IBM Domino Collaboration: Step-by-Step

After several tries, and with some help from IBM, the Test Center was able to deploy Domino server -- and, by and large, make it a solution that works -- but could not make the Lotus Sametime instant messaging server work with Domino and Notes. The other client-based products in the suite also gave us some headaches, though they were minor. The suite is a collaboration powerhouse, but it is a costly one to get going. To build a profitable solution around Domino, channel partners need to understand that up-front costs installing and configuring the servers will be significant.

A Little Background
IBM wants Notes to become a centralized application platform and framework for all collaboration and Web 2.0 applications, including many desktop applications. To some extent Notes has succeeded in combining collaboration software. Notes 8 comes with integrated instant messaging, presence awareness, and server-based document repository.

To integrate its collaboration products, IBM built an SOA integration framework called Expeditor that's now available in the Eclipse project. IBM also provides an Expeditor client and server for Notes, IBM's Sametime instant messaging server and Lotus Symphony. Expeditor provides asynchronous communication for transactional messages and provides synchronization of data when connected to a server.

The architecture is based on a three-tier model whereby composite applications form new business rules for back-end packaged software and Web services. Notes performs the role of the rich client. Over the long term, Notes' rich interface with its composite application development environment is well suited for building corporate applications.

As a rich client, Notes is taking the new SOA user interface approach to serve Web applications and even integrate desktop applications into composite applications. IBM has a lot at stake with this proprietary platform based on SOA's vendor-agnostic architecture.

The Domino server is at the heart of this architecture. Domino services applications with its framework and provides the switching mechanism between applications and Notes clients. On the one hand, Notes' SOA communication architecture can accept .Net, Java and legacy applications, but that comes at a cost: Companies have to buy into Notes' user interface for many corporate applications.

In addition to the Domino server, developers can build portlets with WebSphere portal framework and extend Domino-based applications to the Web. With Sametime, developers can take advantage of IBM's DeveloperWorks code. DeveloperWorks is a mature development Website where open-source developers and IBM partners contribute code to many applications.

In addition to instant messaging and presence awareness, Sametime is the base product for IBM's unified communication platform. With the full version of Sametime Standard and Sametime Advanced, users can run instant messaging with an external Sametime Connect client. IBM has found that young workers like using Sametime as their primary application for collaboration instead of Notes because of the immediacy of messages. Sametime also supports some mobile devices.

IBM announced an expanded offering that unifies telephony with its communication platform. The new offering will combine interfaces so that workers can use the same client. The current telephony system integrates with Avaya, Cisco and Radvision.

IBM is expanding the Domino framework and adding new security capabilities in the next release. IBM announced that it is adding more foundation frameworks to Eclipse and it is integrating more applications into Notes client. The company is continuing to combine products around the Notes-rich client.

Getting into the nuts and bolts of Domino and figuring out how to build a practice around the product was far more difficult than anticipated. Here's what the Test Center did to build a test solution with Domino 8.01.

Next: Step 1: Get Domino, Sametime and Notes Going Step 1: Get Domino, Sametime and Notes Going
It is far easier building solutions today with Microsoft products than with Lotus Domino suite, even with the different suites and technologies that Microsoft offers. The IBM suite proved to be extremely difficult to configure. Despite the Armonk, N.Y.-based software giant's immense work at simplifying the install process for the Domino and Sametime server products, the Test Center had several problems getting the two servers to work on the same box. Solution providers interested in starting a Domino practice should be aware of the degree of handholding necessary to install the package. Our results showed that Lotus Domino suite still requires considerable expertise.

When installing Domino and Sametime, testers encountered a problem switching between default ports. Apparently, Sametime detects Domino installed on a server, so it automatically switches a Web port for Domino. At least, that's according to the message that we received. There is an option for Sametime integration during the Domino Server installation. The integration provides access to the Domino Web Access client.

However, Sametime changed its Web port access to 8088 instead. The servers were installed on Windows 2003.

