Guild Companies

IBM this week took the wraps off Domino 6, the next generation of its Notes/Domino messaging, groupware, and application serving middleware. While people will make a lot of noise that IBM is taking the first steps toward merging the Domino programs with its WebSphere middleware and its DB2 databases with Domino 6, the new program is more than that. Domino 6 has a lot of tweaks that customers want, and it is a platform that is easier to administer than prior Domino releases.

The latest enhancements in Domino 6 are designed to put a smile on the faces of systems administrators, who will gain a better handle on server sprawl. The bean counters should also be pleased, as Lotus has a good total-cost-of-ownership story to tell. And the developers, who have been madder than hornets, thinking that their platform was imperiled, will be the most interested in the developments concerning Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), JavaServer Pages (JSP), and WebSphere.

If you worry about things like the pains of upgrading, Domino 6 has smoothed that path, to the degree of even adding new tools that assist administrators in performing remote upgrades and changing user settings.

Domino 6 also delivers some much-desired improvements such as a formula engine overhaul that speeds application performance; single-server hosting of the Domino directory, which replaces replication of the directory across all servers and, in that same vein, streaming replication and network compression that reduces replication times; improved security for spreading Domino applications across multiple servers; and native anti-spam support.

Kim Greene, a Notes/Domino consultant familiar with Domino 6, expects the increased functionality of the Notes client to make the biggest impact on users.

"The client is much easier to use with many e-mail and calendar enhancements compared to before," Greene said, mentioning that such things as color-coding messages, to identify the sender or the relative importance, makes it much more visual. "There were a lot of improvements from R4.6 to R5, but Domino 6 is another big step ahead."

Greene, who has particular expertise on the OS/400 platform, noted that every OS/400 customer she works with has made the previous upgrade to Domino R5. "My Windows consulting counterparts still have a lot--probably 30 to 40 percent--of their clients on Domino R4.6. It seems that OS/400 customers, compared to Windows, stay more current with the latest releases of Domino."

Because major upgrades are annoying, they can be an impediment to progress. Domino has had its share of upgrade snafus, so reducing the stress level during an upgrade was not lost on the folks at Lotus. To their credit, they have come up with some useful enhancements in this area. Perhaps as a nod toward dumb mistakes in the past, Lotus is referring to these as "smart upgrades." For instance, instead of a new version of the client being individually installed on each PC, it can be set up so that users, when they log in from Lotus Notes at their desktop, receive prompts that help them through the process. Systems administrators are going to love that. There's also automated policy-based management, so administrators can set up specific policies, at the server level, for specific sets of users.

Also raising eyebrows is the WebSphere Application Server software bundled with forthcoming versions of Domino 6.

As Domino 6 development matured through the beta process, Lotus waffled on architectural preferences, an indecision that was met with a degree of alarm by both the pro-Java and anti-Java factions. Pro-Java developers were concerned about the loss of JSP and servlet capability. The developers on the other side of the Java fence have never been exactly friendly toward what they perceive as technological threats (WebSphere and DB2) to the Domino environment, which are favored by Lotus' guardians at IBM.

Enough loyal Lotus fans were stirred up by the thought of being pushed off Domino--and toward WebSphere, with its higher product and training costs--that a top Lotus executive chose the keynote address at IBM's DeveloperWorks conference several months ago to calm the ruckus. In that presentation, it was clearly stated that Lotus would continue to support and enhance Domino, while at the same time it would develop a separate path (the key word is "separate") for Java and Web services.

The next generation of the Domino architecture, built on J2EE, is anticipated in mid-2003. The Lotus line on this is that it wants developers to have the choice to continue developing in Domino, but also the choice to integrate WebSphere. Any chatter among the users about Domino being dropped is without basis, Lotus and IBM sources say.

While Domino developers will gain access to non-Domino applications such as XML-based Web services, developers of J2EE and WebSphere applications will gain Domino collaborative and rapid application development capabilities.

In its pitch for the J2EE platform, Lotus praises the capability to deliver Domino applications as Web services, which will make important Domino collaboration benefits such as workflow, virtual teamroom, virtual classroom, online awareness, scheduling, messaging, e-meetings, and expertise location available to other software.

Interoperability is the often-repeated Lotus goal. Product planners forecast a future in which individuals working in Domino, WebSphere, or Microsoft .NET will have collaborative capabilities while developing applications. Eventually the entire Lotus product portfolio will run native in J2EE development and runtime environments.

Bundling the WebSphere Application Server with Domino 6 is designed to introduce Domino users to Web services and J2EE-based applications. However, this is not the entire WebSphere application server. More precisely, it is a license entitlement to WebSphere and a URL where they can register to get the code.

The WebSphere Application Server allows use of access to WebSphere's Java servlets, JSPs, and Web services technology, but not Enterprise JavaBeans and WebSphere Connection Pooling. It allows access to Domino objects and data; Domino and the WebSphere Application Server must reside on the same server.

WebSphere will provide both the J2EE runtime environment and the JavaServer Pages runtime environment, allowing developers to use the JSP tag library to call services from Domino. Lotus modified the Domino Java API to allow WebSphere integration.

By providing JSP runtime, Domino 6 recoups what it lost when its Garnet technology was dropped during beta testing. Garnet supported JSP and let Domino function as a J2EE server.

With JSP, developers have more control over content they use within their Web-based applications, such as better table formatting. J2EE is a popular platform for building distributed applications, and Domino users said they looked forward to using it in conjunction with Domino's database, replication, and security features.

Lotus dropped Garnet because of incompatibility issues related to IBM's long-term product strategy. Also missing from the list of anticipated features in Domino 6 is the roaming-user and single-copy template features. Sources say they proved to be unstable at this time and that they will be released as part of a maintenance upgrade early next year.

Along with Domino 6, Lotus released new versions of its instant messaging product, Sametime 3.0, and its online collaborative workspace tool, QuickPlace 3.0.

Sametime 3.0 incorporates the use of a 360-degree camera to facilitate online meetings and will also allow users to simultaneously log on to AOL Instant Messenger and Sametime, which facilitates multiple workgroups or buddy lists. In the truest sense of collaboration, Sametime 3.0 users will be capable of scheduling and attending meetings from the Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes client.

QuickPlace 3.0 introduces "My Places," a searchable list of user workspaces across multiple servers. My Places is designed to identify the title of the workspace, its size, and when the most recent changes were made. Sources also indicate that QuickPlace has increased its page-rendering performance through the use of a new Web-caching technology.

Domino 6 for Windows NT and Windows 2000 will be available September 30, and available for IBM OS/400, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris/SPARC, and Linux (IA-32) server platforms on October 7. Pricing for Domino 6 hasn't been announced yet, but IBM is expected to provide details on the general availability release dates for each platform.