Notes Client setup for a low bandwidth WAN

HCL Domino Domino Forum
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Hi,

We are currently piloting a project to migrate away from Windows NT/Exchange to Linux/Domino. We have migrated our IT team over to Notes and are using the Notes/Calendar connectors for coexistence with our existing Exchange system.

So far, mailbox migration has been done manually using nupgrade 3 with the a_PersonalFolders.nsf trick to import calendar and contacts. Unfortunately, we don’t have the budget to use Binary Tree or ecKnowledge.

Our current email system is a single Exchange 5.5 server with Outlook 2000 clients accessing their mail across the WAN. Our goal is to increase reliability, scalability and performance, while lowering costs.

The plan is to have a Domino 6.5 cluster as our main email/webmail server. The cluster is already setup in our head office and users will access their mail across the WAN. We have approximately 20 remote sites, all of which are low bandwidth by todays standards. The sites are Frame Relay and vary between 56k with 2 users, to 384k with approximately 50 users. We have approximately 220 users in total.

We have done some performance testing across the WAN using the Notes/Domino, comparing performance with that of Outlook/Exchange. We have enabled compression on both the client and server. We have tested using the mailfile directly on the server and with a local replica. The best results so far have been with using a local replica mail database on each client.

The biggest problem we have is one of database size. The initial reason for us looking for an alternative to Exchange is because we are rapidly approaching the 16G limit in Exchange and we don’t want to migrate to Active Directory to run Exchange 2000. Like many companies, we have a number of users who have huge mailboxes. Of course, these users are all bigwigs and they insist that they absolutely need all of their messages and attachments.

I know that having large mailboxes won’t be a problem for Domino, as long as we have the disk space. Importing the messages will be a slow process but it is certainly doable. The problem is, if we want to use a local replica at the client-side to make the most of our limited bandwidth, what is the best method for initially getting the data across the WAN ? For example, replicating a 500M mailfile over a 56k line is not going to be fun.

Hopefully, once the replica has been established, regular replication traffic won’t be too bad…

The only solution I can see at the moment would be to create a replica here in Head Office, burn it to CD (or possibly DVD in some extreme cases !) and courier the discs to the remote site, where the replica could be copied to the workstation and setup in the Notes Client.

We considered creating blank new mailboxes for all users and starting fresh in Notes, then importing the old mail into local archive databases on the client workstations. The users would be able to access their mail history through the archive databases without replicating to the server. The downside here is how to backup the archives.

Eventually, we plan to make use of TeamRooms, Document Libraries and many other Notes/Domino collaboration features to reduce the volume of email and increase efficiency but that is going to require some major culture changes and will be a later project.

I’m sure there must be other companies out there with similar structures to ours who have overcome these hurdles.

I would be grateful for any comments or suggestions.

Thanks,

Peter Storkey,

Senir Technical Analyst,

The Oppenheimer Group.

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Subject: Notes Client setup for a low bandwidth WAN

Congratulations too! Do not overestimate the compression. You know - not the database is the problem, it is the data. Do not expect fast response times using teamrooms or DocLibs with 2 or more concurrent users over a 56k link. My recommendation is to clearly communicate that they will face bandwith limitations and longer response times - before rollout. We have defined reliable response times for most operations in Lotus Notes remote users can trust, like “Open xxxx database”, “Open address dialog”, “Detach a 100kb file”.

One tip regarding your data collectors. We have disussed with our users since years until we have activated quotas. When the user is not able to receive mails but he receives calls from users getting error messages and he has to ensure continuing his business immediately everybody is able to create mail archives.

Rgds, Dirk

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Subject: My 2 cents worth

Hi There,

You are not alone. I have seen this type of situation for many of my clients. I am going to assume that this is a new Notes installation and that you do not have any applications built in notes that require the client. I would seriously consider using the new iNotes interface and saying the heck with installing clients and local replicas. Client maintenance (upgrades) is very painful even with the smart upgrade and especially over a 56K WAN. The new iNotes template has everything you could hope for in terms of functionality and your users will benefit from being able to access their email anywhere a browser and internet connection can be found. This will also take care of your backup problems as everything will be on the server.

Just as a side note though… I think all apps should run in a browser. Makes managing desktops a hell of a lot easier.

HTH.

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Subject: I wouldn’t agree

I think there is a lot to be gained by using the client, and the pain involved with design updates is rare and not that painful even at 56KB. You should definitely go with the CD/DVD approach to transferring the data, but I would guess you will be quite happy with the Notes replication after that.

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Subject: I agree…the client is well worth the hassles of installation

Think long-term. Think why you went to Notes…for collaboration, not for browsing. They call the browser that name for a reason.

6.x installation is a breeze these days. Ship a cd with the client and key databases on them. Walk them through the install.

Alternatively, do they have notebooks? If yes, set up a training session and install, setup, and train them in one shot. Plan to roll-out a few key business process apps at the same time. The time spent training will be much more than technical. It will cover how they will work together…it will give them confidence on the platform…it will greatly lower your support costs. The pay-back will be enormous. Plan to build support into your applications so they can post problems, issues, enhancements. Plan to rollout IM as well.

Once home, they can work and replicate locally (just like outlook does but better). Working via the Notes client will provide much more productivity than the browser (it’s why Lotus is releasing the Workplace client).

Just my .02 from someone working virtually for 20 years.

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Subject: RE: My 2 cents worth

It also means separately downloading the entire client for every operation (which exacerbates any bandwidth issues one may have) and doing without replication (ditto). Once you have a Notes design document locally stored, you never need to fetch it again, and replication is much less bandwidth-intensive than, say, using a web-served view in most instances. Backup is not an issue – the data still needs to be on the server in order for replication to happen. The sticking point comes with the initial replication, and shipped physical media takes the wire out of the equation for existing documents.

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Subject: Looks like you’re on the right track.

First of all, may I congratulate you on such a wonderful choice of email and collaboration platform :-).

My advice would be to go with the local replicas and replicate in the background every 10 minutes or so. I’ve seen this done before to very good effect. 10 minutes seems acceptable to most users.

As for getting the initial replicas out to the client I’d go for the CD/DVD in the post. (Never underestimate the bandwidth of the Post Office!)

Backing up local archives is a problem in most Notes configurations. In yours, it sounds like you’d be as well to keep pumping the server full of disks and forget archiving. There are ways and means to encourage or enforce responsible mail usage. None are popular with users.

Happy Migrating,

Mike.