Update on Notes 8.0.2 performance improvements

June 24 2008

In previous entries on this topic, I've mentioned how the development team has put significant focus on improving the performance of the Notes 8 client in the upcoming 8.0.2 release (planned for Q3, target: August).  In the last couple of days, it's become apparent that 8.0.2 is going to address the main concerns that have been expressed about the Notes 8 standard configuration, both in terms of performance as well as in terms of footprint.

To summarize the development efforts to improve Notes 8.0.2:

  • The startup sequence for the client has been re-ordered, so that  we load only the code necessary to get to your Inbox most quickly, loading other necessary components either in the background, or when they are accessed by the application.  Mary Beth Raven discussed this at ILUG2008 a few weeks ago, and the attendee reaction was incredibly favorable.
  • The memory footprint has been reduced by ensuring that the client only loads code into memory that is needed.  Some redundancies among different modules -- such as the embedded Sametime code -- have been reduced or eliminated.  Some unused Eclipse components are no longer loaded altogether.

The results are impressive.  Our development team is benchmarking on an IBM ThinkPad T30, which is a 2 GHz Pentium 4 processor with 1 GB of RAM installed.  On this machine, the Notes 8.0.2 standard beta hums.  
  • The "cold" startup time (first load for Notes, nothing in cache) has been reduced 50% versus Notes 8.0.1.  The "warm" startup time (Notes has previously run) has been reduced 67%.
  • The working set memory footprint has been reduced by more than 20%.  It's still more than Notes 7 or Notes 8 basic configuration, but not by the orders of magnitude we've seen so far.

The data I'm looking at in writing this blog entry is two weeks old... and both of these numbers have been improving week to week during the engineering phase of 8.0.2.  

Some customers are waiting for these results before implementing Notes 8, and I understand that.  The good news is that Notes 8.0.2 addresses some of the concerns we've been hearing since shipping Notes 8.  Many customers don't need to wait, though, and can deploy in their current environments -- just like the over 40,000 IBMers running Notes 8.0.x today in production, and the 90+ customer references published for Notes/Domino 8 already (most of these are in IBM's internal reference database, as opposed to public ibm.com...we are working on getting more of them on the external website).

Notes 8.0.2 is in beta now.  If getting ahold of the beta code would help accelerate your deployment, let me know (via e-mail) and I'll see if I can get you into the program.  The odds of success increase if your company will be a reference for Notes 8 :-)

Ed Brill AA91, LHR-ORD, Seat 31H Category:  Notes and Domino 8  Add/View Comments [41]

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  1. 1  Nigel Grant http://ozNotes.NET | 6/24/2008 11:27:40 PM

    Hi

    You sentence

    "The odds of success increase if your company will be a reference for Notes 8 :-)"

    How do we become a reference for Notes 8 ?

    NG

  1. 2  Colin Williams  | 6/24/2008 11:39:40 PM

    Good positive news Ed. We're just deploying Notes 8 basic right now as our relatively new desktop hardware doesn't cut it. I look forward to testing the release of 8.0.2 on it and, fingers crossed, making the switch to the Eclipse client.

  1. 3  Sean Burgess http://www.phigsaidwhat.com/ | 6/25/2008 12:15:40 AM

    Are there going to be any changes to the hardware requirements needed to run Notes Standard?

  1. 4  Sven Meirte http://svenm.wordpress.com/ | 6/25/2008 2:54:51 AM

    My company has a few customers (1 large one and some smaller ones) that have upgraded to 8.0.

    Because of the slow startup time they are all running the Basic client. Live Text is the single most important feature to convince them to use the standard client. If we can show them a faster load they will not hesitate to make the switch!

  1. 5  Dan King  | 6/25/2008 4:34:57 AM

    Has there been any testing under Citrix/Terminal Services?

    There were some fairly scary figures going around as to how many users you could get on a single box. This was to do with the memory footprint of course, so would be good if IBM could release some details on how 8.0.2 will cope.

    In general though the improvements sound good, we're one company that planned to upgrade but couldn't due to performance problems.

  1. 6  Roberto Boccadoro  | 6/25/2008 4:47:08 AM

    @5 - Can't tell you the exact numbers but you can expect a significant improvement in the number of users supported on a single box. The number varies, obviously, if you run Citrix 32 bit or 64 bit.

