Connect 2014: Must-Attend Sessions for Administrators

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I’d like to say that for the Domino Administrator will be a plethora of sessions that you “must see” (meaning several blog posts on the topic). However, if you’ve seen the writing on the wall, then you’re prepared to attend a profusion of sessions on Connections and Sametime administration. Here are some of the “must see” sessions for Domino Administrators.

JMP402 – Master Class: Reaping Rewards and Avoiding Risks: The Secrets of Consolidating Domains (Andrew Pedisich and Rob Alexrod)

Sunday | 1:30-3:30 | Dolphin Southern Hemisphere – II

Was your environment designed almost a decade ago? Whether you want to move your email to the cloud or if you are just trimming the fat, consolidation is your future. This session covers details of collapsing multiple domains into a single domain infrastructure that is easier to manage and more efficient in costs and operations. Discover tricks and tips learned by experience to move users and servers into a single domain where best practices are implemented from start to finish. Well cover consolidation methodologies that are low risk with solid back-out plans and high rewards that will make you a superstar of infrastructure. Come to this session and get expert advice from the folks in the trenches who have consolidated dozens of domains.

ID106 – #UserBlast 2014! (Mat Newman)

Monday | 11:00-12:00 | Dolphin Southern Hemisphere IV-V

It’s time to release the power! IBM Notes has outstanding capabilities that ensure your social transformation starts from your inbox. We’ll demonstrate how to take advantage of all of these features to improve your IBM Notes literacy, boost productivity, locate expertise, find relevant information, share knowledge and collaborate – straight from your Inbox. Don’t miss the “IBM Notes 9 in 9 Minutes” demo so you can go back to your users and blast them away with the power of the amazing IBM Notes client.

SHOW101 – IBM Traveler Highly Availability – Deployment and Best Practices (Daniel Nashed)

Tuesday | 2:00-3:45 | Swan Osprey 1-2

IBM Traveler is mission critical. There is no good time for maintenance when it comes to mobile devices. In this session you’ll learn how to install IBM Traveler 9.0.1 in the classical and high availability mode. You’ll also understand the new functionality, differences and benefits. This session will cover requirements, functionality, setup of the IBM Traveler server on Windows and Linux connected to the current DB2 10.1 back-end. We’ll cover best practices including performance tuning tips for IBM Traveler on Windows and Linux and migration scenarios.

BP101 – AdminBlast 2014 (Paul Mooney and Gabriella Davis)

Tuesday | 3:00-4:00 | Dolphin North Hemisphere E

Sit down and strap yourself in for the annual Adminblast session! We’ll revisit the 200+ tips given and we’ll pick the top sixty. We’ll cover the top tips taken from the trenches over many years of consulting, covering IBM Domino, IBM Sametime, IBM Traveler — and more! Practical tips that you can use as soon as you get back to work will be emphasized, You must pay attention — and you must listen fast!

ID112 – IBM Domino Policies: Deep Dive and Best Practices (Mark Skurla)

Tuesday | 3:00-4:00 | Dolphin Southern Hemisphere I

IBM Domino Policies are a powerful tool that can be used to administer anything from ID vault to mail managed replicas. However, the flexibility of policies often causes confusion regarding their use. This session will focus not on the settings themselves, but the overall application of policies. Learn how policies actually flow throughout a domain, best practices on how to reduce the number of policies in your environment, how to troubleshoot problems, and how to use policies when using IBM Smart Cloud Notes.

ID104 – Best Practices for Upgrading to IBM Notes and Domino to 9.0.x (John Paganetti)

Tuesday | 4:15-5:15 | Dolphin North Hemisphere E

Why release 9.0.x? Get a head start on your upgrade plans by listening to the development team share their experiences upgrading IBM Notes Clients and Domino Servers to Release 9.0.x in their production domains. We’ll cover general recommended best practices and also discuss enablement of some of the new exciting features in release 9.0.x that you’ll want to take advantage of right away. We’ll riddle the presentation with FAQs about upgrading, new features and lessons learned with release 9.0.x. You’ll walk away with information helping you expedite your own 9.0.x production deployment.

