Other lotus. Installing Lotus Notes

IBM Lotus Notes(Also Lotus Notes, Lotus Notes/Domino) - a software product, a platform for automating the joint activities of working groups (Groupware). Manufactured by IBM Lotus Software, part of the IBM Software Group.

2018: Notes/Domino passes to HCL Technologies (India)

According to a message dated December 7, 2018, HCL Technologies, headquartered in Noida (India), will acquire software assets worth $1.8 billion from IBM Corporation. The companies have already agreed to sell eight applications to HCL Technologies, including such a landmark product like Notes/Domino.

Upon completion of the transaction in the first half of 2019, HCL Technologies will also become the full owner of Appscan, BigFix, Unica, Commerce products targeting the e-commerce and human resources markets.

As of December 2018, the parties are intellectual property partners in five of these applications.

The reasons why IBM decided to transfer its developments to a third-party company have not been disclosed.

Notes is a software package designed to automate the collaboration of work groups. This is a whole range of software solutions, which includes, among other things, tools for working with email, an instant messaging system and an application for working with group calendars. The platform exists in versions for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Mac OS.

The second equally significant IBM product, which will be taken over by HCL Technologies in six months, is Domino, the server part of Notes. Domino also includes a number of services, including a database management system, directory server and mail.

IBM's transfer of ownership of its software products to Indian HCL Technologies does not mean that the corporation is facing difficulties. On the contrary, 2018 was productive for it: in March 2018, it introduced a tiny microchip that supports blockchain technology, and at the end of October 2018 it acquired Red Hat for $34 billion.

2012

IBM Notes/Domino - Social Edition 9.0

As Ed Brill, director of product line management in the Collaboration Solutions division at IBM, wrote in a blog post, according to a survey, two-thirds of IBM business partners plan to implement a new release within the first three months of its release.

The commercial version of Notes/Domino Social Edition 9.0 will be released in the first quarter of 2013.

IBM is burying the Lotus brand

The version is also notable because for the first time the system will join IBM's product line under the corporation's brand without using the Lotus name, Brill said. At the same time, the name Lotus has been used by the “blue giant” since IBM was absorbed by Lotus Development Corporation in 1995.

Previously, IBM reported that the next release of Notes/Domino would have the serial number 8.5.4, but the volume of changes in the system turned out to be so significant that it was decided to assign the release serial number 9.0.

One of the new features will be the ability to run some Notes apps unmoderated through browsers on Windows PCs, so businesses won't need to install the full Notes client to run.

The update will also include a redesigned user interface, new mail and calendar capabilities, SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) support, a number of improvements to the XPages development platform, and more.

The release of Notes/Domino Social Edition was first announced at the Lotusphere 2012 conference; it took about a year to develop the release. The first limited beta code was demonstrated in April 2012. Businesses that are interested in beta testing can sign up.

According to the plan, a full release of the system will be released in the first quarter of 2013.

2009

Platform advantages

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• the possibility of creating geographically distributed systems;
• open architecture, mechanism for application development;
• the ability to work with mobile and offline users;
• support for modern replication technology with minimized traffic, allowing users to work efficiently even without access to the network;
• built-in instant messaging;
• integration with other information systems (compatibility with IBM DB2, Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL, ODBC data types);
• document-oriented databases - the ability to work with any type of electronic documents, including unstructured data;
• IT infrastructure security - a multi-level protection model, customizable from the server level to the level of an individual field in a document;
• platform independence - the Domino server runs various operating systems (Windows NT, OS/2, Unix, Linux, iSeries).

Description

Positioning

Lotus Notes is a platform for building applications to automate management and document processes. A special feature of the system is its object-oriented architecture, which makes it possible to create information systems that automate work with complexly structured data and informal dynamic processes. The software product contains only basic functions that allow you to organize the work of distributed workgroups and create process automation applications, therefore Lotus Notes It is incorrect to consider it a complete automation system for enterprise activities (just as, for example, MS SQL server cannot be considered an accounting system). Lotus Notes- a platform for such applications. Electronic document management systems and other complete solutions on the platform Lotus Notes/Domino developed and distributed by third party software manufacturers.

Terminology

Full official product name: IBM Lotus Notes/Domino.

IBM has used the following terminology since 1996:

• Notes- client workstation software.
• Domino- server software.

