Ed Brill

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1. 1  Ed Maloney http://genericparts.blogspot.com/ | 12/12/2007 5:00:00 PM

   I suggest everyone should go to searchdomino and click on the unify link - to generate some click-through revenue for searchdomino. Let's see, Notes/Domino speaks XML and Web Services and ND8 is built on Eclipse. Are these legacy technologies?

1. 2  Pete LaComb  | 12/12/2007 5:20:00 PM

   yeah, or how about "enhance Notes (err.. Domino - it's a web app) that writes millions in business a year"?

   Or "rewrite .Net app for Domino", since support for Proposion's N2N goes away next year, and beyond making my .Net app use LTPATokens, it didn't get used for much.

   Frankly, I'd trust that kind of marketing about as much as "this Notes app will make your .Net apps obsolete"

1. 3  Gavin Bollard http://dominogavin.blogspot.com/ | 12/12/2007 7:42:00 PM

   Notes/Domino is a modern platform with or without eclipse. One of the best things is that you can really modernize an application's interface without having to change much in the way of code. This makes it VERY LOW RISK - not at all "fraught with difficulties, complex decisions, and considerable expense".

   The problems we have in our organization aren't anything to do with the platform. They're all to do with getting the business to make key decisions about what they want.

1. 4  Patrick Kwinten http://quintessens.wordpress.com | 12/13/2007 1:49:09 AM

   anybody knows that SearchDomino is a poor weak site, with a structure and content (at least for a Domino technician) is pretty outdated.

   thank you for giving me a reason not to subscribe to their nonsense!

1. 5  Martín http://www.sidra400.com | 12/13/2007 2:21:16 AM

   Con amigos así no hacen falta enemigos........

   El que escribio este artículo en SearchDomino igual usa versión 1.0 de Notes.

   .NET tiene alguna cosa buena, sobre todo que necesita Windows (buena para Bill Gates), pero en mi modesta opinión no tiene nada que ver con Domino y todas la herramientas de Colaboración que acompañan al producto y en las que se apoyan las aplicaciones para permitir unos desarrollos mucho más productivos.

   Pardon for my nasty english.

   Best Regards

1. 6  Simon Scullion http://simonscullion.com/ | 12/13/2007 2:43:22 AM

   I assume this is the same so-called "white paper" I was referring to here { Link }

   It seems UNIFY are pushing this on a number of fronts, I came across it on the govtech.net site.

1. 7  Graham Dodge  | 12/13/2007 4:27:31 AM

   @3 Careful Gavin... you never know who is reading this column :)

1. 8  Axel  | 12/13/2007 7:13:58 AM

   Its difficult, for sure. But why not tackle this issue more openly. Like letting experts create an article about possibly existing real business reason when a migration on other IBM or IBM supported OS technology (f. ex. Geronimo) might make sense.

   What are the traps? Are there business reason that might suggest a migration? What integration technologies does exist to let Domino application coexist in other environments?

   Preferably with the most close observation of real business value and not general arguments like "its more modern".

1. 9  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 7:31:24 AM

   Ed,

   You don't have to look very far from home (corporate-wise) to find issues like this. I was in a meeting last week with a 600 user client where we're (waiting for the PO now) going to move them to Domino from Exchange. It was me, one of our sales guys and two IBMers. The client was interested in doing basic forms for his user base (not requiring pixel-perfect forms). The IBMers answer was "oh, you'll need Lotus Forms for that." No discussion that Domino could do that kind of stuff just fine all by itself.

1. 10  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/13/2007 7:43:12 AM

   @3 - "The problems we have in our organization aren't anything to do with the platform. They're all to do with getting the business to make key decisions about what they want."

   That's exactly why I left my previous job, and why they hired me back as a consultant. :-)

1. 11  Flemming Riis  | 12/13/2007 7:45:33 AM

   -No way to tell, as they have no references for Notes to MS application migration on their website.

   Idea cant IBM buy a copy and hand it over to the techies and let them tear it apart , and post the result on searchdomino.

1. 12  Axel  | 12/13/2007 7:53:45 AM

   ... and of course when migration is not a good idea because expected business value is much lower than costs.

1. 13  Jaime Bisgrove http://jaimebisgrove.blogspot.com | 12/13/2007 9:38:37 AM

   Buried. Who still uses that site?

1. 14  Kerr  | 12/13/2007 9:39:10 AM

   I just read their datasheet for Composer and if it does what they say it does I'll be amazed.

   "Composer uses the process of decomposition

   and re-composition to convert all business logic and

   workflow into standard Web services. These Web services

   contain all of the converted LotusScript, agents and Formula

   language from the Lotus Notes application."

   If that statement is true then they have a very serious bit of kit on their hands. If it's not true then I would have thought they are falling foul of the law somewhere. There doesn't seem to be a lot of wiggle room there.

   I would love to see this in action, just to see, one way or the other.

   One question does spring to mind though. If it does work, why hasn't MS bought them by now?