ID302 – Upgrading and Migrating to IBM Sametime 9 (Anthony Payne)

Thursday | 10:00-11:00 | Dolphin North Hemisphere E

IBM Sametime 9 is here! This session will help administrators understand how to upgrade and migrate from previous releases. Included will be discussions on end user data migration as well as architectural reviews.

ID602 – IBM Notes Traveler – Best Practices for Deployment, Maintenance and Support (Charles Ebbe and Robert Sielken)

Thursday | 11:15-12:15 | Dolphin Southern Hemisphere – II

This session will cover best practices for deploying and maintaining IBM Notes Traveler along with how to troubleshoot many problems yourself and get the best, fastest support should the need arise. Topics to be covered in depth will include: system/capacity planning, handling maintenance, monitoring your IBM Notes Traveler servers, cloud administration, and general do’s and don’ts to avoiding common pitfalls. A must attend for all IBM Notes Traveler administrators!

(hat tip to Bruce Elgort for the blog topic idea – I took his “Must Attend” post for developers and made it for administrators)

Open MIc Webcast: All-in-one Admin Tool for Agent-based Troubleshooting & Problem Solving – 13 November 2013

Well, kids, it’s time for another webcast.

Join IBM’s Rene Jenkins [13 November, 11:00 EST], along with several other members of the IBM Notes & Domino teams as they discuss the All-in-one Admin Tool for agent-based troubleshooting & problem solving. After a presentation attendees will be given an opportunity to ask questions. Throughout the event, attendees will also be encouraged to comment or ask questions through our SmartCloud meeting web chat. Join us for this interactive, educational, lively session.

More >

Open Mic Webcast: What’s New in IBM Notes Traveler Since 9.0 Shipped

Come hear more about the new IBM Notes Traveler features that have been released since 9.0 shipped earlier this year. New features include Attachment Security, Out of Office, Streaming, Android Client Improvements, Device OS Currency, and more.

After a presentation attendees will be given an opportunity to ask questions. Throughout the event, attendees will also be encouraged to comment or ask questions through our SmartCloud meeting web chat. Join us for this interactive, educational, lively session.

Topic: What’s New in IBM Notes Traveler Since 9.0 Shipped

Day: Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Time: 11:00 AM EST (16:00 UTC/GMT, UTC-5 hours) for 60 minutes

More >

Please note, this is happening tomorrow, 6 November.

Good news: Custom Builder Uses XPages, Wins “Vision Award”

Perhaps most impressive is the fact company owner Eric Rose himself served as the software architect and teamed with a certified Lotus software developer for Project Framework. Using IBM’s Domino Designer, which includes the IBM XPages toolset for creating a Web 2.0 experience across different platforms, Rose can develop Project Framework’s Internet and mobile capabilities.

And for Rose, the customization is never complete. He continues to enhance the application in order to match the changing needs of his project and clients. For example, the use of IBM Notes Traveler enables users to access project documentation on smartphones, with additional pieces of the software being mobilized using XPages.

More >

Open Mic Webcast: External elements that can negatively impact your IBM Domino server

A new Open Mic Webcast on 23 October at 11AM EST.

Join IBM’s Monica Senior, along with several other members of the IBM Domino team as they discuss External elements that can negatively impact your IBM Domino server

During this webcast, we will cover five external elements that can cause your IBM Domino server to crash, prevent the server from starting, and/or affect the server’s performance. These external elements include but are not limited to operating system configurations and applications that are seemingly harmless, but we will cover how their settings negatively impacted IBM Domino servers.

After a presentation attendees will be given an opportunity to ask questions. Throughout the event, attendees will also be encouraged to comment or ask questions through our SmartCloud meeting web chat. Join us for this interactive, educational, lively session.

Follow highlights from these Open Mics live on Twitter using #ICSOpenMic or following us on Twitter @IBM_ICSsupport.

More >

Let’s see if we can guess the “five external elements.” I’ll start:

  1. DNS
  2. Network
  3. Users
  4. Halon
  5. Alcohol (as consumed by either/both the Administrator or the Developer).,

Whirlpool Corporation: Goodbye IBM Notes

Google Apps scored some enterprise street cred on Monday by announcing a huge customer: Whirlpool.

