BP306 - Connecting the dots between Domino, Notes 9 and Connections

BP306
Connecting the dots between Domino,
Notes 9 and Connections
Francie Tanner | Director | panagenda
Franz Walder | Product Manager | panagenda

© 2013 IBM Corporation

Agenda

! Introduction

! Infrastructure / IBM Connections

! Regulation / Security

! Cloud / Preparing your Migration

! Summary

2

Introduction

! Francie Tanner, Technical Director, Americas
─ Over 15 years experience in IBM Notes and Domino consulting
─ Managing, architecting, and supporting
10 – 100'000 user environments
─ Experienced instructor and speaker
─ Is from Switzerland, lives in the Caribbean

! Franz Walder, Product Manager
─ 13 years of Notes Development & Administration
─ Infrastructure analysis and virtualization ninja
─ Lives in Austria (hence the funny accent)

3

Introduction

! Regardless if you're thinking about going to the cloud, IBM Connections,
consolidating or growing your environment
─ Crucial data lives in various places in your IT infrastructure
─ Doing any of the above projects requires you to look at this data in a “big picture” view

! The challenge: How do you connect the various information silos?
─ Knowledge is spread out in the environment in numerous repositories on several servers
─ In many situations, companies aren't even aware of the information available to them

! Scope and theme of this session
─ There is no such thing as a “one size fits all” solution to this problem
─ But we can show you where and how to look to make sense of your connected environment
─ You don’t necessarily need a 3rd party product or vendor to help you
─ If you haven’t noticed by now, this isn’t a technical integration session
─ Three customer scenarios are covered where we've helped cope with these types of issues

4

Agenda

! Introduction




! Summary

5

Infrastructure / IBM Connections

! Leveraging the full potential of IBM Connections can have a significant impact
on your IT environment
─ Connecting end-user knowledge to projects and communities
─ Providing wikis or Knowledge Bases
─ File repositories to store data outside of email
─ Discussion boards, forums, blogs

! Your reason to deploy Connections depends on your IT strategy
─ What you want to measure/know more about, hence depends on that too

! Important not only in this example: Know your baseline!
─ What amount of _____ (fill in the blank focus area) are you doing today?

! Server metrics and statistics help you gain transparency

6


! How do you plan a Connections implementation and introduce it to employees?
─ Who gets access?
Who is my pilot group?
–
– Which mail servers / regions / organization levels?

─ How do you communicate your goal to employees?
─ Do organizational policies have to be created by management?
– Files larger than __ have to live in Connections
– All communication around a certain project lives in Connections

! Customer example: “What effects will Connections have on my Domino mailing
infrastructure?”
─ Primary goal: Reducing the Domino mail volume
─ Primary goal: Reducing the number of large attachments in Domino databases
─ Secondary goal: Gain better server performance with less traffic, which in turn leads to server
consolidation potential

7


! Customer Example: Messaging baseline and impact
─ Domino Statistics (gathered via STATREP.NSF)
– Mail.TotalRouted (Mail.Delivered / Mail.Transferred)
– Mail.DeliveredSize.* (Mail.TransferredSize.*)

─ File → Export → Comma Separated Value
─ Combine results of multiple servers in spreadsheet calculation software

! See Andy Pedisich's blog at http://www.andypedisich.com on how to process
cumulative statistics in spreadsheet calculation programs

8


! Customer example: IBM Connections metrics
─ Connections Files Servermetrics (gathered via web browser)
– URL: https://your.connections.server/files/app#/statistics
– File sharing details / user activity

9


! Summary: What information do we understand better now?
─ Our Domino mail volume in general and attachment size distribution
─ Information on how many users use the Files application
─ Data on the files being attached
─ Over time, effectiveness of the Connections implementation

! Connecting the above dots tells you if and how the goals are being achieved
─ Continuous analysis is needed here

! Bonus tip: other Connections server metrics exist
─ Only basic information is provided, IBM Cognos is not required
─ Activity Stats: https://your.connections.server/activities/service/html/servermetrics
─ Community Stats: https://your.connections.server/communities/service/html/servermetrics

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Agenda

! Introduction




! Summary

11

Regulation / Security

! Fact: The way we collaborate is constantly evolving
─ New collaboration solutions come and go
Chat and VOIP solutions are adopted and decommissioned
–

• remember the 360 degree turn of ICQ?
─ Mobile device access is relatively new and “addictive”
– This means constantly evolving security, standardization and integration challenges

─ Company mergers and migrations sometimes force change
─ Labor laws and regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC and HIPAA apply
– Think electronic information retention

! Let's look at one of these unusual and interesting examples now...

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! Customer Example: Volkswagen decided to turn off Blackberry email forwarding
outside working hours

! Customer Example: Atos announced an intended ban of internal emails in 2014

! Social responsibility pressure is building particularly among large European
companies, because of the above

! Former “nice to have“ technical information suddenly has management attention
─ Such as mail volume forwarded to Blackberry devices during non-business hours
─ Such as total amount of email processed per month
─ Such as alternative collaboration methods to be implemented and measured

13


! Basic questions:
─ How many emails are sent through our messaging environment?
─ How many of those are sent to or from mobile devices?