1. 15  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 12/13/2007 9:40:29 AM

   @3,

   I definitely agree with you on this. What the heck is a modern platform? Lotus Notes and Domino has been a consistent, but evolving technology that cannot be matched by any technology out there by anything especially when it comes to TCO and rapid development.

   I just talk to one of my clients yesterday for which we built an entire business system using Domino in a few weeks that enable him to make a key presentation in front of his client. As a distributor he was able to present data for over 2000 items from dozens of manfacturers and multiple countries in extreme short notice, one week. All his competitors in total could only present 500 items. The value of Domino and its flexibility has never been truely marketed effectively.

1. 16  Mike Mcp http://www.openntf.org/mPortal | 12/13/2007 10:18:21 AM

   @9,

   That's been my experience too. I sound like a broken record, but IBM has such a varied product line that often they're inadvertently competing against their own technologies. IMHO, before any marketing/sales pitch to a customer, they need to evaluate the in-house IBM tech, then decide who to bring to the pitch. Too often they're stepping on each other for the sale.

   Even if an IBM tool that's *not* in house might be better, they need to evaluate whether there is a chance in hell that they'll make the sale on that tool. If chances are slim, don't even make the pitch, because they're going to tarnish the reputation of the in-house technology...effectively saying 'what you have won't work, buy this other tool'

1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/13/2007 10:35:16 AM

   @9/16 - interestingly, I had to do a meeting this week where we did a reverse spin -- it was Microsoft who planted the seed with the customer that they'd have to buy a slew of IBM products...Portal, Dashboard Accelerators, Quickr, Connections, even Omnifind, in order to "do collaboration". While I'm sure that the IBM team would have loved to have sold all that stuff, it wasn't realistic to say that the customer needed even a fraction of it to do what they want to do.

1. 18  Ian Connor http://ianconnor.blogspot.com | 12/13/2007 10:36:33 AM

   Figure 1. Unify's Composer for Lotus shows one Lotus Notes Application (ugly brown yellow) going through a nice blue composer to red and white microsoft products with logos. However, this is still taking one system and splitting it into Visual Studio, .Net, Active Directory, Sharepoint and SQL Server. So now, you get to manage 5 things - sounds less efficient just looking at the pictures.

   I also didn't see any nice quotes from their success stories like CompUSA. :). The company that was quoted, { Link } is still running their site on domino looking at it.

1. 19  Pejman  | 12/13/2007 11:15:51 AM

   Ed,

   Why would migrating from Domino to .Net be a nonsense while a lot of IT Companies suggest to migrate to WebSphere ?

   To me, the reasons are :

   A) For MOST IT departments, a serious project must be based on a Relational Database. They never understood / do not understand and will never understand why they cannot "relationnaly" query a Domino database. They want SQL queries, triggers, stored procedures, transactions etc ...

   everything you have for years in a "normal" databases.

   B) Working on J2EE platforms is time consuming (thus $$ consuming too), so they encourage customers to migrate. Some IBMers including sales people do it also, so why blaming other companies ?

   There are thousands of projects which need relational functionnalities. The choices are :

   A) you decide not to implement the relational functionality and you accept

   to see your customers go elsewhere and articles like above

   B) you decide to implement it to keep your legacy customers and even gain

   more

   Now, that leads me to DB2/NSF :

   DB2/NSF is what some of us expected for years and now it is here ... and in fact not really there !!!

   It's a kind of NON EVENT and nobody really push it...despite the fact that I think it's exactly what could make domino reach a MUCH MUCH broader range of applications.

   a) IBM do not push it (no best practices, nobody talk about all our LA program requests). IBM talk about Reporting. well. but reporting is the the base. just a read operation. I'm quite surprised that there is nothing special organized around the db2/nsf (no forum, no advanced article, no

   best practices...)

   search the lotus technical library using the "db2" keyword returns 17 old basic articles.

   b) I think the domino dev community have not yet noticed how important it is. Worst. I feel (and I hope be wrong) that db2/nsf is a GAP that the Domino community will not cross without IBM's help.

   So my question are :

   Do you (IBM and the Domino community) do everything to keep customers on the Domino platform ?

   Do you do everything to read one day an article about "how to migrate from .Net to Domino platform" ? (and I am not talking about the mailing platforms)

   IF yes why there is nothing around db2/nsf ?????

   regards

1. 20  James Whitney  | 12/13/2007 2:02:48 PM

   Ed -

   Interesting. So what can the IBM people (YOU) do ? I find it hard to believe this thing works. Because I'm technical. So what are YOU (IBM) going to do to

   a. prove that it doesnt work, and then

   b. publicize your process, results and findings ?

   Unless you have answers to these, there's no point in you writing this, people reading it, etc.

1. 21  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/13/2007 2:30:48 PM

   @20 I don't think it's incumbent on IBM to prove anything in this case. I think we all have learned from years of experience that migrating Notes apps to anything usually doesn't make sense technically, and that it's not easy to find another model where Notes application logic fits.

