Solution and implement a local mail copy of IBM Lotus Notes

The flexibility and freedom offered by replication are unmatched advantages of using IBM Lotus Notes. Many organizations choose to take advantage of this powerful feature on a 24x7 basis and configure their users to use a local copy of the Notes database, including the mail database.

In addition to the points discussed in the previous article, Lotus Notes/domino adds additional features that make it more appealing to implement local mail replicas. This article discusses these new enhancements and recommends some ways to set up local mail replicas. Before interpreting the local replica model and technical details that are relevant to setting up this environment within your infrastructure, let's look at an example of the applicability of a model.

Implementing an example of a local message copy

Each environment has special requirements and it is therefore difficult to provide a set of criteria or recommendations that can be applied to all agencies. The following example will assist you in developing a successful plan for deploying local mail replicas.

XYZ Company has deployed a Lotus Domino mail server for each new zone because it is a standard configured configuration and most sites with fewer than 25 users use low bandwidth. Most e-mail communications within a company occur between regions, and few e-mail messages are exchanged between users in the same office. Over time, the number of Lotus Domino mail servers outside the central location in the environment increased to 37, serving about 1,400 users, while the Lotus Domino mail server with two clusters at Headquarters served 2,900 users. The company's finance department raises questions about the number of servers and the number of licenses required to run an electronic messaging environment. To reduce the number of servers and licenses required, while still providing high availability and load balancing, the IT department decided to relocate a subset of the users to the Center office and implement a local mail copy.

The IT team assesses the company's current usage patterns, determining the server location, the number of users, and the available bandwidth. Table 1 defines the following categories.

Table 1. Evaluation of current usage patterns

　　

Number of sites in the environment	Number of users	Available bandwidth	Recommended actions
11	Less than 25 people		Focus
1	25–50 a user	Less than 256 KB	Centralized (monitoring)
7	25–50 a user	Greater than 256 KB	Focus
2	50–150 a user	Less than 1 MB	Server that deploys the cluster
13	50–150 a user	Greater than 1 MB	Focus
3	More than 150 users		Server that deploys the cluster

Based on the results of the assessment, the IT department decided to centralize 32 sites in its environment into the two cluster servers at Headquarters and deploy five additional servers to the site where the server continues to be maintained. This reduces the total number of servers from 39 to 14 and provides a highly available and load-balanced environment for all users.

Top IT leaders require that all users in the environment use a set of same access methods. To achieve this, the IT team developed customized Setup and Desktop policies to automate the deployment process. Before making a decision to migrate to a local message copy, the environment contains a Desktop policy and a Setup policy. To ensure that a request to replicate data to end users does not cause this environment to overload, the IT team develops the Setup and Desktop policies for each location so that they can control the replication process. By moving the focus to a local mail copy, by implementing a set of policies for each server, the IT team shifted its focus to a smaller number of Setup and Desktop policies.

The IT team reduced the number of servers after the environment was moved to a local mail copy. The reduction in the number of servers and the implementation of the cluster allow maintenance on the server without any downtime for the user. This improves the user's overall satisfaction with the environment.

Description of replication to the local mail database

We often hear people talking about local mail and server-based Mail. What the hell does that mean? Local mail database replication refers to obtaining a copy of his or her mail file on a user's workstation, allowing users to use their e-mail messages without having to connect to the server. Sends outgoing e-mail messages at periodic intervals, while copying the mail files on the server to exchange any changes between the two databases. The description of the environment configuration is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Local Mail Copy environment configuration

　　

To create this type of environment, you need to configure certain settings on the user's Lotus Notes client.

A copy of the user mail database must be created on the user's workstation. Directory catalogs are highly recommended for users to find names when addressing mail messages locally. You, an administrator, or a user can manually create a local copy from a user's workstation or using the Lotus Notes/domino policy. Once you have created a local replica and catalog catalog, you must set it up to replicate using the server copy of these databases to maintain synchronized modifications. We recommend a replication of these databases every 30 minutes. Configuring the replication operation to occur once every 30 minutes ensures that the client does not degrade server and client performance because of too frequent replication operations.

The Lotus Notes user performance on the workstation must be set to check for new messages on the server. This performance should be set to check every 5 minutes, which allows the user to receive messages at intervals that are far less than the 30-minute replication interval. This will ensure that the client maintains an open session with the Domino server and receives frequent notification of new mail.

The Lotus Notes client on the user's workstation must also specify the local copy of the user's mail file as the location for the action e-mail message. In addition, you must make some modifications to the client configuration to specify the local directory catalog to use when addressing mail messages. With these modifications, users can seamlessly operate on their local replicas and have an experience that is very close to operating on the server.

