Hello, i have some questions and maybe you can help me :):
1)I know that the compact -B command performs a database compact operation, but can it be done even if the user is using his mail database? If not, what happens if that user opens his Notes Client while a compact operation is being performed?
2)If i have to move a mail database via operating system to a new mail server.
Can i move it even if the target domino is running or should i do a quit, paste the database in mail\ directory and then restart the Domino server?
3)How much big size databases can affect domino performances? And what’s the mail quota that you suggest to use on normal users?
4)What’s the best book if i want to learn excellently how to manage a domino mail system? and what’s the one if i want to learn to use designer?
I’ve not used this compact switch but here’s what to look for. If you try executing this from the server console and it can’t work with the user in their mail file you’ll see the compact task shut down stating that someone is using the file. Alternately, if you start the compact process before the user has accessed the file and they attempt to open their mail file while compact is occurring they may receive the message that the databases is currently unavailable please try again later. You can run a simple test on your mail file to see what the actual result will be.
I highly recommend moving the database using the administrator Move option rather than moving it through the OS. OS moves can be problematic and in some cases will require some degree of maintenance before you can open it.
Domino has a 64GB limit to databases size on Windows platforms. Certainly the larger the database the more time will be spent rebuilding view indexes and users see this in views taking a longer time to open. There are options to minimize this. If possible consider creating an archive copy of the database and only keep those docuemtns in the active production databse that you need. You can always provide links to the archive database, even from within your production copy so if people need to access older documents they can do so but generally this access is not as frequent. The number of messages kept in the inbox can have a significant impact on performance for the user and when you get over 10,000 emails in an inbox strange things can start to happen.
As to quotas that really depends on a number of factors. If you are using DAOS this will help control overall storage on your server and you may allow larger qoutas. If you’re not doing this and your users have lots of attachment emails to many users then your storage requires change dramatically. Other consideration are legal or other statatory requirements for reporting and maintenance of emails. These will obviously impact your storage requirements and again depending on your possible archiving strategy will help you define quotas. Ideally, you want enough storage in the users active mail file to not hinder business operations while balancing all your other storage requirements. Giving an exact quota size really doesn’t mean much.
Administration books. I’d certainly start looking at the IBM wiki’s on this and the designer side. IBM does offer some freee sessions on designing so look to those. Look at some of the Different developer books and find one you are comfortable with to start understanding how Notes databases work.