With the port switch, we were not able to access the Sametime server. In fact, the Sametime service had problems starting. We received the limited-use server software. At the client side, the Test Center encountered problems installing the Domino Administrator, Designer and the Notes client on Vista. Reviewers ended up shutting off Vista's UAC. Installing Notes also was a bit confusing. The messages during the Notes installation were not clear enough to identify if another Notes client was already installed. In addition, the Notes client failed to initialize and ran slower than expected.

Reinstalling the Domino server and its clients also presented a problem. When uninstalling the server, the IBM directory needed to be deleted so that previous IDs could be deleted. We found a problem connecting the Administrator to the Domino Server if this is not done. Unfortunately, reviewers were not able to connect to the Sametime server.

The new Notes client comes with a highly customizable interface, allowing users to choose from a variety of layout templates. The templates open up many possibilities for solution providers that are interested in using Notes as the main client interface.

The default templates, for instance, combine messaging features and applications into a single user interface. Since Domino development is based on an open-ended SOA architecture, developers can use a variety of tools to develop applications.

Step 2: Working with Domino Development Tools
Domino server comes with various development options and tools. Designer, for instance, allows developers to build Notes as well as Eclipse components, including composite applications to the native environment. The development process is straightforward in Designer if developers stay inside the environment. Like the old Notes application development architecture, the new Designer also has a facility to generate forms-based applications.

Designer arrives with a list of application templates to speed up development of some of its features. Some of the templates also can connect to external resources and even generate code to process Office files. Within the Designer environment, developers have a couple of languages they can use but most of the applications can only be written in LotusScript or Java.

While the Java code is far more extensive than LotusScript, scripting uses far less code and it is more structured. Most of the classes are broken into properties, methods and events.

Designer may be useful for development composite XML-based code, including some Web Services, but the environment is not the best IDE for developing Web applications. HTML was cumbersome to write and debug. The documentation suggests that development should be done in Eclipse or other third-party products. After building components, developers can connect them through XML. Designer also supports its own tags called Domino XML to simplify LotusScript development.

Next: Step 3: Administer The Domino Server Step 3: Administer The Domino Server
Domino Administrator is the main management interface for Domino server. In addition to the Domino server, Administrator can connect to Sametime server. Reviewers, however, were not able to access the instant messaging server. For this installation, reviewers used simple TCP/IP settings with a Domino Directory. Solution providers can certainly extend Administrator and control Domino through DNS, LDAP and even server clusters. Clusters now can use multiple ports so they are more stable.

Administrators can configure user settings with policies, groups and other security features. On large deployments, the new Administrator can start remotely through a domain monitoring database. IBM improved Domino's security certificates by accepting large keys, certificate key rollovers and Web-based single sign-on tokens. Policy settings are more flexible.

To find out default settings, the best place to start is the Configuration tab.

Reviewers encountered a couple of problems when changing Web Access in the Messaging settings in the Configuration section. Domino's Web interface could not open Web pages. Using the browser also did not help, since the Web server at the Domino server box could not load the pages. We encountered a similar problem when setting an SSL option during the Sametime installation.

Step 4: Add Value with Symphony
Symphony is Domino's productivity tool. Symphony's document and spreadsheet are extremely useful editors for workers that need to interact with Microsoft Office files but are not running Windows or are using Office. Symphony can open and save Office Doc, Dot and XlS files, including exporting to PDF.

Symphony works best when using the open document format. Reviewers migrated between Symphony's various formats successfully. Though not quite as extensive as Word, the Symphony editor comes with useful formatting features.

Symphony Spreadsheet comes with the basic features for manipulating cells. The three simple formulas the tool now supports can pop up and fill the cells automatically. Within minutes, even the most novice users can learn the products right away.

Surprisingly, Symphony was missing from the tool. Opening the help menu only opened a general help tool. After some searching, reviewers could not find the help menu in Symphony. Because Symphony was developed in Java, it loads slowly.