Question for the forum … who uses workstation based mail vs server based mail? Number of users and quick pros/cons of each from your experiences.
We are looking of switching from server to local and the Engineering staff objects, but management wants it so slow downs don’t effect users.
Here’s an article that talks about pros/cons, but interested in real world
feedback.
The reason we are looking at switching is we have been fighting with a slow down issue that occurs pretty regularly on our servers. We will have sub 1-second response times and then 4 or 5 times throughout the day the server’s response time jumps to 30, 40, 80 seconds. With about 20 GB of traces, NSDs, and network captures - once again Lotus Support has shown they cannot figure out why it is occurring and we are back in the trenches of development. So instead of fixing a problem, we are trying to avoid the impact of the problem.
I personally feel we are starting to get towards the capacity of Domino with 100k+ users and on average 3k users per Domino partition.
We are running on AIX with 18-way and 24-way servers.
Thanks for any feedback! If anyone has had these slow downs - drop me a note and we can share info.
We are using GSX tools to track the performance and it has been really good at gathering metrics.
Subject: Server-based vs Workstation-based mail - Survey says???
I’d suggest searching the forums for things that do not work correctly or as well from a local replica. Two examples of our unresolved PMRs include the following issues:
Notes client does not send an updated recovery ID to the ID Recovery database when the list of authorized recovery authorities is updated. User’s location document is set to use local mail file.
The Out of Office agent is not disabled on the server when a user disables it from a local replica of their mail file.
Subject: PMRs resolved via location document setting
We found a solution to the ID recovery issue. The user’s location document needed to be updated on the mail tab. “Mail addressing” needed to be set to “Local and Server” instead of the default “Local Only”.
Subject: Server-based vs Workstation-based mail - Survey says???
All other considerations aside, I’m struggling to figure out how an organization like CertFX has 100K+ users and over 3K users per partition on a 24-way AIX system. I would expect that these kinds of volumes might exist at a major global corporation that I had, y’know, heard of.
Are the slow down times occuring at consistent times of the day? Have you done any network analysis to see if it’s bandwidth-related? Are there any other processes running on your mail servers?
Subject: Server-based vs Workstation-based mail - Survey says???
Its all depend on your network infrastructure, in my scenerio thanx to my HP Prolient servers powered with enough CPU & Memory capacity, that i dont have to think about the local replica of the database (It otherwise increase my administation efforts only). definately the local replica having its own functionalily & benefits.
Subject: Server-based wins for almost all environments
I have been in both configs many times and I have to say that in almost all cases server based mail with clustered servers provides the superior user experience and far and away the superior administration experience.
Historically LPS/ISSL/IGS has always encouraged replicated mail. I think this is because it allows you to have unreliable servers and mask network latency as well as put more users on a server. On the other hand it introduces another criticall object and process into your environment that is very prone to breaking. You will spend a great deal of time troubleshooting local replication and thinking of ways to manipulate that local file. Of course a local replica is required for laptop users but it should be used when remote and not as the primary. Granted there are some cases where replicated mail is warrented such as if there is a terrible network connection or slow or unreliable servers.
I’m pretty sure that I wrote an article or other post on this topic detailing all the pro’s and cons of each. I’ll try to find it and post a link here.
Subject: RE: Server-based wins for almost all environments
This is PRECISELY why I laugh at IGS recommendations. There’s so much I like about IBM, but their services people don’t know squat about Domino. They never have. (Of course, if you think about it, anyone with any serious knowledge is going to go on their own anyway.)
Subject: RE: Server-based wins for almost all environments
Hey Rob,
Yep, second job in a row where I have followed LPS/IGS implementations and they have been workstation-based mail.
I talked to someone at IGS and they felt IBM was a 60% server/40% workstation-based config.
Just the idea of pushing 50k users to workstation-based mail that don’t have standard configs (Shared installs, citrix users, etc) scares the living @#$#@ out of me.
I think our LSM is about to jump off a bridge. The ongoing sev1/critsit is driving everyone nuts!
I think it will end up being such a crazy issue, we’ll be flabbergasted.
Subject: RE: Server-based vs Workstation-based mail - Survey says???
My experience has led me to believe that server based mail is the way to go…I am fortunate in that I have Xeon 2.8 GHz powered servers with enough RAM to handle pretty much anything that is thrown at them, and the performance appears as seamless as local access. So what reason would there be to go local with users who are strictly resident on desktop PC’s? I would be adding a layer of complexity, and performance overhead, as minimal as it may be, by adding replication into the equation. As a matter of fact, even for field sales, we have established external IP addresses for the domino servers so that they can access their mail directly without any likely possibility of not being fully updated at all times. They have the ability to work offline and replicate at a later time, but that is only useful if in the event they need to compose a memo immediately and do not have internet access…and even for that they have Treo phones with continuous domino connectivity.
I guess that you must determine what is best for you based upon the condition of your domino servers.