Until version 4.5 inclusive, the name "Domino" was used for a separate application that added web server functionality to the Notes server. With the release of version 4.6 in 1996, web server functionality was included with the Notes server. The server changed its name - instead of “Notes server” it became known as “Domino server”.

Starting from version 5.0 client part Lotus Notes consists of three parts:

• IBM Lotus Notes Client- user's workplace
• IBM Lotus Domino Designer- application developer workplace Lotus Notes(programmer)
• IBM Lotus Domino Administrator- system administrator workplace Lotus Notes.

Main functions

Basic functions included in the basic package Lotus Notes/Domino version 7.0.2:

• runtime environment for group activity automation applications
• cryptographic protection (encryption and electronic signature)
• email client
• applications server
• mail server
• group calendar, task scheduler
• Lotus Sametime instant messaging client (Sametime server is a standalone product)
• web server - to provide access to applications Lotus Notes via browser
• LDAP server
• Replication - synchronization between remotely remote database instances
• Domino Enterprise connection services (DECS)

Peculiarities

1. Cross-platform. A significant feature is cross-platform Lotus Notes. The current version is certified by IBM to work with the following operating systems:
   • Lotus Domino Server- Windows NT (32 and 64 bit), GNU/Linux (Red Hat, SuSE), Solaris, OS/400, AIX, OS/390)
   • Lotus Notes client- Windows NT (32 bit), Mac OS X, GNU/Linux
2. Replication
3. Fast RAD and application deployment. The IBM Lotus Domino Designer application development environment provides developers with advanced core services for developing document-oriented applications. Application code and visual forms are physically stored in the databases in which they are used and executed. When changes are made to the program code or form, the changes become available to all users and servers accessing the database in which the changed code or form is stored. Changes arrive on other servers through replication during the first session.
4. Running applications offline The Lotus Notes client allows you to store Lotus Notes databases locally (on the user's computer), replicate them with the Domino server, work with local databases when there is no connection to the Domino server, and execute server code in local databases. This functionality supports a fully functional user experience when disconnected from the server (for example, on a laptop). Changes on the local (for the user) computer and on the server are mutually synchronized through replication.
5. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Crypto functions using public keys - encryption and electronic digital signature - are the basic services of the Lotus Notes core. Each user of the system receives a pair of keys upon registration: the public key is stored in the shared (public) address book and is available (readable) to users from the server, and the private key is stored locally in the user identification file.
   • Electronic digital signature used when the server authenticates the user and/or server, when determining the level of trust in the code being executed, when checking the authenticity of mail messages, documents (database records) and individual fields.
   • Encryption used for email messages, entire databases, individual documents (database records), individual fields and network traffic between two Lotus Domino servers, as well as between a Lotus Notes server and client.

Current versions

For November, 2018 IBM Lotus Software supports and develops the following versions of products Lotus Notes/Domino:

Product	Language	Version 7.0		Version 8.0		Version 8.5
		release	date	release	date	release	date
Lotus Notes Client	English	7.0.4	April 2009	8.0.2 FP1	January 2009	8.5	January 2009
	Russian	7.0.3	March 2008	8.0.2	December 2008	8.5	March 2009
Lotus Domino Server	English	7.0.4	April 2009	8.0.2 FP1	January 2009	8.5	January 2009

Supported technologies

(Data current as of November 2018)

1. Email
   • SMTP
   • POP3
   • IMAP
   • MIME
   • DNSBL(anti-spam)
2. Instant messenger
   • Sametime
3. Reading news
   • Usenet(NNTP)
4. Full text search
5. Database
   • Object-oriented DBMS
   • Client-server technology
   • Formats: NSF and NSFDB2
6. Server
   • Cluster (group of servers)
   • Partitioned servers- the ability to install several Lotus Domino servers on one hardware server
   • Passthru- end-to-end connection (“proxy” using the NotesRPC protocol)
7. Client
   • Eclipse
   • Thin client (HTTP And HTTPS)
8. [Network protocols"
   • TCP/IP protocol stack- default Lotus Notes operates on TCP port 1352
   • IPX/SPX
   • NetBIOS
9. Replication
10. Programming languages
    • @-formulas
    • Lotus Script
    • JavaScript
11. Integration with DBMS and other applications(by data and program calls)
    • CORBA
    • ODBC
12. Crypto protection(Encryption and Electronic Digital Signature)
    • X.509
    • S/MIME

Summing up the past decade, InformationWeek magazine named Lotus Notes one of the most important products of the 90s, which is most closely integrated with the concept of “group work”. Over the past decade, Lotus has really put a lot of effort into developing the functionality of Lotus Domino and Notes, turning them into leading Internet products, and entered the year 2000 with a total number of Lotus Notes users exceeding 56 million.