! Knowledge Repositories
─ Domino Statistics (gathered via STATREP.NSF as before)
Mail.Delivered
–
– Mail.Transferred

─ Traveler Statistics (gathered via STATREP.NSF as before)
– Traveler.DeviceSync.Documents.ToDevice.Mail.Add
– Traveler.DeviceSync.Documents.ToServer.Mail.Add
─ BES Statistics (gathered via SNMP browser)
– blackBerryServer.besTotMsgsSent.0 ( SNMP OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.3530.5.3.0 )
– blackBerryServer.besTotMsgsRecvd.0 ( SNMP OID: 1.3.6.1.4.1.3530.5.4.0 )

14


! Advanced questions:
─ Group information per weekday, rather than on a simple time axis
─ Group information per work shift within a weekday

15


! Information Ninja level questions:
─ Break down the information to identify region, location and department volume
─ Connecting messaging information with HR data helps

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! Customer gained transparency on:
─ What the actual collaboration usage patterns are
─ What measures are reasonable to enforce in their situation

! Customer approach as a result:
─ Organizational policy that discourages outside work hour mobile device email activity
─ Continuously checking mail volume to verify policy compliance

! Options down the line:
─ Analysis broken down to locations and departments enables pin-point measures
─ If continuous compliance measurements aren't satisfactory, service restrictions may need to
be implemented

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Agenda

! Introduction




! Summary

18

Cloud / Preparing your Migration

! Core question in every migration - what do you have to migrate?
─ We're assuming you've answered the “why” at this point

! Migration destinations:
XPages, Notes Web Plugin, Lotus Live, Traveler, something else etc.

! Knowing your environment is a basic requirement
─ Database activity and resource usage
─ User behavior and activity patterns

! The data you need is already in your LOG.NSF (and CATALOG.NSF), we
simply need to turn it into useful information

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! DB Activity: LOG.NSF – documents with form type “Activity”

─ Answers baseline questions around what is used, not used, size
─ View selection formula: SELECT FORM = "Activity"
─ Add columns that are interesting in your scenario

20


! DB Activity: LOG.NSF – database activity details

─ Note there is a 1400 activity entry maximum per database (FIFO)
─ There is also a 64K size limit for the user activity
─ More details in IBM Technote #1086245

21


! DB Activity: CATALOG.NSF
─ related information, but different focus
─ Full text index details
─ Replication information
─ ACL overview

─ Note: Domino does not distinguish
between user, server or
maintenance tasks activity at this level

22


! When is user activity a topic?
─ Can be important when consolidation is a part of the migration
─ DB activity summaries are limited by technical restrictions, raw user data not so much
─ When differentiating between server and user activity

! Why are usage patterns important?
─ Learning how users use Notes or other software
– Such as before migrating to XPages, Notes browser plugin

─ Identifying “abnormal” access
– Terminated users still accessing systems, huge amounts of data transfer, etc.

! How can we extract that kind of data?
─ Simple user activity via view in your log.nsf, export to CSV
─ Session activity / usage patterns via script or 3rd party tools

23


! User Activity: LOG.NSF – basic information is easy to extract

─

─ File → Export → Comma Separated Value
─ Combine results of multiple servers in spreadsheet calculation software

24


! Summary: What kind of questions can we now answer?
─ Which databases are used/unused?
─ What kind of traffic do we see on different servers?
─ What is the relationship between storage requirement and activity?
─ Which users generate which amount of server traffic
─ Where are the users geographically in relation to the information

! All this can tell you... and more
─ How much space is needed in the new cloud solution
─ Which databases or servers can be decommissioned
─ Which databases should move closer to users
─ How much traffic is expected in the new cloud solution

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Agenda

! Introduction




! Summary

26

Summary

! Useful information lives everywhere
─ Existing and custom views in IBM Domino, Connections, Traveler and other logs, catalogs
─ You may not need a 3rd party product or vendor

─ Exporting data out of their native repositories makes it user friendly and goes a long way
─ Combining different data sources in spreadsheet format paints a connected “big picture”

─ You may already have the answers to questions, but don’t know where to look
─ Hidden information gems are everywhere like those Connections URL and Traveler
statistics can be helpful

! You can't migrate, expand, consolidate without knowing your baseline
─ Even though go into day-to-day monitoring and statistics in here, it's crucial

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Got Questions?

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Legal disclaimer
© IBM Corporation 2013. All Rights Reserved.
The information contained in this publication is provided for informational purposes only. While efforts were made to verify the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in this publication, it
is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind, express or implied. In addition, this information is based on IBM’s current product plans and strategy, which are subject to change by IBM without notice.
IBM shall not be responsible for any damages arising out of the use of, or otherwise related to, this publication or any other materials. Nothing contained in this publication is intended to, nor shall have the
effect of, creating any warranties or representations from IBM or its suppliers or licensors, or altering the terms and conditions of the applicable license agreement governing the use of IBM software.
References in this presentation to IBM products, programs, or services do not imply that they will be available in all countries in which IBM operates. Product release dates and/or capabilities referenced in
this presentation may change at any time at IBM’s sole discretion based on market opportunities or other factors, and are not intended to be a commitment to future product or feature availability in any
way. Nothing contained in these materials is intended to, nor shall have the effect of, stating or implying that any activities undertaken by you will result in any specific sales, revenue growth or other
results.
Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary
depending upon many factors, including considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the user's job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed.
Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve results similar to those stated here.
All customer examples described are presented as illustrations of how those customers have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Actual environmental costs and performance
characteristics may vary by customer.

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BP306 - Connecting the dots between Domino, Notes 9 and Connections

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