But over time there has developed a second, separate layer of infrastructure that need to be managed in support of Domino — in fact, for any e-mail system, not just Domino. For example, connections to the Internet introduce threats that need to be addressed, so the SMTP interface needs to present a locked-down posture, and filter unwanted content such as spam and viruses.  At the same time, continuing growth in sheer e-mail data volume, plus increasing regulation of corporate information, particularly compliance and legal discovery, combine to create pressures to better manage the ever-bigger chunk of an enterprise’s data that goes through people’s mailboxes.

Most of todays infrastructure on that second layer doesn’t have much to do with specific Domino skills, and often may not even the responsibility of the Domino team.  Typically these products/solutions simply sit on the network or out at the edge, treating whatever is inside as the next relay in a generic SMTP stream.  Often that’s a sensible strategy for increasing throughput, especially when inspecting for things like spam and viruses, which can comprise over 90% of SMTP e-mail volume.

Of course some vendors integrate with specific Notes/Domino (or Outlook/Exchange or GroupWise) APIs to create extra value, and we’re always looking for ways to help our ISV partners improve their products for our mutual customers.  But some things are just hard problems for everyone.  For instance, encryption (popular with Domino customers) always throws a wrench into things when you need to inspect a piece of content.  And the client-server nature of Notes/Domino can often result in data in multiple places.  Since security systems can operate at different points in a network, it’s problematic to make everyone’s stuff work reliably across different functions and locations.  It is a pain point that our customers have shared with us.

Lotus Protector is the brand for a new family of security products being introduced over the next 12-24 months.  They create solutions for common e-mail security and compliance needs, but do it in a way that’s consistent with the way Domino administrators operate.  For example, Lotus Protector products place a premium on being able to interoperate with Domino’s  user and security frameworks, and integrating features tightly with Notes clients, presenting the most natural user experience.

The first Lotus Protector release is an antispam/antivirus appliance based on technology from Internet Security Systems (ISS), a company acquired by IBM in 2006.  This top-notch edge server solution is the result of some serious IBM/ISS research, and offers important capabilities like IP reputation filtering, which can drop the worst of the SMTP detritus before you even take receipt.  We’re entering beta soon on Lotus Protector for Mail Security 2.1 (it’s not 1.0 because of the proven ISS Proventia code base), and expect to have final product in market in 1H 2008.  A second major release is planned around year-end, introducing some pretty interesting Notes/Domino integration.

Going forward there will be Lotus Protector announcements in other security areas.  All offerings will solve specific e-mail related security and/or compliance challenges.  Each will be optimized for the interests of a Lotus Notes/Domino customer.  Stay tuned.  Feel free to  comment here on your  needs and desires regarding email security for the Protector roadmap.

Essentially, the template converts Notes view data to XML format for consumption by RSS readers and aggregators, by mapping XML tags to column, field or custom keyword. You use one Feed Definition document to RSS-enable one Lotus Notes view or folder. Within the document, you specify such attributes as: feed title, language and optional description. You can further refine the RSS feed description with a set of optional tags, such as specifying additional tag libraries, or whether the feed should be published as an ordered list. You can also podcast by using the tag to advertise an audio or video file. The database also has an internal function to create iCalendar or vCard objects when the tag is associated with an RSS item.  

You can also configure the look and behavior of the feed by specifying the number of view rows to be emitted on the feed, or whether the feed should appear as an ordered list. Global optons allow you to specify what protocol (http:// or https://), available feeds header content, and the RSS element prefix to (notes:// or http://).

There is also the option of using the External Web Documents view to collect and advertise Web-enabled documents as RSS items. This view provides links to static URLs for resources that may not be part of a Domino view. For example, you might use this to aggregate important company documents like Human Resources PDF forms and corporate policies.

When an authenticated user launches the RSS Generator database in a browser, it displays a list of the available RSS feeds that can be subscribed to using any RSS feed reader. It is also possible to create and cache iCalendar and vCard objects from RSS items.

You can create RSS feeds from any Domino database, including  e-mail, calendar, and contact entries from a user’s mail database. No modifications are required. You can even use Derived Mail option in the Feed Definition document to RSS-enable all mail files on the server. The security of the feed is controlled by the ACL of database specified in the Feed Definition document. The template itself is a server-based template. You can only access and generate feeds for databases co-located on the same server.

Occasionally, it may be necessary to override single sign-on (SSO) for RSS feed readers, as the readers cannot use session authentication forms. Do this by creating a new Web site rule and, on the Basics tab:

• Set the Type of Rule to “Override Session Authentication with basic authentication.” (new in 7.0.2 ).
• Specify the incoming URL pattern for the RSS Generator database.
• (Optional) On the Lotus Domino Web Engine  tab of the current Web site document, select Yes or No for ‘When overriding session authentication, generate session cookie.’