Whirlpool has 68,000 employees and 66 facilities around the world who will standardize on Apps, Google’s cloud email and office productivity suite. Whirlpool did not ditch Microsoft Exchange or Office for Google. It was using IBM’s Lotus Notes, its CIO Michael Heim told the Wall Street Journal.


This news item is very short on details, unless you are interested in the Google versus Microsoft battle. In fact, all of the articles that I could find on this topic only talk about Google and Microsoft. It makes you wonder if IBM even has some sort of cloud service. If it does (and it really does have a cloud service – why don’t you Google it?), it is never mentioned in these types of articles.


Sixty-eight thousand employees is rather significant, meanwhile in Armonk, NY, IBM says that IBM Lotus/Domino is a growing product. It’s really hard to define “growing” as the contribution of IBM Lotus/Domino is rolled into several other products in their portfolio. I’m sure IBM has lined up a company to take Whirlpool’s place, and then some, in order to continue the growth in IBM Lotus/Domino.


As an aside, there once was a great company in North Canton, Ohio, by the name of Hoover. I’m sure you have heard it. Hoover was sold to Whirlpool. But before that, I was fortunate to assist them with a cc:Mail to Notes migration. Along with the migration, I made some friends at Hoover. One of which has become a very good friend. For that, I am extremely grateful to Hoover (and, I suppose, IBM/Lotus).

What is IBM SmartCloud Notes Hybrid?

A great question and one that might be answered in an Open Mic webcast on 24 September.

IBM Support would like to help you take full advantage of IBM SmartCloud for Social Business. During our Open Mic webcasts, technical experts share their knowledge and answer your questions. The sessions are designed to address specific technical topics and provide in-depth but narrowly focused training in convenient, live 1 hour seminars.

This event will be held Tuesday, September 24th, at 11:00 a.m. EDT (15:00 UTC, or GMT -4), for 60 minutes. After a presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions directly of IBM Product Managers, Developers and Solution Architects.

Open Mic Webcast Information
When: 24 September 2013
Time: 11:00 a.m. EDT (15:00 UTC, or GMT -4), for 60 minutes
Detailed information in Open Mic technote # 7039103 Title: What’s New in IBM SmartCloud Notes? – September 24, 2013

Doc #: 7039103
The technote will include:

Details on how to join the call and web conference
An iCal attachment to add this event into any iCal-supported calendar
The slides that will be presented during the session
Any replay or recording information after the session concludes

Web conference You can find the web conference URL and password in the webcast technote under the “Web conference” section.
Dial-in information Dial-in Passcode: 8119927

US/Canada phone numbers:
Toll-free number (866) 803-2145
Toll number (210) 795-1099

International phone numbers are listed in technote 7039103

Traveler and iOS 7

With the imminent release of iOS 7, are your Traveler servers ready to handle the new operating system? Traveler has to be at 8.5.3 UP2 IF4 and 9.0.0.1 or later releases. New functions in iOS 7 may not be fully supported until later releases of Traveler.

To get the latest updates and fix packs for Traveler, go here.

Link: IBM Notes Traveler support for the latest device updates

Using the Database Maintenance Tool (DBMT) and Compact Replication in Domino 9

Well, this is a bit late, however the TechNote will be updated in “a couple of weeks” so at least you will have have the opportunity to review the slides and the Q&A.
You are invited to join an Open Mic Webcast on the topic “Using the Database Maintenance Tool (DBMT) and Compact Replication in Domino 9”.  This event will be held Wednesday, 11 September 2013 at 11:00 AM EDT (15:00 UTC, or GMT -4), for 60 minutes. After a presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions directly of IBM Developers and Support Engineers. See more details below.  (Note: To view this information online, go here).

When     Date:  11 September 2013
Time: 11:00 AM EDT (15:00 UTC, or GMT -4), for 60 minutes
Title: Open Mic Webcast: Using the Database Maintenance Tool (DBMT) and Compact Replication in Domino 9 – 11 September 2013
Doc #: 7039379
URL: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27039379

Before the call, the technote will include:
An iCal attachment to add this event to your calendar
Details on how to join the call and web conference
The slides that will be presented during the session

A couple of weeks after the call, the technote will be updated to include:
A recording of the session
A written Q&A transcript

To be notified when the Webcast technote is updated, subscribe to IBM My Notifications and select “Webcasts” as a document type of interest.