   @19 Not that I was expecting this to go off in NSFDB2 land... You raise some points about NSFDB2, but

   "I think it's exactly what could make domino reach a MUCH MUCH broader range of applications."

   Can you tell me specifically what kind of applications you have built / plan to build / could build that take advantage of NSFDB2? There has been a lot of interest in the NSFDB2 implementation, but it is harder to find specific examples of production applications. I know there is a session coming up at Lotusphere (BP106).

   LEI and associated tools have been and continue to be a way of integrating Domino with relational databases, as has been done with Notes/Domino for over 15 years.

1. 22  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 3:10:24 PM

   @21 Couldn't agree more! Seems like a lot of development effort is being sunk into something that might better be approached by adding basic SQL functionality to the NSF. Then use THAT to get at Notes data from reporting tools, etc...

   More portable across platforms as well.

1. 23  Ed Maloney http://genericparts.blogspot.com/ | 12/13/2007 3:27:43 PM

   @22 - if I could use standard SQL queries to get directly (not via the much maligned NotesSQL)at NSF data 1) my life would be much easier 2) it would be much easier to get non-Notes developers to work with me on Notes projects.

1. 24  Lars Olufsen http://www.olufsphere.com | 12/13/2007 4:01:23 PM

   @Ed ... Want to know how a message like that of Unify ends up in the inbox of searchdomino users?

   Simple - because FUD aside, there is a real need and thus a market for migrating Notes/Domino apps to .NET and J2EE platforms.

   Why? Well - first of all, because IBM made one hell of a mess of their strategic communication a few years back, pointing users towards the Websphere platform and Lotus Workplace, talking portals and java.

   Secondly - IBM and just about all other vendors are preaching Service Oriented Architecture right and left. Sadly, IBM makes no mention about the role of Notes & Domino in Service Oriented Architectures. That goes for IBM Lotus people as well as for IBM SOA people. I've worked closely with both during the last couple of years, so I'm quite sure of that.

   Quite the opposite, IBM Lotus is talking a lot about Composite Apps, and - while being cool - it is not very transperant how it would fit in a larger enterprise architecture.

   Like it or not, that puts Notes/Domino in with the rest of the "legacy" applications, that in these days are heavily targeted for migration to other platforms or simply close to being extinct.

   Now ... YOU know, and I know, and EVERYBODY ELSE in here knows, that Notes/Domino is FAR from extinct. But there are CEOs out there who are still not convinced - not convinced at all - because IBM aren't sitting down with them, plotting Notes/Domino into the overall architectures of their customers.

   One can argue, that the reason for this might be, that IBM staff (as well as most other vendors) aren't themselves able to grasp the SOA concept in it's entirety, and end up talking about technologies and products instead of processes and architecture.

   I'm sure there are many other reasons, and that FUD adds to those, but there are plenty of very simple, rational and sensible reasons to consider migrating apps from Notes to J2EE or .NET.

   Perhaps the CEO already has a huge scale J2EE infrastructure targeting a lot of customers on the web. Perhaps the Domino application is running on a smaller scale Domino box and now - due to small changes in the business - the application needs to handle a lot more users and integrate to other systems. Instead of scaling the Domino box and figuring out a way to integrate two complex security systems, migrating the app to J2EE and LDAP could well be easier, faster, cheaper etc. etc.

   I attended one of Unify's webinars some time ago, and while I wouldn't claim most of the things Unify claim regarding the migration to SOA, I have little doubt that the products can be quite helpful.

   Sorry for ranting. There's hardly a day goes by where I'm not challenged on the IBM Notes/Domino SOA strategy (or lack of the same), so it kinda bugs me. :-)

1. 25  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/13/2007 4:03:30 PM

   @22/23 - Be sure to vote for the idea: { Link }

1. 26  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 4:07:46 PM

   @25 - and this one, too

   { Link }

   8-)

1. 27  Pejman  | 12/13/2007 4:25:51 PM

   @21

   All kind of applications. (A product catalog, A web tracking database, A troubleshooting database). Without relational capabilities, a Domino database is just a repository (like the mail db, the journal ...). It's quite powerful and flexible but you have to duplicate informations to be able to use it in views and categorize documents. How can you implement a simple join or dynamic queries ? If you want Domino to be considered "more than email", it' has to have relational and transactional (even small) capabilities otherwise, Domino will be considered as a mail platform and as legacy for application by many big customers like banks

1. 28  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 4:30:34 PM

   @21 - you can do joins in Domino. Just at this point you have to use NotesSQL (which I use quite happily) or DB2NSF.

1. 29  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 4:30:53 PM

   Er, that's @27, that is.

1. 30  Michael Bourak  | 12/13/2007 4:34:28 PM

   @27 Fully agree with you.

   If IBM wants Domino to be "more than email", Domino application server has to have features to build robust app and NSFDB2 is one of them.

