Rob Novak installs IBM Workplace Services Express in 29 minutes

February 9 2005

Hah, Rob beat Bruce by 3.3%!!!

I didn't believe it, based on my experience for a little over 2 years with WebSphere Portal Express. In 2003, it took me almost 100 hours to get that going. It was a monster. Then it was 30 hours, and finally with the latest shipping version I got it down to about 6 (including integration with an 8-server Domino lab, it started to even feel impressive). Not too shabby for the extreme amount of functionality you get, but it's still not a half hour!

So when Mike Rhodin said we could have Workplace Services Express 2.0 installed from 3 CDs (the ones in the Lotusphere backpacks, which BTW are a lovely fashion statement in any venue) in 30 minutes, I didn't believe him.
Yet...29 minutes later....
Link: Rob Novak: A half hour to productivity? Come on. Really. >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  IBM  Add/View Comments [28]

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  1. 1  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 2/9/2005 4:57:27 PM

    LOL!

    The truth of the matter is that it took only about 20 minutes. I just rounded up for simplicity and the "30 minute install" tag line. :-)

    Michael Bourak has also made the IBM Internet Mailbox portlet available over on my box.

    Hey - this is starting to sound like a Fear Factor episode.

    Bruce

  1. 2  Declan Lynch www.qtzar.com | 2/9/2005 5:12:21 PM

    Hang on a sec, I installed it a whole day before Bruce and I didn't get my own 5 minutes of fame on edbrill.com :-(

    { Link }

  1. 3  Declan Lynch www.qtzar.com | 2/9/2005 5:14:05 PM

    Actually, make that a whole 5 days before Bruce...

  1. 4  Rob Novak http://www.lotusdigerati.com | 2/9/2005 5:18:02 PM

    @Dec: Yeah, that time zone thing is a killer...

    @Bruce: Sure, rounding up...me too, take out the coffee breaks I came back from and it was waiting <g>

    @All: Faster CPU & more RAM = better. LAN performance is quite good, outside is a little slower.

  1. 5  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 2/9/2005 5:25:44 PM

    I hadn't seen your post Declan. Nice to see people trying WSE out. What else have you learned about it in the past 5 days?

    Bruce

  1. 6  Matthew P Henry  | 2/9/2005 5:36:56 PM

    Yes, but did you read his post carefully? This version of express, made such a big deal about at Lotusphere, doesn't integrate with Domino? What gives? Why would Lotus people even want to spend the time messing with a product that doesn't work with Domino? I trust I'm wrong, but the word was doesn't integrate with Domino LDAP or any of the Domino apps, no Domino portlets out of the box! I must be missing something here!

  1. 7  Declan Lynch www.qtzar.com | 2/9/2005 5:53:29 PM

    Actually WSE integrates very well with Domino. Ok, it doesn't have the collaboration bit where you can surface Domino apps directly within Workplace but there are portlets for Domino mail, calendar, inotes, etc built into the WSE product. It also has all the MS Exchange portlets there too if you want to use them.

    It also integrates into the Domino LDAP with no problems, just follow the extra instructions in the helpfiles.

  1. 8  Lance Spellman http://www.workflowstudios.com | 2/9/2005 6:41:08 PM

    So now I'm going to have to do a live video feed of installing WSE in our environment with a countdown clock in the background or something, lol.

    Actually, I guess that could be useful if you added the bits Declan is talking about. Record it in Sametime and allow anyone to play it back for a "now you try" at home.

  1. 9  David Bell  | 2/9/2005 7:25:30 PM

    Anyone done an install on Linux yet, I suspect it will be faster ?

  1. 10  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 2/9/2005 8:10:20 PM

    The CD's I have are for Windows install only. :(

  1. 11  Matt White http://www.11tmr.com | 2/10/2005 2:51:12 AM

    I'm another one who's got it installed with no problems. It actually took me 40 minutes (on a relatively low spec machine) so not even in Bruce or Rob's league! I'm still hugely impressed though, there are already several uses I can see for it when i get some free time.

    Well done IBM.

  1. 12  Joerg Michael http://www.lndcentral.com | 2/10/2005 3:53:21 AM

    I just sent a ex-co-worker to check out Bruce's demo site. He came back with the question "What's the price?". So I quickly checked IBM's site and found a price for the server that is 5 figures and (in Euro-Land) starts with a 4. Plus about 100 per user.

    Just a quick question: Did I find the wrong product or is this really, seriously the price for WSE?

  1. 13  Sim’ http://www.workplacechannel.com/ | 2/10/2005 6:24:56 AM

    Joerg Michael,

    Pricing is either per CPU, or per user (sold in 20 user bundles). You pay one or the other, not both. Let me repeat that... there is no client licensing if you purchase a CPU license.

    If you buy per user, there is no limit on the number of CPUs you put in your box. If you buy per CPU, there is no (licensing) limit on the number of users you have.