The “integrated collaboration systems” market, as defined by Gartner Group, is one of the largest segments of the global software market, and the applications that use these technologies are classified as “mission critical” and “mission critical.” Suffice it to say that, according to IDC1, in 1998 the “average” European organization spent $89,000 on collaboration systems and $48,000 on messaging and email software. In countries such as Sweden, the percentage of people engaged in knowledge work and using collaborative systems reached almost 70%.

However, very often among potential users of these technologies there is no understanding of what this concept includes - “integrated systems for collaborative work”, as well as what constitutes the essence of Lotus Domino and Notes technologies, in particular. It is these issues that this article is devoted to.

If we give a formal definition in this short introduction, Lotus Domino and Notes are tools designed for collecting, organizing and distributing information and knowledge.

If we start from actual practice of use, we can distinguish the following groups of organizations that have chosen and are choosing these technologies for themselves.

The first group consists of organizations that need email, messaging and communications infrastructure: modern, reliable and scalable. Lotus Domino is a mail server, and Lotus Notes is an advanced email client.

The second group consists of organizations that use Domino and Notes as a platform and infrastructure for business applications, automation of business procedures, document flow, etc. Lotus Domino is an application server, and Lotus Notes is a client for running business applications, working with information and documents, including offline.

The third group of users chooses Lotus Domino as a unique technologies for creating Web infrastructure. Lotus Domino is a Web server with advanced capabilities for dynamic updating, information categorization, full-text search, etc.

And finally, the fourth group of organizations chooses Lotus Domino and Notes as their integrating software, or “middleware”, capable of integrating information and data from virtually arbitrary information sources - relational DBMSs, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems such as SAP R/3, Internet environments, etc.

Ultimately, the majority of Lotus Domino and Notes users realize that the full range of tasks listed above can be solved on the basis of a single technology platform and create an information infrastructure that allows them to say: “The effective work of our organization would be impossible without Domino and Notes.”

It should be noted that Lotus Domino and Notes are multi-platform products. Domino server versions are available for most common operating systems and hardware platforms, such as Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT, Linux, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX, OS/2, Novell NetWare, OS/400, OS /390, Mac, giving users of these technologies the freedom to choose a platform that adequately meets the needs of the organization.

The product is localized, and its users in Russia are hundreds and thousands of organizations.

2. History of the creation of Lotus Domino and Notes

Lotus Notes has its roots in some of the first computer programs written at the Computer-based Education Research Laboratory (CERL) at the University of Illinois. In 1973, CERL released a product called PLATO Notes. At the time, PLATO Notes' only function was to attach a user ID and date to error reports, and to protect the file from being deleted by other users. System personnel were thus able to respond to problem reports appearing at the bottom of the screen. It was this method of secure communication between users that formed the basis of PLATO Notes.

In 1976, a product called PLATO Group Notes was released. Group Notes inherited the original concept of PLATO Notes and was its logical development in terms of organizing feedback from users. The recent reviews of the new product turned out to be positive, Group Notes began to be actively used and eventually became the prototype of many software products using the “notes” metaphor.

Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie worked on the PLATO operating system at CERL in the late seventies. He was impressed by the system and its communication capabilities. Using the knowledge acquired at CERL, Ray Ozzie begins work on a proposal to create a “notes” product for the PC. At first he experienced difficulties due to the lack of sources of funding.

Mitch Kapor, founder and then-CEO of Lotus Development Corporation, believed in what was at the time a completely new concept. Kapor was not only inspired by the idea, but also expressed a desire to invest Lotus money in developing a new product. Kapor's insight, creativity and willingness to overcome his own mistrust predetermined the transformation of Ozzy's speculative ideas into reality.

In July 1984, Ozzie and Kapor began working on an innovative development that led five months later to the creation of Iris Associates, Inc., a company based on Lotus funds and contractually bound by Lotus. Iris's task was to develop the first release version of Notes.

The main idea was to develop software designed to enable collaboration and messaging. At that time, most users had not yet thought about this and had no interest in using computers for this purpose. The developers modeled Lotus Notes on PLATO Notes, but added a lot of powerful new functionality to the product.

