Domino Is Not Dead: Why Now Is a Good Time to Consider a New Value Proposition, Part 2
- Services in the Box
- Domino Development
- Domino Databases
- Templated Design
- It's Dead Jim!
- Had Enough?
If you're looking to make the most of your hardware and software investments, Domino could be the answer that provides a number of options for meeting your business needs in a single integrated platform that is rich with possibilities, making it a great value proposition.
Beyond the core architectural features discussed in the first article in this series (security, replication, client/server integration, and multiple programming languages), there are a number of built-in services bundled with a Domino server. These services don't have to be run by every Domino server in your network.
In fact, it wouldn't make sense to have them running on all. These optional services give you more uses for your Domino server, thus leveraging your investment in the hardware that's running Domino as well as your Domino administration staff.
Services in the Box
Included with every Domino server is an SMTP/POP3/IMAP mail service and mail router that lets you create an email distribution network. You can use these built-in features to send and receive mail within your organization and across organizations via the Web.
For a small business, a single Domino server could provide this essential business service along with application services. For larger corporations, you can configure servers in multiple corporate locations to route internal mail within the Domino server network using a single server to route all in-bound and out-bound Internet mail.
The single server acts as your Internet mail router. And because you have your choice of Notes mail, SMTP, POP3, or IMAP, you can use whatever mail client you choose.
The Domino server includes a Replication Manager service that manages the replication of databases between servers as well as between clients and servers.
The Replication Manager service uses the server configuration documents in the server's Address Book to orchestrate the replication of data between the servers in your network. You can configure which server initiates the replication and whether it's push, push/pull, or pull replication.
Also, you can configure the replication schedule, including which days and times the replication process should perform replication. The Notes Client can be set up with a replication schedule.
As previously mentioned, with the addition of Domino OffLine Service (DOLS) on a workstation, any of the Domino applications that are under the control of DOLS will be automatically replicated when the host server becomes available. However, you still have the option to configure replication on the schedule of your choice.
Your Domino server includes an LDAP server that utilizes Domino's security and directory capabilities. The Notes Address Book (NAB) is the glue that holds your Domino network together. The NAB contains all the information required to enforce security, it identifies all the servers within the network, it contains the server configuration documents for all the servers, it contains the identities for all authorized users, it contains the user groups that make it easier to manage security access, and it contains other configuration documents for the Domino environment.
The LDAP service makes the NAB available as an LDAP directory. The NAB can also be used to provide authentication information and can be integrated with other LDAP directories.
There are several other utility services that are included and can be run as needed on your Domino server. Domino Server comes with a Calendar Connector service for the built-in calendaring capabilities. You get the aforementioned HTTP service, which in addition to providing standard HTTP services does the automatic transliteration of Domino design elements for presentation on a web client.
Agent Manager executes code that would normally be executed on a client. And finally there is the Schedule Manager, which manages the execution of scheduled agents.
The services that I have described above are the foundational services that comprise your Domino server. In addition to them, there are a number of Lotus and third-party add-on services that you can purchase for a variety of purposes.
For example, Domino LEI (Lotus Enterprise Integrator) lets you "replicate" data with other database systems such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL server.
There are third-party services such as virus scanners for email, and a service that provides version control for your Domino design elements. All in all, the Domino server provides a rich set of services and an open architecture for additional services to be added. And as mentioned in the previous article, if that's not enough, you can create your own add-in service.