   @29 : yes, NSFDB2 is very cool...it simply has some shortcomings that should be adressed so it can go mainstream and revolution the way we develop Domino apps.

1. 31  Timothy Briley  | 12/13/2007 4:35:01 PM

   Sadly, getting Notes to something else migration offers from a "Notes/Domino" centered publication/website is nothing new.

   A few examples:

   April 2002, the editors at dominofiles don't understand why I object to receiving an email from them containing a press release from Mayflower touting their ability to make it easy to move away from Notes.

   July 2005, I get an email from SearchDomino.com with a link to an article titled, "Four steps to migrating IBM Lotus Notes to WebSphere". It turns out the title is inaccurate and the that article is really about migrating Lotus Notes applications to Websphere Java applications, but I'm still annoyed because the email also contained "facts" such as "The need to migrate Domino applications to Java is increasing." From my perspective, the increasing scalability of Domino has decreased the need to move Domino apps to Java. The writer of the article runs a company whose website's latest news is from 2005, so I'm guessing his potential customers think the same way I do.

   September 2007, dominopower.com invites me to "Join us for a Live Webinar on Tuesday, September 18 where Transend will perform a live Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange migration, followed up by a live Q&A session." Oh joy!

   So "Notes" sites have been effectively telling us "Notes Is Dead" for years. I guess I'm too stupid to listen or I wouldn't have been doing Notes dev for twelve years.

1. 32  Pejman  | 12/13/2007 4:35:49 PM

   @28

   yes but without db2/nsf you cannot join

1. 33  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 4:41:15 PM

   @32 - please review this at your leisure:

   { Link }

1. 34  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 4:42:40 PM

   I'm doing great today. I hit send too soon.

   I meant to include the link to NotesSQL: { Link }

   and the preceding link as proof that NotesSQL does do JOINS. Sometimes slow ones... 8-)

1. 35  Pejman  | 12/13/2007 4:48:00 PM

   Graig.

   everybody know NotesSQL. I am talking about the native capabilities of Domino.

   NotesSQL is unusable on a real server.

1. 36  Michael Bourak  | 12/13/2007 4:50:06 PM

   @34 : NotesSQL is a toy and can not be considered serious for a Web Application...NSFDB2 can because of the power of DB2. Being able to have the best of both worlds (relational and semi structures) would be a killer feature...but needs some polishing and that's what we are asking for ;-)

1. 37  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/13/2007 5:07:26 PM

   I'm still missing something that tells me about the kinds of apps y'all want to build NSFDB2. Not hypothetical...like real specific and why it's different than what you do with NSF today.

   To be clear -- I think it's a good feature but, after a couple of calls the last few nights, it really seems like the external perception of NSFDB2 capabilities is somewhat different than what I've learned from the developers and product managers. Some, for example, seem to have thought that NSFDB2 would help with e-mail performance...not the case. There are other such examples. So, that's why I'm pushing a bit to find out what y'all are looking at in terms of actual apps.

1. 38  Jim Casale  | 12/13/2007 5:22:37 PM

   @37 For what it's worth I have gotten conflicting information about what NSFDB2 is good for. What I can surmise is it would help in instances where there are a large amount of views. Also in the case of email, it would only make sense when you have users who have large mailboxes (large Inbox's to be exact). I have not been able to test it yet but I do have some users with 30+ GB mailbox's with 100K+ documents in the Inbox. It would be interesting to see how NSFDB2 would help performance in cases like that.

1. 39  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/13/2007 5:35:41 PM

   I can tell you definitively you will get better performance on that mailbox (30+GB) with NSF.

1. 40  Michael Bourak  | 12/13/2007 5:46:16 PM

   @37

   First, the DB2 backend for Domino brings some credibility to CEO or IT managers that have an outdated vision of Domino. They are reassured and more likely to trust Domino as an application (and not only a mail) server.

   Secondly, in many situations, while developing Domino apps, you have to duplicate data so you can do the categorized views of your choice. While this is ok for some "document oriented" apps, for some others, it compromise the data integrity and so prevent you from doing thoses applications.

   It's "easy" to guess that the NSF format is far better for mail applications but for many other apps that can leverage dynamic queries and enforced data integrity, NSFDB2 brings a lot of power.

   Just a few examples : being able to query a product catalog based on multiple criterias ; being able to have real dynamic views based, for exemple, on the current user ; being able to do reporting on Domino data in an efficient way...the list is endless and can basically be "all the apps that are done is non Domino environement cause basically, the rest of the world is relational.

   While speaking about Domino and DB2 integration, several customers have expressed the idea that this could lead to a real Domino - as an app server - revival in their environement where they tend to use J2EE or .Net or PHP apps simply because they need relational features. For some of these apps, Domino + DB2 would be the perfect combination and that's why we think it can seriouly broaden the scope application "doable" with Domino.

1. 41  Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 12/13/2007 6:35:51 PM

   @36 - Agreed, NotesSQL is not a production/large throughput solution.

