Intranet Journal
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Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 On the Way

12/23/2008

The 8.5 release of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino is now code-ready and should be released sometime in the next few weeks. This release brings a lot of updates to both the front and back ends, and adds programming elements called X-Pages that will have a huge impact on your web-facing applications.

Traditionally, the .5 releases of Notes and Domino have focused mainly on Domino and all of the server components, and while Domino does see the most improvement in this release, the Notes client gets several significant upgrades as well.

The Lotus Notes Client

One of the biggest improvements is the availability of an 8.5 Lotus Notes client for the Mac. This is the first official release of the Notes client for the Apple platform in the Notes 8 codestream. Your Mac users will now have the same Lotus Notes experience that your Windows and Linux users have experienced since version 8 of Notes hit over a year ago.

Speaking of the Mac, one new feature borrows a page from Apple's iCal, Lotus Notes now supports subscribing to public calendars via the iCal standard. Notes users can now subscribe to any public calendar (including Google Calendars) and have the information incorporated into their work Lotus Notes calendar.

On the contacts side, you can now quickly export, forward and import your contacts using the standard vcard format. You could do this to a point in the past, but Lotus has really streamlined the process and made it easier for your end users.

This release also includes an updated version of the old Personal Journal database, now called the Notebook. The Notebook is a place for users to keep track of information and “notes” and the upgrade to 8.5 finally brings the application into the modern age. It fits much better now and no longer seems out of place.

Drag and Drop has also been enhanced in the client and you can now move things around easier than before. One example of this is being able to drag an email from your inbox onto the Sametime client to add the sender as a contact. In short, more things should be easier for your users to accomplish.

The Domino Server

The Domino server is really what gets the bulk of the improvements in the 8.5 release. One that may have some of the biggest impact is DAOS or Domino Attachment Object Storage.

Simply put, DAOS is a way for your Domino server to store attachments to your file system instead of inside a Notes database itself. When DAOS is enabled, attachments are removed from the database and placed in a folder on the server. The server creates internal pointers so a user still sees the attachment but doesn't realize it's not really in the database.

The way this saves space is that only one copy of each attachment is stored on the system. So for example, if a designer sends a 20MB attachment to a sales person, and that sales person sends it to 20 people, that would normally result in 22 copies of that 20MB file living in databases all over your server. With DAOS, only one copy of the attachment sits on the server while each database has the pointers. It's completely transparent to the end user. Their email looks like it has the attachment as always.

If you extrapolate this over your entire user base, the space savings on your server could be huge. And it doesn't stop there, you can enable document compression on the server, and IBM says you can see up to 30% disk space savings as well. So it seems with these two features alone, you'll get immediate return on your upgrade investment.

In addition to space savings, Lotus will help your administrators configure servers to best practices via a new tool called the Domino Configuration Tuner or DCT. DCT will analyze your servers and flag any problems where your environment isn't set up to optimal best practices.

Lotus also wants to help you with your ID and user management. ID Vault is a new feature that you can turn on to help you and your users recover passwords and ID files. It works by storing all ID files in a secure Lotus Notes database and allowing users to recover ID files that may have been lost. It will also allow administrators the ability to reset users Lotus Notes passwords.

Some remaining additions include improved CPU and I/O usage, support for several 64-bit operating systems, mail routing optimizations and better roaming support for end users.

For Developers and Designers

All of these improvements that we've discussed are great for this release, but what 8.5 will really be remembered for is changing Lotus Domino web application development forever. This will be done with a new development element called XPages.

XPages truly brings Domino development into the vaunted Web 2.0 world. XPages have new controls that make everything behave more in line what you expect from web applications these days with AJAX. Also, you can simply drop controls on an XPage to accomplish things that you never really could with Domino before.

You'll get better views, better searching capabilities, and better controls with better UI for all of your different types of form fields (listboxes, calendar time/date controls, etc. etc.) XPages will be the feature of a future article, but when I tell you that this will change how every Lotus developer creates web applications on Domino, trust me, this may be the biggest boost to web development that Domino has ever seen.

DDE with all the controls in the right panels

All of these improvements required a new piece of software, so Domino Designer on Eclipse (or DDE) was born. DDE is built on top of the Eclipse framework just like Notes 8 is today. This allows for new features like built-in advanced editors for HTML, CSS and XML, a better script editor and better debugging. This is also what allowed IBM to include XPages. As the Eclipse framework grows, the feature-set of DDE should grow as well.

Bottom line is that if you are a developer, you'll have much better tools available to you across the board. It's the next leap in development capabilities for Lotus Domino, and is another huge reason to upgrade.

So Should I upgrade?

Now, I'm a Notes junkie, and have been a Notes and Domino administrator for over a decade, so I tend to be an early adopter and install new releases immediately when they happen. I know in most industries, there is a much more cautious approach to releases, and in many cases it can take years before a company makes a move.

That would be a mistake.

This 8.5 release adds many things for the administrators that can give you an immediate return on investment and the new development features will simply change the way your intranet is created and maintained. And if you are a shop that's on Notes 7 or earlier, all of the past year's Notes 8 goodness gets added to the mix.

So as soon as 8.5 is released, get it into your labs for testing. The quicker you do so, the quicker you can get it in your environment for real. It will be interesting to see where Domino-based intranets go from here!

The code for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5 is complete and should be out before Lotusphere begins on January 17th, 2009.

About this Series

This series of articles on intranet solutions with IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and it'scompanion products is intended to help readers understand the fundamental methodologyand capabilities of the product and how to utilize it to deliver a feature-rich, secure, andfunctional corporate intranet solution. It will include implementation strategies, casestudies, industry-tested tips and tricks, and, with your input, true value to theadministrator or developer who wants to utilize IBM Lotus technologies to deliverwinning intranet solutions.

If you have any questions on the series, Lotus Notes/Domino, or if there's somethingyou'd like to see addressed, visit the Intranet Journal Discussion Forum.

About the Author

John Roling is the Senior Groupware Administrator for a North American trade-showexhibit company and a certified Lotus Notes Administrator, Developer and all-aroundgeek. You can keep up with him at his blog or drop him an e-mail at jroling@gmail.com.

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