Server Planning for Lotus Notes Domino – Need Advise
Hardware, Hardware selection and management, Lotus Domino, Operating system platforms, Performance/Availability, Planning, Servers
Hello.
My company currently has 4 Domino servers each one running on a Windows 2000 server platform. We are not satisfied with the Domino performance on the Windows server so we're looking to replace the Windows platform with something else. What would you recommend based on your experience?
Backgroud on our Domino network: We have 5,000 users. We plan to combine 4 servers into 2 servers. We plan to set up Domino clustering, load balancing and fault tolerance. We thought about getting iSeries or Linux.
I would really appreciate your advice.
Thanks.
Software/Hardware used:
Software/Hardware used:
ASKED:
March 21, 2005 5:34 PM
UPDATED:
March 22, 2005 5:52 PM
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We are running a Domino B2B site on an IBM 810 - we converted from Intel NT4. It runs very well with a replicated backup server and the code did not need significant changes to run on the iSeries. The one caution I have is that IBM tends to still not fully understand the iSeries environment so some support issues take a bit of time to resolve. That being said the new i5 boxes can provide a ton of cycles for Domino performance for a somewhat reasonable price.
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Can we get some information on the hardware? IBM’s Compaq’s, what? Are they single processor, dual or quad? Are they Xeons or not? If you are running webmail or web applications how much RAM do you have? What version of Notes are you running as well?
Thanks!
KenCollins, thanks for your input. I appreciate it. That’s the kind of feedback I’m looking for.
Tdoughboy, I’m still researching what type of hardware we should get. It all depends on what type of type of OS we decide on; such as AS400 or Linux or something else.
Tdoughboy, additional background, we have 5000 users, about 80% of which will access their emails and databases via web browser and the rest will access their emails via notes client. There’s a future plan to eliminate the Notes client all together. We plan to run ND6.5.x. We have approximately 30 LN databases which we plan to web-enable all of them. We want a server that’s scalable. Let me know if you need additional information. Thanks.
-marias
Hi Marias,
The choices of platform you have indicated have, in my experience, both provided a much more scalable and stable environment for Domino than your current platform.
My suggestion to you would be this – whether you move to iSeries, or Linux in the short term consider the experience that exists within your company with either of these operating environments. The more training and consultancy you need to get either of these platforms up and running will add to the TCO of the platform in the initial stages.
Unix/Linux administrators are readily available and the skills and knowledge required to operate and tune this environment is more widespread and less specialised than that required to manage an AS400 system.
Having said that, we have many clients running on AS400 who swear by it. The reliability offered by AS400 and it’s scalability from a few to many thousands of users running Domino is legendary.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Mat
Mat. Thanks, that was a great suggestion. I will make sure that the platform is setup at its optimum for our purpose.
-MariaS.