   The point of mentioning it is for the crowd that says "you can't do SQL stuff in Domino, we NEED DB2 to do it.

   It can be done, and with a focus and good engineering, it could be done well. My opinion, YMMV.

1. 42  Ian Randall  | 12/13/2007 6:37:34 PM

   Getting back to Ed's original post.

   The assertion that these migration tools actually work for more than the most basic of Lotus Notes applications (such as a simple discussion database) is a bold face lie.

   These tools do offer some assistance in the migration effort, but for more complex Lotus Notes Applications and the ones that offer the most compelling business benefits, they still leave a significant gap in the development effort. Migration also requires that the developers involved in the migration effort become familiar with a host of different software products and you often end up with a great deal more administration complexity and ongoing maintenance issues when these different system platforms are upgraded.

   Often, it is a much better alternative to redevelop these applications again from scratch. This is why these ROI claims are often nonsense.

   That is why these tools have been around for years and why many organizations that have migrated their email platform years ago from Lotus Notes to Exchange still retain their Domino servers today. If these tools worked as claimed that would not be the case.

   In addition, Lotus Notes users and developers often take backward compatibility for granted, so while migration to a so called modern technology platform might have some advantages, it also has some disadvantages. The guys that sell you these tools and Microsoft don't want to talk about those issues.

   The bottom line is that these tools have been around for years and nothing much has changed. If you believe these lies then I can direct you to some people in Nigeria who can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.

1. 43  Ed Maloney http://genericparts.blogspot.com/ | 12/13/2007 6:54:49 PM

   @40 - I agree, if IBM added some form of relational DB capability and improved ODBC (read GUI)tools, Domino would be a killer app server. Perhaps a specific version of Domino for applications and not mail. There are too many applications where I have to build multiple forms, views and agents to simulate relational data. Yes, you can use LEI and a separate DB backend but at that point what is the advantage over the competition? Not cost or development time.

1. 44  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 12/13/2007 8:30:48 PM

   Well you could argue that db2/sql server/oracle/etc should contain more object database features. Probably one of the best elevator descriptions of Domino I've heard was at a LS (I think in 1997). Domino is an awesome "object" database. You can put anything in any document/record that you want. I don't see pumping data in/out as a show stopper. It happens everywhere all the time. From a purist point of view, it's interesting to conceive of a master repository and have all sorts of interfaces, cursors, etc. rifling through the data. I t makes a lot of biz sense to pull/push data into/out of a variety of systems and let each system do what it does best. If you need such fine-grained atomic access to data then you're building something outside the scope of Domino and probably most RDBMS platforms.

   I mean even ado.net touts "disconnected" datasets in order to increase performance against sql server (hmm, wonder why??).

1. 45  peyton mcmanus http://www.instant-tech.com | 12/13/2007 9:02:33 PM

   Unfortunately, we talk with far too many customers who are considering moving from Domino->Exchange and Sharepoint. It's a reality. Don't blame the messenger (search domino) for carrying the message.

   Of course, the migration is always more painful than they imagine. I imagine that customers face the same issues that we, as an ISV, face:

   * It's hard to locate and hire skilled Domino folks

   * What should I do with all of these legacy Domino apps and how will we support them in 2-5 years

   * Kids coming out of school don't have any training in Domino development and they don't know anything about the Notes mail client

   * Since the pool, and availability, of talented Domino folks is diminishing, why should we stay on this platform?

   * I can easily hire people to admin AD and Exchange

   * All of my employees are 'comfortable' with Outlook

   * It's easy to locate Exchange admins, AD admins, and SQL folks

   * Sharepoint is pretty easy to install and run - and has lots of functionality 'out of the box'

   Companies, like people, act in their own best interest. As the vendor, you need to make a compelling case for your platform. How about running some 'migrate to Notes' ads on Outlook Power? How about some real world case studies describing exactly the ROI (possibly the negative ROI) on a migration from Notes->Exchange?

1. 46  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/13/2007 10:04:45 PM

   Interestingly, I was contacted this week to see if any of those big migration reference stories the other way have really played out the way they were advertised. A whole lot of them have much more to the story, but which customer would ever go on the record about a failed migration or failed strategy? It doesn't happen. It's a real challenge.

   As for the issues you flag -

   some of them are related. Much of the reason for moving Notes 8 to the Eclipse platform is to provide a way to address the first four points you raise. Eclipse has a much broader community than Domino, and the kids coming out of school do know something about it (or are willing to learn it). Eclipse also brings forward the apps you describe as legacy (I quarrel with the characterization, since if they are still running today, they could still be running in that 2-5 years with the same kinds of applicability as today).

   I am not sure I agree that it is easy to hire admins for AD and Exchange and SQL, but I'm too tired to dig up the latest job postings stats. The pool of talented admins is not infinite in any part of the industry.