    I'm not sure how pricing works in Euro-land, but the CPU license price you mentioned sounds about the right ballpark.

    Most smaller organisations would be buying per-user bundles though, and we're talking only a couple of thousand dollars for each 20 user bundle, which is very very cheap for what the product does.

    Put it this way - working from my Australian price list, it would take around 360 user licenses (18 bundles of 20) before it costs more than a single CPU license (but at some point you're going to want more than once CPU license to handle the load). It's just a matter of working out which is the most cost effective way of buying it for your needs. But remember you do NOT have to pay per-user licensing costs as well if you have purchased CPU licenses.

  1. 14  Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/bensblog.nsf | 2/10/2005 7:00:44 AM

    @2 Dec - Unfortunately I had to go back to January's archive to find out when I installed it. It was while you guys were all partying at LotusSphere...beat you all :OP

    I was watching the John Cleese webcast on one machine whilst installing WSE on the other.

  1. 15  Daniel Durette  | 2/10/2005 9:03:16 AM

    Is WSE gonna be faster when it is installed on linux (RedHat Enterprise 2.1)?

    We are currently looking to purchase a collaboration solution. What we are looking right now is a way to manage/share documents, have team calendars and have a way to assign tasks to people. We would also like to integrate our help desk application that manage every request that are made to us from our clients. The application is currently running on Tomcat 4.1 with an oracle database.

    We are currently not using any kind of IBM software. Is it hard to get acquainted to WSE?

    Are we loosing fonctionnalities in the mail, personnal calendar and address book sector if we use the pop3 integration instead of the Domino mail integration?

    I've got a lot of other questions, can someone direct me to someone that answer all my questions rapidly.

    Just so you know, I tried Bruce's demo and I am very impressed by the possibilities.

  1. 16  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 2/10/2005 9:34:05 AM

    You can talk to IBM's inside sales team via this link:

    https://www6.software.ibm.com/reg/swgcall/swgcall-r?S_TACT=104CBW51

  1. 17  Daniel Durette  | 2/10/2005 10:33:51 AM

    @16 I have already contacted client representative from IBM but it's not going fast enough and he knows nothing about WSE. I'm gonna try your link. Thank you.

  1. 18  Sim’ http://www.workplacechannel.com/ | 2/10/2005 10:35:04 AM

    One of the sessions at Lotusphere talked about some of the development activities that have been happening - and in particular they mentioned the upcoming release of IBM Workplace Collaboration Services v2.5, which IBM Workplace Services Express v2.5 will be based upon.

    The v2.5 of the "Workplace" engine is mostly a performance release, with major code refactoring and performance tuning being the focus of development.

    The results they showed so far were quite impressive, and in particular the presentation at Lotusphere singled out the Linux version as receiving up to 300% performance increase (over v2.0) from their efforts.

    As to which platform will actually be faster - they didn't really say !

  1. 19    | 2/10/2005 10:57:14 AM

    @13 - excellent clarification of pricing. Thank you.

  1. 20  David Bell  | 2/10/2005 11:15:05 AM

    @18 - I believe the 300% performance number was related to Domino 7 on Linux, not WSE.

    The Linux JVM performs much faster than a Microsoft JVM.

  1. 21  Rob Novak http://www.lotusdigerati.com | 2/10/2005 1:46:23 PM

    What the heck I'll host a playground too...:-)

    { Link }

    Warning: May change or not be available when I integrate it with Domino LDAP...next week or so.

  1. 22  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 2/10/2005 2:06:56 PM

    To anyone interesting in installing, please see my blog entry today for instructions on how to access a tutorial that should help you. { Link }

  1. 23  Joerg Michael http://www.lndcentral.com | 2/11/2005 4:18:53 AM

    Thanks for the pricing clarification. That's actually VERY reasonable.

  1. 24  David Bell  | 2/11/2005 5:32:15 PM

    Ok - so since no-one else responded about a Linux install I just did one.

    As a lowly IBM speaker / staffer @ LS I didn't get the bag or CD's so I downloaded them and untar'd the files into my SuSE Linux ES 8 VMWare image. Slight perf advantage over CD perhaps having the source on the hard drive. I ran the image with 1.2GB RAM on my T40.

    From running ./install.sh to prompt to start WSE was 19 minutes.

  1. 25  Jerry G.  | 2/12/2005 11:50:05 AM

    @20 My understanding is that the big jump in the quoted 300% improvement in performance of Domino 7 on Linux was due to kernal changes; if so, it is not unreasonable that Workplace would get a comparable increase as well.

  1. 26  Alexander Kluge http://www.kluge.de | 2/15/2005 10:20:42 AM

    Let me add a new category to this competition: Complete deinstall AND new install within 36 Minutes!

  1. 27  Chris  | 5/3/2005 12:27:16 PM

    Is Workplace Services Express run as a hosted service by anyone?