  1. 7  Dan King  | 6/25/2008 5:10:29 AM

    @6 Thanks, but is there not even a ball-park figure? Based on 32-bit - is 20 users going to be usable for example?

  1. 8  Ports http://www.mrports.com/ | 6/25/2008 5:31:34 AM

    @7 This is not an official quote because neither 8.0.2 or 8.5 are finished yet, but I believe current testing is indicating that you should be able to get in the order of 40 Notes 8.x Standard users on a single 64bit Citrix server.

    This compares to around 30 Notes 7.x users on a 32bit Citrix server.

    Of course your mileage may vary.

  1. 9  John Turnbow http://www.navasoata-unified.com | 6/25/2008 6:19:50 AM

    For Citrix users we still need the MEMORY usage to be small enought to fit on not just our companies but everyone's machine. Most people still have 32 bit citrix, so if I can fit 35 as we do today on a Citrix server we still need to be able to do 35....

  1. 10  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 6/25/2008 6:38:44 AM

    @9 that's not going to happen, Notes 8 does more so it requires more memory. There's work to reduce that footprint but the bottom line is it is bigger. As Ports and Roberto indicated, the testing for Citrix 64-bit has been especially positive, and we expect to see an exponential progression on that platform (versus a linear one) vs. 32-bit.

    For sure, the 14-user limit on the 32-bit server that we've technoted with 8.0.0 is not the ideal state...we'll get more on both 32-bit and 64-bit with the 8.0.2 code... just can't say, since we're in beta, what that number should/will be.

    Lots of discussion about Citrix with our development team before/during the recent Deutsche Notes Users Group.

    @1 Normally your IBM representative or an IBM business partner starts the process of becoming a reference. We have extended the process out to the Lotus community directly, though, see this link at lotususergroup.org: { Link }

  1. 11  Roberto Boccadoro  | 6/25/2008 8:01:13 AM

    @7 - Again, no exact figures, but let me say that if you will be happy with 20 users on 32 bit, then...very likely we'll make you happy.

    Now, don't ask me HOW happy :-)

  1. 12  LongLiveLotus  | 6/25/2008 8:06:10 AM

    Seat 31H on a transatlantic with Mrs Brill...!!!

    C'mon Ed, flash those upgrade cert's ;-)

  1. 13  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 6/25/2008 8:19:10 AM

    @12 oh how I wish - we were on a mileage award to begin with. Mrs. Brill would probably say that 31J was a pretty good seat...it was the outbound (overnight) that was kinda painful.

  1. 14  Vincent  | 6/25/2008 8:20:11 AM

    3 things I have to say...

    - thanks for the news

    - can't wait...

    - can't wait...

  1. 15  Steven  | 6/25/2008 8:35:28 AM

    How many of these performance improvements will also be in 8.5?

  1. 16  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 6/25/2008 8:36:43 AM

    @15 8.5 should have similar characteristics to 8.0.2 for performance. It could get better by the time 8.5 ships, but 8.5 is a feature release, so it is too soon to make a blanket statement.

  1. 17  John Turnbow http://www.navasoata-unified.com | 6/25/2008 9:12:23 AM

    Ed,

    We'll need some guidlines as will a lot of other people as to how many clients we can fit on a 32 bit citrix machine. If it means doubling like with 8.0 then we won't upgrade, if it means adding one or two, then OK, but we have 13,000+.. We'll sign up for test and review.

    Thanks for the hard work

  1. 18  Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 6/25/2008 9:53:50 AM

    So will be 8.0.2 beta exhibit the performance improvements? I have noticed that 8.5 beta 1 seems faster than 8.0 and 8.0.1, however I assumed since it was beta and possibly debug builds and not production, it would have inherent delays.

  1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 6/25/2008 9:57:26 AM

    @18 yes, the beta shows the improvements.

  1. 20  Bill Geimer  | 6/25/2008 10:59:01 AM

    Every time I have just rebooted Windows XP and start Notes 8.0.1 Standard the first time, it takes well over a minute to load and get to the login prompt. Not too bad. SP3 and excluding the Notes binaries from AV Scanning helped the most.

    After that, even after logging off (not shutting down) Notes 8.0.1 standard comes up and I am in my mail in less than 30 seconds, even on a somewhat old Dell Latitude D620 with a software encrypted hard drive, I don't consider that slow, but it could be improved.