   At any rate, none of this seems to relate to why searchdomino chose to let someone buy their mailing list to tell those customers how to migrate off the product that brought them to the mailing list. The migration market may exist, but I don't think it is helped along by this kind of mailing nor by the tool being advertised (as pointed out in this thread).

1. 47  ToJoBe  | 12/13/2007 10:19:43 PM

   @45 Please...

   * It's hard to locate and hire skilled Domino folks

   I don't think this is a given. Locating is a matter of effort applied. I can give you the name of vendors I have used who can supplement your staff with seasoned, skilled developers and admins if your staff is not sufficiently capable. Domino/Notes training is readily available and the learning curve, while steep, is nothing compared to administering a real-world E/O installation. It has been my experience that the reverse is more problematic: It's hard to find skilled O/E staff as the world is filled with paper-certified Exchange administrators.

   * What should I do with all of these legacy Domino apps and how will we support them in 2-5 years

   The implied message (false) is that, somehow, today's Notes applications will require some kind of life support, massaging or shot in the arm to continue to work in 5 years. The exact opposite is true. Notes applications written four major releases ago continue to perform exactly as they were originally designed to, and with little or no modification. If you want to "facelift" them, Lotus continues to provide development tools and resources to support the "latest and greatest" in application and web development technologies. The stories of heartache and sorrow surrounding Office documents from version to version, MAPI, etc are legendary. Can you even open a Word 2.0 document in Office 2007? Good luck...

   * Kids coming out of school don't have any training in Domino development and they don't know anything about the Notes mail client

   Frankly, "kids coming out of school don't have any training" in much of anything like Domino, Exchange, Notes, Outlook or anything resembling either of them. My son, studying chemical engineering, has literally never seen Outlook or Exchange and doesn't care to. He IS familiar with Linux, open source in general and web-based technologies. None of his friends have a clue about Exchange or Outlook either. (Yes, I've asked many of them) This is just a ridiculous straw dog. Businesses, and by extension the people they hire coming out of school or otherwise, want to use technology that A) works, B) scales, C) is secure, D) is easier to configure/administer and E) helps address real business needs. Notes/Domino: A) does, B) does, C) is, D) is and E) does

   * Since the pool, and availability, of talented Domino folks is diminishing, why should we stay on this platform?

   Any facts to support this statement? What is the pool, what portion of it is "talented" and by what measure? Your pool of talented Domino "folks" could be enlarged very easily by a few weeks of training and digging into some hands-on development or admin work. Teaching these skills is the easy part. Working out, or teaching, business smarts, communication skills, sound software development techniques, project management...those are the things that are hard to find.

   * I can easily hire people to admin AD and Exchange

   Large supply. Low quality. IMHO

   * All of my employees are 'comfortable' with Outlook

   My experience is that "average" people using Outlook haven't a clue about 90% of the Outlook client, are confused by it and have little or no need for it in their jobs. Notes client users are "comfortable" with Notes. Now what?

   * It's easy to locate Exchange admins, AD admins, and SQL folks

   Exchange admin = $$$, AD admin = $$$, SQL folks = $$$. Throw in a .NET developer or two, or three or four? = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Do you want to talk about Sharepoint? patching all this stuff? upgrading this mess? Do you want me to go on? Besides, this point sounds strangely like a rehash of point 5, doesn't it?

   * Sharepoint is pretty easy to install and run - and has lots of functionality 'out of the box'

   I haven't personally installed Sharepoint so I won't comment on that bit. We use it. I've used it a lot. It's the most overblown, over-rated, under-used system we have, in my estimation. For all of the glories of Microsoft, we still can't make it do many of the things that were promised to us. Perhaps we haven't found enough "talented Sharepoint folks"...

1. 48  ToJoBe  | 12/13/2007 10:24:01 PM

   Oh and @SearchDomino

   I unsubscribed.

1. 49  Axel  | 12/14/2007 3:13:07 AM

   The one important point for being taken more serious in SOA AND classical integration environs are transactions.

1. 50  Michael Bourak  | 12/14/2007 3:24:05 AM

   @49 : and typically NSFDB2 could be a way to expose Domino operations as transactions...

1. 51  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/14/2007 9:10:53 AM

   @Ed - I have tried doing these sorts of migrations on my own and I got to the point I could generate SQL DDL from DXL. When I started working on generating VB.Net code for the front end the problem became that many of the concepts in Notes just don't translate to anything else. Doc links? Not in a Windows app without an insane amount of work. Workflow? Not without doc links... This is why MS has pushed everything to Sharepoint so they can use URL's. I didn't even attempt to translate DXL to HTML, I'll leave that for the Ben's of the world who are much smarter than me.

   As for the NSFDB2 question, I would like to be able to mix content from multiple documents into one view, or from multiple Notes apps into one view. For example, we have four databases that comprise a single Service Database application. I use some of Nathan's righteous hacks to cobble together something that mostly works, but I still can't show data from multiple applications in a single view, which is what users want. I haven't had much luck getting NSFDB2 installed and configured, which means I probably couldn't support it in production, so I'm combining everything into a single NSF.