Initially, Notes was envisioned by developers as a combination of online discussion tools, e-mail, phone books, and document-oriented databases. This approach created two problems. The first is that network technologies in the form in which we know them now did not exist then. As a result, developers initially had to sell the idea of ​​Notes as a Personal Information Manager (PIM), a kind of “electronic organizer” with certain collaboration capabilities. Second, at that time operating systems were not sufficiently developed, and developers had to write a large amount of system code to create a Name Server, databases and network communication tools. With the development of networking technologies, developers began to sell the idea of ​​Notes as groupware (“groupware”), which implied the ability to facilitate communication, collaboration and coordination of efforts between groups of users.

Soon the Macintosh computer appeared, the brainchild of Apple Corporation, which had a new, easy-to-use graphical user interface. This influenced the Notes developers to provide their new product with a character-based graphical interface. The founders' initial vision quickly evolved to the idea of ​​creating a product to support virtual communities of people. Thinking about creating software for group collaboration in 1984 was eccentric - at that time, most users did not yet know what email was. This product was way ahead of its time. It was the first commercial client-server product.

Notes took several years to develop, which is a long time by today's standards, but that's what made Notes successful. Having allowed themselves the luxury of spending five years on development, the creators of Notes released an exceptionally solid product that had virtually no competitors in the market. It took competitors years to create something like Notes. However, to date, no product has all the capabilities inherent in Notes.

Most of the kernel development was completed within two years, but the developers spent another year porting the client and server code from Windows to OS/2. During this period, Iris developers used Notes to communicate remotely with Lotus staff. Using the product on a daily basis was very helpful in developing key functionality. For example, developers needed to synchronize data between two remote offices, and they invented replication, one of Notes' most powerful features. The interesting thing is that this was not even part of the original plans, but the problem arose and it was solved.

By August 1986, Notes already had many of its unique features and preliminary documentation was ready. The product was ready to ship to internal Lotus users. At this time, Lotus evaluated and accepted the product. Lotus acquired the rights to Notes in 1987.

The fate of Lotus Notes was successful even before its first release version came out. The head of Price Waterhouse watched a demo of Lotus Notes before the first release was released. He was so impressed with the product that he immediately bought 10,000 copies of Notes. At the time, this was a record sales volume for a PC-centric product. As the first major buyer of Notes, Price Waterhouse predicted that Notes would fundamentally transform existing business processes. The people at Price Waterhouse were right.

The commercial second version of Lotus Notes began being sold on the market in 1991, and for a long time the product remained the only technology to support people's collaboration.

Then the Internet appeared with its capabilities for storing and exchanging information between geographically distributed groups of people - approximately what Notes had been able to do for a number of years. In 1995, there were many articles in the computer press on the topic that the fate of Notes was sealed and that it would be replaced by more open and cheaper Internet technologies.

However, in November 1995, Lotus, already part of the IBM corporation at that time, announced a strategy that included adding support for Internet standards to the broad functionality of Notes (then version 3.3x) and radically reducing prices. Since then, Lotus has released several new versions of Notes, and starting with version 4.5, the server's functionality in the field of Internet technologies was such that the company felt it necessary to rename the Notes server part Domino server.

Today, as we enter a new decade and a new century, Lotus Domino and Notes continue to be the premier collaboration products that empower organizations to enable effective collaboration among their workforce. Lotus Domino is also an advanced Web, application and email server. So even if an organization isn't interested in using Notes for collaboration, there are many reasons to choose a Domino server as the backbone of its Internet/intranet infrastructure.

There is no space in this article to go into detail about the history of Notes, from version one to version five, which was released by Lotus in 1999. Therefore, let’s move straight to the opportunities that this technology provides today. The following is a very brief description of Domino and Notes.

3. What is Notes and Lotus solution architecture

Notes is a very elegant application. It is a versatile product whose functionality is so extensive that it makes it completely different from other applications. This is the reason why it is sometimes difficult for users to realize the unique capabilities of this technology. However, once you understand how Notes works, it becomes clear that the technology is truly superior to many similar Internet tools or products from other vendors in the field of collaboration systems.

The work of modern organizations, whether commercial structures or government agencies, is based on the active interaction of people, departments and other organizations external to them.