    I do have 2 Gb RAM, which certainly does not hurt.

  1. 21  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 6/25/2008 11:15:46 AM

    @20 both those cold and warm start times are what are being reduced in 8.0.2.

  1. 22  Volker Weber http://vowe.et/about | 6/25/2008 11:39:47 AM

    Just as a small benchmark, my mail client starts in less than one second flat. My calendar takes another subsecond to display six calendars. Same for the address book. It simply does not matter whether they are running or not. Switching across is as fast as loading them for the first time.

  1. 23  Dan King  | 6/25/2008 12:10:25 PM

    @20, @22 That's the difference that causes users to moan at Notes, and rightly so. To say that it takes over a minute to start and that's OK is frankly absurd - then you say that's with 2GB RAM, not many corporate users with that much RAM out there

    The general comments about 32-bit Citrix sound hopeful though, I'm keeping my fingers crossed - @11 sounds almost confident:-)

  1. 24  Hans Miller  | 6/25/2008 12:24:44 PM

    @17 I agree that 32bit v.s. 64 bit guidelines would be very helpful. My company won't swallow doubling or tripling our citrix farm just to roll out the standard notes client.

  1. 25  Jeff Eisen  | 6/25/2008 12:59:39 PM

    A few more details and to reiterate what has been said.

    Of course as Ed says we haven't shipped yet, so none of this is final.

    We expect 8.5 GA to perform better than 8.0.2 GA, but likely not by a ton since they are fairly close in ship dates. All of the performance improvements done for 8.0.2 should be folded into 8.5.

    That being said, the 8.5 public beta will in general exhibit worse performance than the 8.0.2 managed beta. That is simply because we were not able to get all the 8.0.2 improvements into the 8.5 build by the public beta cutoff date. They will go in before GA.

    @23 -- I make no claim that over a minute for cold startup is "OK". That's one of the reasons performance was such a large focus of 8.0.2 8.0.2 is significantly better than 8.0.1. Is it as good as we would like -- frankly no. But IMHO puts it into the "very usable" range. We intend to continue working on performance in 8.5 and beyond. This is an ongoing process.

    Re: Citrix. No final numbers yet, but our preliminary numbers on 32 bit Citrix are roughly twice those of 8.0.1 -- putting it in the mid-to-upper-twenties range.

    For 64 bit Citrix, I really don't have quotable numbers yet, but I certainly expect it to be more than 50 users with sufficient memory. But, we are still working out the support story of 64 bit Citrix. For 8.0.2., likely it will not be formally supported at 8.0.2 ship date but might be supported "after the fact" by a post release support statement. We do intend to support out of the gate for 8.5 though.

    Please check out 8.0.2. It really is a big improvement over 8.0.1.

  1. 26  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 6/25/2008 1:55:06 PM

    I'm pleased to see that some real progress has been made.

    @22 - Microsoft Paint loads faster than Photoshop, so why would I ever load Photoshop? Oh yeah, because it does more.

  1. 27  Wayne Weinheimer  | 6/25/2008 3:10:42 PM

    @26 - I agree.

    @22 - The majority of our corporation loads Notes (and other applications) once in the morning, some are once a week. I can't imagine switching to a different mail system simply because "morning coffee" time is extended by 30 seconds.

    During one migration from Exchange to Domino I was cornered by a manager with a long list of complaints about the Notes client. Most of the complaints were very minor and had more to do with a lack of training, but one item he kept bringing up was "It's an extra click" (from what he was used to in Outlook). We worked together to total how many extra clicks a day were required and it worked out to be around 10 seconds a day. He then admitted it was trivial and there were more important items both of us should be working on.

    Don't get me wrong, keep improving it, but relax and go get a coffee.

  1. 28  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 6/25/2008 5:02:19 PM

    @27 - The icing on that discussion would have been if you'd FT indexed his mail file, and said "the next time you need to find an old mail, instead of pecking through folders to find it, just type the keywords into this search bar. That should save you about 3-5 minutes each time you do it. So if you have to find a message just once a month, you've come out ahead."

    That would have put the focus on where it really belongs: on the real functionality advantages.