   @45: "* I can easily hire people to admin AD and Exchange" and "* It's easy to locate Exchange admins, AD admins, and SQL folks"

   Quantity is no substitute for quality. I can have very personal first hand experience with this one. We're on our second AD/Exchange admin in six months, and looking for the third.

   "* Sharepoint is pretty easy to install and run - and has lots of functionality 'out of the box'"

   I've done this. It's not easy. The "out of the box" functionality is rudimentary and crippled, much like the base templates included with Domino. They're good enough for something ad hoc, but you can't run a business on them long-term without heavy customization. Customizing Sharepoint requires Sharepoint Designer (which is a new version of Frontpage), Visual Studio .Net, and a nearly vertical learning curve.

1. 52  Mike Mcp http://www.openntf.org/mPortal | 12/14/2007 9:26:53 AM

   @45/47

   * It's hard to locate and hire skilled Domino folks

   This is one argument I must admit is valid. I'm probably going to upset some people, but you can round-up a handful of VB/C# coders on the cheap. Sure you could get a head-hunter or consultant to get you some Domino talent, but they're going to be pricey. Arguably the Domino folks will be more skilled in their craft, but they're cheap, and on the other hand some of the folks we've hired directly out of school have blown me away with their talent.

   * All of my employees are 'comfortable' with Outlook

   Disagree with this one, but on semantics. Employees are comfortable with 'Microsoft', and unfortunately so are most decision-makers....it's the herd mentality.

1. 53  Lars Olufsen http://www.olufsphere.com | 12/14/2007 9:30:45 AM

   Here's a Notes/Domino solution that lost out to the power of SOA.

   { Link }

   Things like these are going to happen a lot over the next years. Domino WILL be challenged in the integration space, and that will lead to more "application migration scenarios".

   We need to make Notes & Domino plug into Service Oriented Architectures. It's absolutely essential.

1. 54  Kevin  | 12/14/2007 10:07:53 AM

   We have to remember that SearchDomino is part of TechTarget who has a number of "Search" sites & newsletters.

   I am sure they don't really care who places ads with them, as long as they get paid.

1. 55  Randy Smith http://www.certprimer.com | 12/14/2007 10:36:38 AM

   @45 - I noticed that your references to Domino folks included adjectives such as "skilled" and "talented" and your references to folks required for M$ products did not. I'll admit that you could train a monkey to do some of the most basic tasks in the host of products required for an M$ solution. However, the same could be said for some of the most basic tasks in Lotus Notes and Domino products. The problem is that most organizations have requirements that go far beyond the basics. They require a more talented staff to develop/maintain more complex and sophisticated collaborative solutions.

   When you get your hands on a talented Domino admin, chances are that he's probably got some good app dev skills as well (and vice versa for the Domino developers). Small organizations might be able to get by with one talented Domino individual to handle both disciplines.

   Now, when you get your hands on a talented Exchange admin, will he also have the skills (or the time) to handle the requirements for app dev, DBA, etc. as well as admin tasks for the host of other products required for an M$ solution? Chances are that you'll need to hire even more talented admins/developers/DBAs for a comparable M$ collaborative solution (or find smarter monkeys to train).

1. 56  Henry Bestritsky  | 12/14/2007 10:51:41 AM

   @52 I could not agree with you more. They say the most expensive consultant is a COBOL programmer. I remember going to a COMMON (AS/400) show about 9 years ago and thinking how all of those RPG programmers were like fossils and a I was so cool. I miss those days. We are constantly hiring Notes people and I do not remember the last time I interviewed somebody in their twenties.

1. 57  Timothy Briley  | 12/14/2007 12:07:23 PM

   @55 -

   "When you get your hands on a talented Domino admin, chances are that he's probably got some good app dev skills as well (and vice versa for the Domino developers). Small organizations might be able to get by with one talented Domino individual to handle both disciplines."

   It's great for me that once installed, Domino on an AS/400 needs little maintenance. Being in a very small state agency, we get by with a Notes dev with enough admin knowledge to be dangerous (me) and a part-time AS/400 dev/admin.

   We do have to bring in a consultant whenever we want to make major admin changes. They are expensive, but the price of doing it incorrectly is way more expensive.

   But over the years, I've observed that most people are pretty amazed at what a lone Notes guy can do.

1. 58  Vladimir  | 12/14/2007 12:45:22 PM

   @27, @19 Excellent ideas - it is essentilal for Notes/Domino to support SQL - remember "five normal forms in RDBMS" - not duplicating data (update point of view). It is also essential to support transactions. It is virt. imposible to imagine LN future without them ...

1. 59  Pejman  | 12/14/2007 3:30:35 PM

   @58

   I think that the boyce-codd will be sufficient at the beginning !!! :))

1. 60  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 12/15/2007 11:49:10 AM

   I am curious to know how many people demanding relational features in Domino have actually *tried* NSFDB2. Not "looked at it" or "read about it" or even "installed it," but actually created an NSFDB2 data store, and built DAVs in Notes apps.

