Looks like we are finally going to be leaving R4.6 and moving to something a bit newer, probably 6.0.3, maybe 6.5, it’s not clear yet.
All apps run using Notes clients only.
No web.
No Javascript.
No C or C++ API stuff.
All pretty standard LS and @Function code.
We probably won’t do an upgrade but just do full blown installs of server and client.
We’re also dumping Notes for mail and switching to Exchange (no comments on this please, not my call, nothing I can do).
I’ve spent a couple of hours here, in the 4 & 5 forum, with Red Books, Yellow Books, Blue Books, Green Books… and it all says ‘no problem but test to be sure’. I’ve found no postings that seem to point to anything at all going wrong with apps when moving from 4.6 to .
Can anybody describe anything I need to watch for? Did any standard language constructs change in any way that might make an app break between 4.6 and ?
Subject: Upgrade gotchas, any I should know about?
I am sorry for your pain Doug.
Your best bet would be to set up a test environment in ND6 and test the apps. I think there might also be some 3rd party tools to test compatibility. Given that the apps sound pretty generic, you should be ok.
I say go for 6.5.1 and get the IM Component that comes with it.
Any overriding reason for the switch to Exchange? And also, do you need any help with ther licensing? (Given that it is apps only, are you looking to the Utility Server and do you qualify for the Express Offerings (less than 1,000 users)? You can email me at lotushelp2003NOSPAM@yahoo.com, taking out the NOSPAM of course)
Hey Doug. I wrote an article about coding notes apps to live with exchange in March of 200 on domino power. I have all the sample code in the sandbox (Including creating ndl files in code)Here is the link.
If I send mail from a Notes app to a not-Notes app (like Exchange) and that mail includes a doc link, the doc link is turned into text on the way out of Notes and into not-Notes. There is no native, automatic, built in, don’t need to do anything method to make the doc link an NDL, right?
If I want to make the doc link an NDL, I need to do one of the following:
Write specific code to create the NDL and attach it to the mail message. This code needs to be written for each instance of a mailsend or @Mailsend (I use a lot of @Mailsend) with a doc link so if I have 30 or 40 templates sending mail in 5 or 10 different places each, I need to modify and validate (we’re an FDA inspected shop) every changed instance of the code. Additionally, I have built in ad hoc ‘notify somebody’ code that handles the heavy lifting for the users and now they’ll need to learn how to build NDLs on the fly.
OR
Buy COEX, install it on the server, validate that it handles creation of doc links one time, and move on to more fun stuff.
If I’m seeing lots of work where none exists, please let me know and I’ll be one very happy camper!
As an aside, this thread is making me feel much better about moving to R6. If we do make the move and I find anything specific, I’ll post it back here.
Also, John C - I’ve read your article and had already downloaded the Sandbox code thinking we’d stay with Notes mail and might need to be able to write to Outlook mail systems (HA I wish!) Good stuff and thanks for posting it.
I think you are making the task more daunting that it actually is.
R6 has new class called NotesRichTextDocLink – and their example give an example (which I like) is what you want to do.
If that was placed on say the outbound notes mail server it could read the doc link and convert it to an NDL automatically – No need to buy COEX – which does not work on a linux server.
I am testing this right now and hoping to give some example code which would be a more specific example code than what is provide in the designer help.
More to come…
Followup one: I got it to work using the example code from the designer help file -- Now, I am writing an agent to work against the db or (maybe) mail.box.
Be aware that customers who have tried this sort of thing have had serious performance issues on their routers. I guess it depends on your load, but the mail router is not designed to have agents run on it (IBM recommends against it, and I am surprised you have gotten it to work at all), and there is a heck of a difference between a low level C solution running in an extension manager and a weighty LotusScript agent. This also does not solve many of the problems CoexLinks solves, although you are correct that we don’t have a Linux version. We should have one by May 1, but for now, it is a limitation.
Note: Updated Oct. 14, 2004 to reflect change of name from COEX! Links to CoexLinks
The agent is using all native domino functionality. Are you stating that the IBM staff was in the wrong to allow the NotesRichTextDocLink class?