All forms of such interaction can be divided into three groups, or the so-called three Cs:

• Communications: you and your organization may request or forward information from anyone.
• Cooperation: people and organizations use shared workspaces (buildings, complexes of buildings, etc.) to get work done, and informal interaction between people is required for the work to get done.
• Coordination: There are certain processes in which different people and organizations are involved, for example, the process of approving an order or passing a payment order, subject to predetermined rules.

If we talk about computer technologies that respond to and support these three forms of interaction, then these are respectively:

• Email and messaging systems
• Shared Databases
• Tools for automating business procedures (workflow)

The basis of Lotus Domino and Notes is precisely the three technologies listed above.

Lotus Domino and Notes could be described as a distributed, shared database system integrated with email capabilities.

• A shared access database implies the ability of a large number of users to simultaneously access and update the content of the database.
• By distributed we mean that databases can be located simultaneously on a large number of servers, which periodically send updates to each other so that after a certain time, changes in data made on one server reach any other. This process is called replication.
• By databases integrated with email capabilities, we mean that not only can people using Notes exchange email messages, but also Notes databases and applications can send documents and messages to both people and other Notes databases and applications. And this is a critical property when automating business flows and procedures (workflow).

Important to understanding the capabilities of Domino and Notes is the so-called Lotus Solution Architecture. This concept (see table) was developed by Lotus Consulting Service in accordance with the principles of a systems approach. It provides a holistic approach to classifying communications and collaboration technology solutions on the Domino and Notes platform.

From the point of view of the concept under consideration, the selected communication platform should have the following capabilities. Firstly, it must support the entire range of technologies for creating a corporate system, which are listed above (corporate email system, shared access databases, business procedure automation tools).

Secondly, solutions based on this platform must function effectively at three levels of organizational complexity:

1. Level of departments and divisions.

2. Level of integrated organization.

3. Level of extended organization (includes all connections with the outside world - partners, customers, service providers, etc.).

In this sense, Lotus Domino and Notes provide a complete solution in the field of collaborative systems and allow solving technologically complex problems at any organizational level. Lotus Domino is at the same time an e-mail server, an application server for working with documents and creating systems for automating business procedures, a Web server, complemented by extensive integration capabilities with relational DBMS and enterprise resource management systems (ERP systems). Lotus Notes is an integrated email and Internet client, a collaboration and document client that, among other things, provides mobile user experience.

In accordance with this approach, a particular solution, in terms of the technology used and organizational complexity, falls into one of nine categories. Everything that is at the top level of the extended organization is Internet technologies, the two lower rows are internal corporate intranet systems. The e-business technologies that are being talked about so much these days are the top two right-hand squares, that is, they are standards-based Internet technologies that provide a means of collaboration and coordination between various organizations involved in common production processes.

ComputerPress 4"2000

Andrey Akopyants

Our shortcomings are a continuation of our advantages
Folk wisdom...

Almost all information technology professionals have heard of Lotus Notes (LN), but relatively few have dealt with it in practice. As a result, there is a catastrophic lack of objective information on Lotus. All available publications about this product are in the form of advertising brochures or fragments of technical descriptions.

Where there is no objective information, it is replaced by myths. Now in Russia Lotus is promoted mainly as a system for organizing corporate document flow, although in fact this is not entirely true. Opinions about this product are polar - some present it as a panacea for all ills of corporate automation, others do not want to hear about it.

At the same time, the real significance of Lotus Notes for the corporate market is extremely great. Many large Russian companies are now on the verge of choosing a corporate information environment, and Lotus is one of the main contenders for this. Therefore, it seemed important to me to tell what LN actually is, what problems it solves, and what problems it creates.

I have been nurturing this idea for a long time, reading descriptions and asking friends. The final impetus for me was an acquaintance with the former head of IT of a very large bank, who spoke about some of the features of operating LN that he had to face.

A little history

Lotus was a pioneer in many areas of the software business. Many people don’t remember this now, but at the very beginning of the 90s, “Lotus 1-2-3” was synonymous with a spreadsheet - it simply had no worthy competitors... The “CC-mail” mail program remained the best corporate mail system until the middle 90s

There were no analogues of LN released in the late 80s at all - they had to come up with a separate term for it - “GroopWare” (ensuring collective work). This was the first and for a long time the only system that actually allowed for the rapid creation of a unified company information space and a corporate communications system.