There are a variety of ways in which the RSS Generator database can be used. Here at the Lotus Information Development team (the team that creates the documentation for Lotus products), we are planning to use it to deliver documentation feedback information from our customer feedback database to individual writers. Writers will be able to subscribe to the RSS feed for the feedback view for their specific information deliverable.

Other possible uses include delivering marketing department headlines or podcasts, help desk IT-related announcements, press release information from media relation firms, or government alerts and new resources/policy information.
]]> http://www.swiftbrains.com/wp-feed.php?feed=rss2&p=14 http://www.swiftbrains.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,46/p,13/ http://www.swiftbrains.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,46/p,13/#comments Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:16:38 +0000 admin Lotus Notes /?p=13 A new feature that comes with the Domino 8.0.1 server is Lotus Traveler.  Finally - we are providing a built-in mobile solution for devices other than the Blackberry!

Traveler provides basic wireless mobile replication for Lotus Domino email/PIM data and runs directly on the Domino server as a server task (or on a separate server that has access to the mail files)!  This provides real-time replication of email (including attachments), calendar, contacts, personal journal and to-do access on mobile devices.  It communicates on SSL with 128-bit encryption and (wait for it) even integrates with Domino administration and policies!

Also, using optional WECM (the product formerly known as Lotus Mobile Connect), you can optionally secure your mobile connection even more over a wide variety of networks.  

Lotus Traveler supports Windows Mobile 5 and 6 (Professional and Smartphone) and is included in the Domino 8.0.1 release (there is a separate install component).

To install - you can download a CAB file to the device via web site, Active Sync via cradle attachment/etc or via memory card.  There is even an option for administrator-configured response file (bootstrap.nts).  The installer puts files in the \Program Files\Lotus Traveler directory, adds shortcuts, then launches and walks the user through the registration wizard.  So, yes, out of the box, the end-user must know their Domino server name (and LMC gateway if WECM is used).  But…with a configured response file, those fields can be pre-filled!

Once installation is complete, Traveler is minimized to the application bar and the client automatically starts whenever the mobile device is reset.

From an end-user standpoint, using it is pretty simple.  Truncated messages have a special icon, synchronization runs in the background, and I can set filters, alarms, which components I want to synchronize, etc.  Word of warning though — even though your mail folders show up on the device, only Inbox and Drafts are synchronized by default - to get others, you have to select them in the Manage Folders areas.

Administratively, there are a few things you should be aware of before installing Lotus Traveler:

• Authentication uses the same mechanisms used by the Domino web server - so the http password must be filled in for the end-user.
• Directory Assistance can be used for more advanced authentication
• Databases MUST grant Manager access to the Lotus Traveler server (easier if the Lotus Traveler server is part of LocalDomainServers
• Policies are only supported for those users whose mail file is on a Domino 8.0.1 or later server
• Configuration data is synchronized between the device and the user’s mail file - it’s stored as a Notes profile within the database
• Use "Tell traveler showstats" on the Domino server command line to see statistics about Traveler

New features of IBM Lotus Domino Web Access 8

The following list is an overview of what is new in Domino Web Access 8:

• Domino Administrators can now enable Domino Web Access security settings via policies using a security policy settings document. For additional information, see the release note Using Security Policy Settings.
• Domino Web Access has a new look and feel, allowing the color scheme to best fit in WebSphere Portal when the URL includes the argument.
• There is an added support and integration of LanguageWare libraries and dictionaries, which provides spell check dictionary support for German Reform language, along with a multi-threaded server spell check engine for Domino Web Access.
• New integrated instant contact list manger interface and refresh of awareness icons.
• More feature parity with Notes mail client  Feature interoperability enhancements including support for preview pane, calendar view filters, preferred rooms and resources, and managed mail and calendar.
• Support for RSS feed-enabling of Notes databases. See Enable RSS feeds for mail Inbox in these release notes for additional information.

The administration process (AdminP) task automates many of the administrative tasks required to manage a Lotus Domino environment. In Lotus Domino 8, many enhancements have been introduced to aimed at improving the efficiency of this process in order to reduce the system resource requirements and speed up the completion of tasks.

Post request into target server database
With prior versions of Lotus Domino, administration requests are placed into the Administration Requests database, (ADMIN4.NSF), on the Lotus Domino server on which they are created, and then replication is used to transfer the request to the server where it will be processed. In an environment with many servers, it may take several replication events before the request reaches the server that will process the request.

In Lotus Domino 8, AdminP can deposit selected administration requests directly into a destination server’s administration <!–[if !vml]–> requests database instead of depositing the request into the local copy of the database. This has the potential to reduce the time taken to start and therefore complete the processing of these administration requests.