I can understand your interest in not supporting the idea since you are closely linked to COEX, but there should not be anything wrong with users wanting to implement alternative solutions especially since there are native ways to implement it.
There are more than one way to implement this to not impact the router as well.
As to if the lotusScript is weighty, that is really an opinion question. People can cause any problem if they tune the server or test their solution. I.E.The web task can fail if one does not create the proper documents in the domino directory.
But as a whole R6.5x does things much better than any previous build. Tasks run efficiently and similar lotus scripts agents run faster in R6.5 than R5 – especially server-side agent doing ft searches.
What you don’t convey though is how addin server tasks do affect the server and its resources. Other 3rd party vendors share disclaimers about server resources needed to run their solutions. As a footnote, I have seen good and bad 3rd party products – the worse being a product called Loyal Sequence as it was a pain to end when you wanted to shut the server down.
What the caller (Doug F) asked is being addressed in the posting. Plus showing how the script is not too hard to make – meaning why spend $7500 for COEX when it could be handled natively and it meet his requirement of an NDL attachment. Let’s face it the product cost more than domion’s enterprise server or domino’s messaging server (assuming the user’s server is 1 or 2 processors). With today’s economy a lot of companies have asked their own resources to find solutions with a limited budget.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are suggesting. Where do you have the agent run? Is it attached to the mailbox, or the mail.box, or to the original application?
By the way, I have no problem with the NotesRichTextDoclink class. It is easily the best rich text class IBM has developed, with the least likelihood of failure or performance problems. I just don’t understand where you are running this to get the effect you want.
initally I am just suggesting to put it in the original app since it can scan a richtext body without a problem. I am looking at a other ways to implement which would be less cumbersome for developers/administrators.
OK, my mistake. I thought you were suggesting scanning every message going through the router, which is where the performance issues come in. Doug’s point, as far as I can tell, was more that finding every place where doclinks were created and mailed and intercepting them to change the doclinks to NDL’s, or changing the code to create NDL’s instead, was a lot of work. Your solution is fine, and I certainly don’t mean to put it down, if there is a stage in the app where you can easily intercept the mail message. The problem is, anybody can call doc.send or @MailSend from inside an app without there being that step. Now, if there were an easy way to run that against mail.box, that would make it easier, but the performance issues are the reason that mail.box doesn’t allow such agents, and IBM recommends strongly against trying that approach.
I have to be clear here. I show lots of people how to create NDL’s, and if your apps are simple enough, or few enough, to simply replace that functionality, why wouldn’t you? CoexLinks is for the next step up, when you don’t have time or money to investigate lots of apps, and can spend ten minutes installing a solution instead. The $7500 may seem like a lot to you, but there are companies who are looking at months worth of work to find and fix apps who can use this instead for tremendous cost savings. There are also companies who have long term mixed environments, or very slow moving migrations, where the 3000 people still in Notes mail may send doclinks manually to the 3000 people now on Exchange. COEX is just one easy solution to that. It is way too expensive for some, and a tremendous bargain for others. Doug was simply saying it seemed a bargain for him. Maybe your solution will make that less so, and if so, more power to you both. I don’t think I have a single customer for COEX who regrets taking that approach, but I certainly know of those who looked and decided the manual approach was cheaper. Both are valid, but please don’t presume to know what is best for everyone. Of course I am biased, but I try very hard to be honest and above board. If someone comes to me and doesn’t really need our software, whether it be Midas or COEX, I tell them. Ask around the forum and you’ll find plenty of people who I have helped NOT buy our software. You’ll also find plenty who found it invaluable. I’d rather not sell anything to anyone who will later regret buying it. It goes against everything I believe.
Note: Updated Oct. 14, 2004 to reflect change of name from COEX! Links to CoexLinks
Subject: Upgrade gotchas, any I should know about?
The redbook on upgrading to Lotus Notes/Domino 6 is probably your best bet. We did some testing beforehand, but we’re an all-Domino-web shop (our e-mail is Exchange, too. I feel your pain). The only gotcha we ran in to there was on our web query strings, having to change them to query_string_decoded (just do a search on that in this forum, if you’re curious).