The triumphal march of LN lasted almost ten years, and its main users were large and medium-sized corporations. It is not surprising that IBM, which traditionally serves the Top1000 of global businesses, showed interest in the Lotus company, and in the end bought this company outright. So now Lotus is a division of IBM that has retained some independence and the “Lotus” trademark.

Now, however, of the entire Lotus product line, only Lotus Notes really remains on the market - other office applications have practically died, unable to withstand competition with Microsoft Office. And Lotus Notes not only remains, but is actively promoted - at least on the Russian market.

Lotus Notes - what is it?

In simple words, LN is a hybrid of a DBMS and a mail system, which has a number of interesting features. There are also a number of opportunities for organizing structured communication - forums, calendars, etc.

The main feature of the Lotus database is its focus on storing large, poorly structured documents and collective work with them. By collective work we mean the ability for several people to simultaneously edit the same record (document). Accordingly, the versioning system and the ability to track changes made by individual users are supported. In addition to texts, Lotus database records can contain an arbitrary number of user-configurable details of different types. Moreover, setting up the details is quite simple and feasible for end users. Documents in the database can link to each other (something like Web hypertext links), and by clicking on a link in the text of a document, you can open another document.

LN implements a sophisticated user rights management system that allows you to assign rights to individual users and their groups both on databases and on documents and their individual fields. Authentication of documents using an electronic signature is also supported - i.e. When placed in the database, the created or modified document can be signed by the signature of the employee who worked with it.

An email program and other applications (forums, scheduling, etc.) are built on top of this very document storage system. Address books, folders with letters, calendars, etc. are also records in the database, and all common mechanisms apply to them - versions, support for group work, etc.

Another basic mechanism, first implemented in Lotus Notes, is replication - i.e. the ability of LN servers to synchronize their databases and send documents to each other in their free time from their main work. This ensures the ability to work in a geographically distributed environment with slow communication channels, when each employee works with his nearest server (i.e. quickly), and, say, at night these servers synchronize their databases.

Naturally, it is possible to develop specialized applications in the LN environment. For this purpose, the system has a built-in programming language (Lotus script), which provides access to the system API and allows you to create quite complex applications. You can also develop applications for Lotus in more traditional Java & JavaScript, which also have object libraries for working with the Lotus API.

but on the other hand

Lotus is an extremely functional system with an elegant architecture that really allows you to create a common information environment in a large company with many offices in different cities and countries. And in this capacity he had practically no competitors for almost ten years. During this time, it has gained well-deserved popularity - according to official data, about 700 companies from the Top1000 global business use it.

But times change... And what yesterday were advantages, today often become disadvantages that cause a fair amount of headaches for users and support services.

Lotus Notes is a functionally closed system that provides the user with all the work tools he needs - a text editor, an email program, a scheduling system, etc. And as long as the user uses Lotus applications for these purposes, everything is very convenient and good.

But today, a significant part of users prefer to use office applications from other companies - for example, Microsoft, which have become the de facto standard today. Lotus document storage can store “other people’s” files, but as soon as we start using MS Word together with Lotus, it immediately turns out that half of all the delights that were when working with the built-in LN editor are lost.

But problems are added - special export-import procedures. Not to mention the fact that the ergonomics of Lotus applications leaves much to be desired - at least when switching to them from Microsoft products.

Another feature that has shown its downside is replication in combination with general resource requirements. The head of the IT department of a large bank that I mentioned, which had more than 2,000 workstations on LotusNotes, recalled how their replication between cool servers over a dedicated optical fiber took hours (which means that people could not receive urgent documents sent to them for approval for hours.

And the need for many servers arose due to the fact that single servers could not cope with the load, since LN, due to its integration, is very demanding on server resources. And when they ended up rewriting the application to MS SQL, it turned out that all users are calmly “pulled” by one not-so-cool server, and the channel bandwidth (which was not enough for replication) is quite enough for normal remote work of users.

With large database volumes, Lotus Notes also suffers from a birth defect - its data storage system does not support a number of things that are standard for modern DBMSs and are absolutely necessary for the functioning of real automation systems.

• Firstly, the Lotus Notes database does not support transactions - i.e. coordinated changes to multiple tables performed as a single unit. Those. if, for example, an application running on a client managed to modify one record, but not another, and “crashed” (for example, the light turned off), then in the LN database the modified record will remain as such, while in all modern DBMSs In such a situation, the server will roll back to its initial state. Because of this, maintaining the integrity of large databases on LN becomes problematic.
• Secondly, as we said above, LN supports the ability to link documents. But at the same time, it does not have referential integrity control - you can easily delete a document that someone is linking to, and a “dangling” link will form. Naturally, there are no more advanced integrity control mechanisms - such as constraints in relational databases.
• And finally, thirdly - unlike modern relational DBMSs, where indexing of a record occurs when it is placed in the database, in LN indexing is a separate process that occurs asynchronously.

