In search of... Lotus Admin Best PracticesThe concept of a “Best Practices” collection about a technical subject like Notes and Domino system administration starts where the standard technical manuals end. It means a collection of real-world rules of thumb, lessons learned and ways to avoid gotchas that tell you how to manage the subject at hand in an overall way, especially in making long-term decisions about how to configure systems, approach projects, define responsibilities and set policies. Similar in application to a "field guide," A good Best Practice document is a great resource for someone who is experienced in one technology and wants to get acquainted quickly in the flavor of a new one. Lotus and Iris have for several years made Best Practice databases (both R4 and R5) widely available as downloads for Developers. But for some reason, administrators have had no such luck. The "Knowledge sharing" company has left the administrator community to pass on its hard-won life lessons, its meta-body of knowledge the old-fashioned tribal way. User groups, conferences and other gatherings are the only places for the admin community to transfer wisdom. Another place where this kind of knowlede is collected is in corporate admin policy guides. These are rarely shared outside of the organizations that create them because of specific proprietary content that describes security structures. It is nearly impossible for a vendor to write a really good BP doc since one of the key features of a BP about a vendor's product is how to work around the “party line” delivered by the support documents and tell the story of what really has worked in the field. Fortunately for Lotus, IBM's support organization has written a bunch of “Redbooks” about Lotus Products based on consulting and field support experience. We should carefully watch what happens to their unique relationship now that Lotus is being more closely incorporated into the Borg. I am writing up this collection page in the same spirit as one who sets out a picnic in hopes of a rainstorm. I hope my trouble in starting my own little BP outline is for nothing because Lotus will finally publish their "Best Practices" collection. Lotus has reportedly been creating and harboring an “Admin BP” forum or knowledge base collection that was only available to Business Partners. However, the Lotus BP web site was shut down and migrated into IBM's PartnerWorld for software (PWSW). Much of the old Lotus BP content, some of which was publicly browsable, seems to have been lost forever to Partners and the Notes user community. There are some who benefit from this situation, of course - the professional services groups and the top echelon of systems consultants. But I believe that if IBM/Lotus helped with the knowledge sharing a bit more, the deployment landscape for their products at all sites would be smoother, opening opportunities to do more value-added rather than remedial administration and architecture work. Not only would it foster more positive admin gigs, but user sites that have smooth-running systems are more open to using the system as a development platform, ergo more app dev gigs. I sincerely hope that as I complete this page of links, Lotus/IBM will publish the legendary and mysterious “ABP” as it has been known to those few people who have seen it. 1. Admin decision realms of practice. This would make a good outline for a BP document (or even a book).
2. This is a set of links to candidate source material for an ideal admin best practices collection. Within these articles and many like them are some answers to the subjects outlined above. One good source that is not publicly available is the materials used in Lotus training guides, such as "Maintaining a Domino Infrastructure." Mixed in with the standard technical instructions are some real-world recommendations and troubleshooting tips. Appendix C of that student guide is "Best Practices." Professor INI refers to the elusive “ABP”, whose filename is said to be abp_d.nsf Notes Net search - includes thread I started requesting BP tips GroupComputing Thread I started Goldstein's 12- Step Program (GroupComputing) Following the Rules – Daniel Witteven (GroupComputing.com) Lotus Redbooks Portal - there are many sources here, both detailed and high-level, like the next two.. Secrets to Running Lotus Notes: The Decisions No One Tells You How to Make (redbook) A Roadmap for Deploying Domino in the Organization (redbook) Free Admin Tools (DominoPower) Migrations - I consider articles about migrations to be very good distillations of admin concerns, since they usually address the need to collect all the important high-level issues in one place. Nothing straightens out your priorities like a move. "What ya can't carry - bury" - Chrissie Hynde Jump Start to R5 Upgrade – Lisa Pyle (The View/Lotus) Upgrading R4 to R5 (GroupComputing) Lotus Notes and Domino Take Center Stage: Upgrading from R4 to R5 (redbook) Tips collections A few of the better tips collections like “Ask Ben” are good enough to be considered source material for a best practices compilation, as long as the real detailed stuff is thinned out. The Lotus Notes FAQ Admin section is in this category. Steven Caudill, an editor of Lotus ADVISOR magazine often has consulting-based advice related to system deployment and design of a BP nature in his columns. Alas, they are not easily accessible on the web. His group handed out a "Top 10 Things" flier about Notes 3 at an early Lotusphere, when dev and admin were nearly indistinguishable roles. Ask Ben – Admin Archive (GroupComputing) From Lotus.com Lotus Admin Zone sometimes has a good tip or 2… Lotus Masters Series video seminars also allude in their marketing materals to “Admin Best Practices” – but then they backpedaled and called this session “Favored Practices” |