   How many here have installs DECS by default on their servers and used DCRs in their Notes apps?

   I first heard complaints about Notes not being a relational data store back when I started working with the platform in 1991. And no matter how many integration points with RDBMS have been added over the years since, the same gripe keeps coming up.

   Yet in every installation I see, there's some LEI, ODBC or even text-based scripted integration with RDBMS systems, and *that's all.* If there's this incredible pent up demand for this stuff, why isn't there more thorough usage of the features that ARE available today?

   I'm an economist by nature, and as far as I'm concerned, demand isn't what people SAY they want, it's what they SPEND TIME AND MONEY on. So if there really is this incredible demand for Domino apps with an RDBMS backend, why isn't there more real-world exploitation of NSFDB2, DECS, DCRs, DAVs, real-time LEI, and on-the-glass LS:DO calls? How many of you are really doing that stuff?

   As far as Domino and SOA -- the message might not be coming properly from IBM, but anyone who knows the product should know clearly: Domino is an excellent services publisher & consumer, and the Notes 8 client is an excellent services consumer. Indeed, the entire interchange model between composite apps IS SOA within the interior of the Eclipse space. You define WSDLs to move information between composite frames, sidebars and toolbars.

   I would venture to say that Notes 8 Standard is the single most service-oriented commercial client in existence today.

   IBM might not be doing a good job of positioning it that way, but you only need to spend a few days learning how to write a composite app before it's glaringly obvious.

1. 61  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/15/2007 4:08:35 PM

   @60 - I haven't been able to get NSFDB2 installed and working yet, and I admit I haven't spent more than maybe three days total on it. I'm looking forward to a couple of sessions at Lotusphere to help me get that going. Once I get over that hurdle it very well may solve all my multi-database integration problems.

   I agree completely about making use of what we have out of the box, and I have used firs LS:DO and then LC LSX in nearly every Notes app I have ever written. I have found both DECS or LEI are fairly limited, requiring either 1:1 mapping between a form and a table or some serious hacks that have broken between releases. Calling LC LSX or LS:DO "on the glass" is painful because the connection can take 10 seconds and it's not asynch, so it locks the Notes client. I haven't found a way yet to cache a connection throughout the life of a user's session. If you've got any ideas I'd love to hear them. :-)

1. 62  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 12/15/2007 7:16:00 PM

   @61 - You know I do. ;-)

   Weren't you looking for a use for my Revolution technique? That's a good one -- caching LS:DO session handles to be active for the entire time you're in a given app.

   Also, those kinds of situations are excellent for both client background agents, and composite apps that make web services calls and do an async properties broker update. Then you get some serious multi-threading advantages.

1. 63  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 12/17/2007 9:46:26 AM

   @62 - Just two issues with that. First, it doesn't solve the problem of mixing content from different Notes databases in a single view. Second, when I said for the life of a user's session I meant Notes, not just a single Notes app. You would still have to initialize a connection every time someone loads a Notes app.

   Even so there is still possibly some use for it in this context, so I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. Thanks for suggesting it.

1. 64  Brian Vincent  | 12/17/2007 8:34:12 PM

   The DB2NSF is nifty, but wouldn't it be cool if you could use any standard flavor relational database as an NSF container. Add the native ability to read or write to these RDBs at will through a few clicks in designer as opposed to dozens of lines of LSX / ADO and that would be hot

1. 65  Christine Herbert  | 2/20/2008 10:46:20 AM

   Hello, SearchDomino.com community.

   We have received several emails from you over the past couple of weeks with concerns about a sales campaign that has been running on the site and we’ve observed the discussions in the Domino blogosphere. Many of you have criticized the site for allowing this advertisement to appear on SearchDomino.com.

   As Executive Editor of SearchDomino.com, I wholeheartedly agree that Lotus Notes Domino is a “modern” platform and I hope you will be happy to know that, at my request, our sales and marketing team has modified the offensive wording in the ad campaign to be more respectful to our Notes/Domino members. SearchDomino.com will no longer use this or any other vendor’s negative characterization of Notes/Domino in sponsorship initiatives on our site.

   To be clear, as the site editors, Matt Gervais and I have minimal involvement in the sales and marketing campaigns on the site and we care immensely about what our readers need and want from SearchDomino.com. We work hard to make sure we are delivering independent editorial content that helps you do your jobs. By definition, this means that we will from time to time provide information on topics that are not absolutely aligned with the IBM Lotus corporation -- topics of interest to some of our members, such as tools to migrate off Domino to other platforms.

   We hope you continue to give us the opportunity to provide you with helpful Notes/Domino technical information, and we apologize for the disruption and frustration this issue has caused for many of you.

   Please continue to let us know your concerns and keep us up to date on other issues we can develop for the site. We always appreciate your feedback.

   Sincerely,

   Christine Herbert