Other than that, just make sure your servers are on 4.6.7a before starting the upgrade, as the book recommends. Following those steps, it all went pretty smooth for me, but I’m not a Notes shop, so YMMV.
Subject: Upgrade gotchas, any I should know about?
Don’t take this as a comment against Exchange, but you will have many gotcha’s here.
Since you can not NRPC mail and have to switch to SMTP, you may have to change how the lotus notes links (like links for documents, views, and databases). You would have to use a NDL file attachment instead.
I would urge you not to use the notes connector to exchange because it just complicates things in the long run. I understand people have had success, but it really isn’t pretty.
Everything else should shape up. I am assuming that you will upgrade the desktop Lotus Notes clients as well and not have people using R4.6. In this specific case the less client will not be able to run any of the R6 specific functionalities.
I am also assuming that you understand the biggest changes (with internet site documents (for smtp and web functionality) and chnages with how to configure the server. There are many things which have changed from the R4.6 world to R6 – as you can have a configuration document, policies, internet site documents, etc. Even if you are going to use Exchange you would want to configure an internet site document for SMTP mail to go from Lotus Notes to exchange.
The help file does point out changes with the programming languages. The biggest tip I can share here is if you recompile a previous working code (like lotusscript agent, etc) it could error because syntax has change through the versions.
Re the Exchange thing - it’s corporate standard, end of discussion. We’ve skated along for a couple of years with our owner’s owner leaving us alone, but now it’s time to get on da bus.
Re the server version - corporate will decide, doesn’t matter to me which they choose. IM is most likely not an option. If they’ve selected Exchange, I’m not betting on IM being in the mix.
I know about the doc links. We’re checking out COEX!Links - looks like a simple way to go and I won’t have to revalidate everything. If COEX doesn’t work, I’m in a world of hurt since I use doclinks everywhere to manage app workflow. Fingers are triple crossed that this will work.
We’ll definately go R6x on the client, no decision yet on the client. If we do go R6x on the clients, there won’t be any design work using R6 features until everybody is switched over. We’re a small shop (<100) so that shouldn’t take too long.
Re the server admin - I’m just a developer so the admin part is kind of invisible to me. Our current admin is being rif’ed as part of the consolidation and it’s not clear who’s going to do the admin. If I get it, it’ll all be new so nothing to unlearn. Also the internet stuff is a non-issue. We cannot access the web from our desktops. We need to log onto a terminal server in the DMZ and run from there - no direct connects allowed (part of our business is military). None of my apps are web enabled either.
And finally, the ls recompile is news! I guess it’s not a huge problem though (I am assuming that the old format works until you recompile). If there’s a fomat problem, I’ll catch it when I modify an agent. Is there a list somewhere of the specific changes one needs to be aware of or is that just embedded in Help?
MANY thanks for the replies, I really appreciate the feedback!
well i think it would work without coex. I am more of an fan of educating the users on how to use NDL file attachments. Plus if you are less than 100 users I don’t think Coex is a big priority. my client does not user it and there are over 2000 users
Like most everything we do, it took much longer to get this thing started than we thought. We just finished the server migration in December. Client upgrades are due for later this year.
We wound up at 6.5.4 (none of this bleeding edge 7x stuff for us, nosireee).
Long story short - there were no gotchas at all. As per usual, the upgrade didn’t impact any of our code at all. We were able to test a couple of key apps and just move on.
We’ll repeat the testing with the 6.5.4 clients but I’m not expecting any issues there either.
If there be any Loti/IBM/Iris folks who worked on the code reading this - THANK YOU! Whatever they’re paying you, it’s not enough. I play with a LAMP system at home and the move from Apache 1.3 to 2.0 killed my ‘inside the firewall just fer fun’ web site. I need to do a ton of work to figure out which part of what screwed up whatever part of whatever. I have NEVER had to deal with these kind of migration issues with Notes. Thank you again.