User rename speed improvements
There are occasions when a user’s hierarchical name may need to be changed, either due to a change in surname or a change in the organizational hierarchy to which the user belongs. In this situation, it is necessary to ensure that this change is reflected in any design element (Reader Name field, Author Name field, ACL) that contains the original name, in order that the user will still have the same access to information with their new name. In a Lotus Domino domain with many databases, this process can consume considerable time and system resources.

With Lotus Domino 8, the processing of the user rename administration request has the potential to be more much faster and more efficient by using a new names list that can be stored in a database. This names list contains the names of all the reader names entries and author names entries that are present within the database. Instead of immediately searching every note in a database, a quick check can be done to identify whether a particular name appears in this list. Only if a name is found in the list, is every note in the database searched to identify all the fields where the name is stored, and to replace these with the new name.

Critical request scheduling
In a large Lotus Domino domain, the administration process is likely to have many tasks to process some of which may be of a higher priority than others. Lotus Domino 8 offers new features to give extra processing capability to particular tasks in order to speed up their completion.

Change scheduled request
You can specify the time interval, other than the default time interval, in which a specific type of administration request will execute and this value will override the default settings. For example you could set a request like Rename in Person Documents” which is, by default a daily request, to instead run as an immediate request.

Dedicated Domino threads for immediate and interval requests
By default there is no prioritizing of administration requests. They are queued in the order in which they are created, and each of them is assigned a general Domino processing thread when one becomes available. In Lotus Domino 8, you can assign special purpose threads to two classes of administration request — immediate requests and requests. These special purpose threads will now run concurrently alongside general process threads, potentially reducing the time taken to complete those tasks.

 

Domino 7 delivered improvements in performance with most of the focus around reducing CPU requirements by between 25-50%. In Domino 8, there are a number of further performance and other improvements that can potentially allow you servers run even more efficiently, without hardware upgrades. Here are some of the more visible and valuable improvements. We hope you will want to take advantage of them:
 
Design note compression
Streaming cluster replication
On-demand collations
Prevent simple search
Admin process (Admin P) improvements

Design note compression : The option to use design note compression has been added to Lotus Domino 8 to help reduce the I/O and the space utilization associated with design information. The compression, which is transparent to Notes applications, typically reduces the size of a design note by as much as 60% (based on preliminary test results we have seen in Domino labs).

Streaming cluster replication : You could consider this to be Domino’s 2nd generation of clustering capability, making Notes client fail-over even better. In order to improve cluster replication performance and reduce the overhead that this can have on server I/O, Lotus Domino 8 introduces the concept of streaming cluster replication. Cluster replication is used to ensure that replica databases in a cluster are as up-to-date as possible in order to support fail over and load balancing of servers. In Domino 8, it is event-driven, rather than schedule-driven, so when a cluster replicator learns of a change to a database, it immediately pushes that change to other replicas in the cluster, meaning that data is very up to date on all cluster-mates.

With prior versions of Lotus Domino, the replicator constantly checked each database in turn to identify whether there were changes to replicate and then would replicate all changes associated with one database before moving onto the next. With Lotus Domino 8, servers propagate events (note updates, folder additions and removals, unread mark operations) to destination servers as they occur. Streaming cluster replication coordinates with existing scheduled replication to reduce its overhead, and it updates replication history periodically to reduce the burden on the regular replicator.

On-demand collations : With Lotus Notes and Domino 8, application developers can reduce the unnecessary server load from creating indices for columns that are not being used by deferring the creation of these indices until the user first chooses to sort the view by a specific column.

Prevent simple search : This new database property “Don’t allow simple search” positively impacts server performance by preventing users from searching databases that do not have full-text search enabled. By default, users can always search a database that does not have a full text index but there is a significant impact on the server when this type of ad hoc search is carried out. The new property can prevent users from accidentally selecting a given database as a target of a search and thus impacting server performance.

Admin process improvements :
The administration process (AdminP) task automates many of the administrative tasks required to manage a Lotus Domino environment. In Lotus Domino 8, many enhancements have been introduced to improve the efficiency of this process to reduce the resource requirements and speed up the completion of tasks.

Domino 8 added support for ‘References’ and ‘In-Reply-To’ IETF RFC 2822 header fields in addition to the ‘Message-ID’ header. The sending email system would also have to support these header fields for conversation threads to remain intact.

For Domino 8, we did some limited testing with various popular internet email systems. (this is not intended as support statement). At the time, only some of these mail systems appear to support  both new header fields and not all behaved consistently. Even Microsoft Outlook appeared to have different support levels for these headers when using different protocols  - eg MAPI vs IMAP and POP. Google Gmail and Thunderbird IMAP did appear to support the headers in our tests.

So internet conversation threads will work depending on the other system you are collaborating with.