disk, and then transmit a result either to another user, or server. So it's not just memory that's a key factor to a rock-solid Domino server, Domino needs a platform to give it 4 things: CPU, Memory, Disk and Network. x64 OS running on hardware optimised for it can certainly help when it comes to CPU and Memory, but don't forget the other two are just as important.

@2, Frank: Thanks. It's a concept I try really hard to impress upon my clients. You have a really simple job being a Domino Admin: All you have to do is ensure communication and participation within your Domain. Knowing how everything works and interacts is the hard part. Resolving issues or implementing features is the simple bit - if you know what you're doing. After all, implementing DAOS is about 10 clicks, a console command, and maybe a server restart. When rectifying DDM reports it often takes longer to write your comment than it does to issue a console command to fix the problem. The 'hard yards' are keeping on top of everything, and studying new features so that you can take advantage of them when required.

@3, Albert: SameTime classic (Domino). Users noticed an immediate improvement in response time from SameTime operations: logging-in, establishing a chat, and presence indicators all benefited from the upgrade. Remember nothing else happened to trigger this other than installing a new release of the software on the existing infrastructure. Quite a few 'SameTime is quick today' comments were made by users.

Mat Newman IBM Champion

5Keith Brooks  11/28/2010 14:12:17  
I LOVE being a Domino Administrator

Excellent post, way to go and nail those projects.

Mat Newman

THE Notes (formerly IBM/Lotus Notes) Guy. Productivity Guru. Evangelist. IBM Champion for IBM Collaboration Solutions, 2011/2012/2013. Former IBMer. HCLite. Views are my own.

#GetProductive #GetHCLNotes

Mat Newman




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