  1. 29  Wayne Weinheimer  | 6/25/2008 5:43:26 PM

    @28 - The company which migrated from Exchange to Domino has now migrated back to Exchange as part of a divesture. What do they really miss now (I still keep in touch with their IT department) - the All Documents view and the searching capabilities.

  1. 30  Daniel Alvers  | 6/25/2008 5:54:51 PM

    Why focus on the 'warm' startup time for Notes? Do people really close and reopen Notes during the day? As our primary mail and app client it is the first thing we load (2-3 minutes) and the last thing we close.

  1. 31  Peter Wilson  | 6/25/2008 10:57:27 PM

    @25. Jeff, will there be a supported client setup for Notes on Citrix? In the past Notes was supported on Citrix, but if you wanted a usable configuration whereby a users settings were stored on a file server, it wasn't supported...so effectively it WASN'T a usable supported solution.

    All I want is to allow users to log into a multiuser Citrix farm and have their settings - shouldn't be too hard.

    Pete

  1. 32  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 6/26/2008 12:03:44 PM

    @31 - Notes Roaming and a multiuser install is the officially supported route. 8.5 GA is supposed to roam the workspace, so it might be a viable solution.

  1. 33  Hugh Justham  | 6/27/2008 12:32:40 AM

    Thats great - maybe you can also shed some light on how the OS X beta of 8.0.2 runs. There is an OS X version, right? somewhere?

  1. 34  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 6/27/2008 2:29:19 AM

    @33 Um, the OS X client is in the 8.5 beta code stream, which is now public. How did you miss that?

  1. 35  Volker Weber http://vowe.et/about | 6/27/2008 1:44:42 PM

    Charles, Photoshop loads in 10 seconds, which I find VERY long. Paint takes a bit longer since it requires Windows to load first. I also like using Photoshop although it is way too powerful for my limited knowledge. Paint otoh is clearly underpowered.

    I fail to see how this relies to email though.

  1. 36  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 6/28/2008 6:28:15 AM

    There were a few comments here that were based on forged "Ed Brill" comments. I will post a new topic about this in a few minutes

  1. 37  Hugh Justham  | 7/1/2008 9:42:44 AM

    @34 I'm a little late in replying again,

    Oh, I know that there is an 8.5 beta out there. My point is more that I was looking for some actual information about what happened to version 8.0.x for Mac? Where is the version parity with the Windows clients? Is there a reason why its not happening? I've seen references to an alpha of 8.0.2 for OS X. If it will never be released can we be told?

  1. 38  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 7/1/2008 9:45:13 AM

    I've not seen any reference to 8.0.2 on the Mac, alpha or otherwise. Where did you hear that? The consistent line I've heard for some months now is that 8.5 is the first OS X version in the 8.x codestream.

  1. 39  Peter Zanias  | 7/3/2008 11:24:58 AM

    I would love to get an early release of 8.0.2.

    We have a number of our users moving to Exchange as a "test" because Salesforce.com doesn't have a connector with 8.0.1. 8.01 users (pilot group of about 50 - most have 2 gig ram) like the 8 UI but the slowness of the startup and the SFC issue is causing the push to Exchange to continue. Our CIO, now on Exchange, is not thrilled w/it but the network/operations manager is pushing hard.

    I hope 8.0.2 is released soon.

  1. 40  Budi Febrianto http://indomino.net/blog | 7/7/2008 5:24:46 AM

    No matter how tiny the improvements are, it always welcome.

    I'm now trying to migrate from outlook users (outlook 2003) to lotus notes 8, most users complain about the speed, specially the eclipse version.

    For some points, I agree that outlook is a lot faster than Notes 8.

    Can wait for the next release of notes with speed improvements.

  1. 41  Alan  | 8/27/2009 6:53:39 PM

    Why wont IBM wake up to themselves.

    Havent all the major players in recent times learned that users will not be satisfied with slow performance. Just ask Microsoft Symantec and so forth. Users want quick applications rather then an abundance of features they wont use.

    We have gone from 8.00 to 8.01 to 8.02 now to 8.5.

    We support a few hundred users and the generall feedback is that it is still way to slow and users are very unhappy. To the point we are constanly asked why dont we move to exchange. espically when we genarrly use notes for email.

    We are in a catch 22.

    the java client is to slow, and the basic client looks like it was made about 20 years ago.