The picture of operational "delights" is complemented by a "thick" client (not just thick, but very thick) with large client-server traffic and an application development environment that requires rare and therefore expensive programmers.

Specialists who use Lotus notes also complain about the laboriousness of the initial installation and configuration, and, what is much more serious, a large number of critical errors, including in the security system, which are very slowly corrected by the development company.

Lotus as a document management system

But maybe Lotus is so good as a document management system that all of the above can be ignored? Indeed, LN has one big advantage in this capacity - it allows you to quickly create a corporate document repository and provide basic procedures for working with it.

But along with this, it also has a big drawback - that, apart from this, Lotus itself cannot do anything else. Those. It is possible to make a layout using basic Lotus tools, but it is not possible to implement a full-fledged corporate document management system that meets the requirements of State Standards. Saying “To automate office work we will buy Lotus Notes” is the same nonsense as “To automate office work we will buy MS SQL.” It is necessary to either develop a system using LN as a tool, or purchase a specialized solution.

The advantage of LN as a development environment is the presence of a number of built-in mechanisms for working with documents. We talked about the disadvantages above - expensive developers, outdated data storage technology and difficulties in integrating with other systems.

In general, it turns out that, with somewhat less labor intensity, the development time for an application system based on Lotus does not differ from similar developments based on, say, MS SQL And Visual Basic, and the cost (taking into account licenses and expensive developers) can be noticeably higher. Not to mention the fact that the operational properties of LN-based systems, such as reliability and efficiency, are noticeably worse than those of solutions based on full-fledged DBMSs.

There are specialized solutions for organizing office work on Lotus on the Russian market. The most common systems are the development of the Intertrust company - "Office Media", the "Boss-Referent" system from IT Co. and the "Cinderella" system developed by the Moscow Development Institute, and a number of other systems.

But they cost additional money to Lotus Notes itself; they are not finished products, but rather “semi-finished products”. According to experts, their functionality and operational characteristics are also inferior to systems implemented on the basis of full-fledged DBMSs and operating in the Microsft Office environment, such as Delo from Electronic Office Systems, LanDocs from Lanit, Optima Workflow from Optima.

Conclusion

And yet, why, with all of the above, is Lotus Notes quite popular among IT managers and continues its expansion into large Russian companies?

Apparently, there are two main reasons.

• Firstly, there are opportunistic - image considerations - like “we have everything like the leaders of Western business - that’s why Lotus Notes is worth it.”
• Secondly, LN creates the illusion of a quick solution. With relatively little effort, you can get a visible result and solve a layer of the simplest problems. And the fact that it will be very difficult to further develop this solution - by then either the business will die or the IT manager will change...

You should also not discount the active direct marketing policy of IBM partners.

What are the prospects for this product in the market? Those who have been exploiting hundreds and thousands of LN jobs for many years will most likely never give it up - at least until the next Y2K-level cataclysm. Simply because the costs of switching to something else will be too high - the problems that arise are easier and cheaper to solve within its framework...

But it seems to me that in modern conditions Lotus Notes is already moving into those deep-sea depressions of the market where the Loch Ness monsters, IBM mainframes and Cobol live. Lotus will live there forever, but for companies choosing solutions now, it probably doesn’t make much sense to rely on Lotus Notes.

In any case, you need to clearly understand that Lotus Notes is not just one of the systems used by the company. This is a whole world that you need to completely immerse yourself in, while moving away from the mainstream, which today, whether we like it or not, is still a component architecture based on Microsoft solutions.

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IBM Notes (formerly: IBM Lotus Notes) IBM Notes (formerly: IBM Lotus Notes) is a desktop client for social business. It provides access to the people, business applications, and information you need across the enterprise and online. Now you can do your work faster and more efficiently. IBM Notes software helps you get work done quickly by providing a single point of access for creating information resources, capturing and sharing knowledge, collaborating in teams, and making decisions. By eliminating traditional limitations in the workplace, IBM Notes software helps you connect with people and find information throughout the enterprise and on the Internet.