This appears to be a user or you have manually made some modifications on the user's workstation. Although manual configuration is a choice, you can also create policies to complete these modifications in the Lotus Notes/domino environment without having to access individual workstations. Because policies allow you to reconfigure a large number of workstations at the same time, you should pay extra attention to the granular expansion of these modifications so that requests to create a copy of the mail file and catalog catalogs suddenly flock to the network.

Enhancements to the use of local mail replicas

Many organizations prefer their users to use local mail replicas for a variety of reasons. But from a management standpoint, there are often many drawbacks to this configuration. These disadvantages are related to workstation configuration, user training, and providing directory services to users. Since the new Lotus Notes (V6.0 and later) have improved on replication, policy, and catalog cataloging, local mail replicas are easier to manage.

Network compression

Starting with Lotus Notes 6.x, the replication has been significantly modified, thus greatly increasing the speed and efficiency of network use. If network traffic is not compressed through routers or VPN software, the introduction of replication compression reduces the amount of data between the client and the server to 30-40%.

Streaming replication

In addition, the Lotus Notes V6.0 introduces streaming replication. This feature improves the user experience when using a local mail copy. When you copy, the new document is copied to the local mail copy in the order of the small to large. This eliminates the need to wait for many other mail messages when you first copy a single message with a large attachment. When you copy a document to a local mail database, streaming replication also allows the user to view and use the documents, so you do not have to wait until all the modified replications are complete before using the new message.

Asynchronous notification

Starting with the Lotus Notes v6.5.x Edition, asynchronous notifications are introduced. If the Notes client is used with a local mail copy and is open to the Domino server, the Domino server sends a new mail message to the client. Notifications sent by the Domino server trigger the Notes client to copy the message file and bring the new message to the local message copy. The replication does not require user intervention and does not depend on the replication progress set in the Lotus Notes client. This feature allows users to receive incoming mail messages while using a local copy.

Strategy

Introduced policies to assist you in configuring and maintaining settings on the user's workstation. This powerful feature gives you a lot of flexibility when configuring a user's workstation. By using policies, you can set the entire configuration settings, which are the settings necessary for users to use a local mail copy, without having to access the user station. This article will show you how to set up a policy to manage the scenario later.

Catalog Catalogs

While improvements in replication and policy are powerful features, the key to successfully implementing a user's local mail copy is to create a catalog catalog. You can create two types of catalog catalogs.

Compressed or Portable Catalog catalogs

A Portable Catalog catalog contains user and group entries from the Domino directory and other directories that you select. The Portable catalog catalog compresses entries for directories selected in the Catalog catalog database. The default rate for compressing entries is approximately 255 records in Domino directory (1 equivalent to 1 user or group entries) compressed to 1 records in a portable catalog catalog. The catalog catalog is therefore very small and can only be sorted by last name or first name, and the sorting method must be specified when the catalog catalog is created.

Extended Catalog Catalogs

An extended catalog catalog is based on the user, group, and server entries in Domino directory and other directories that you specify. An extended Catalog catalog provides uncompressed entries, so the catalog catalog is much larger than a portable catalog catalog. However, because the catalog catalog does not contain Connection directories, program directories, and so on, it is smaller than Domino directory. It is also very flexible in finding users, looking the same way as Domino Directory (that is, searching for first name, first name, initials, and so on).

A key factor in user satisfaction when working with local mail replicas is that users who work offline can find names in the directory. There are advantages and disadvantages to the portable catalogue cataloging and the extended catalog cataloging. Portable catalog catalogs are relatively small, while extended catalog catalogs provide more flexible lookup capabilities. You should select a catalog catalog that is appropriate for your environment based on the size of the catalog catalog. If an extended catalog catalog is created and is greater than MB, a portable catalog catalog is used. The decision point between the directory size used as the two catalog catalog types takes two factors into account, on the one hand, the time the user spends on the replicated directory, and the other is the growth of the directory.

Now that we've discussed the key factors in the environment using local mail replicas, let's look at how to create and configure the environment.

Configuring the Environment

To enable users to successfully use local mail replicas and maintain a rich user experience in use, you need to enable and configure some settings on the user's workstation. These settings can be found in the user Preferences and Location documentation for the users workstation, as shown in table 2.

Table 2. List of fields that need to be configured

　　

Workstation settings	Value
Create Local Replicas	Mail file, Directory Catalog
User Preferences
Cascade Directory Catalog (mailgeneral tab)	Name of Catalog Catalog database
Check for new mail every (mailgeneral tab)	5 minutes
Automatically refresh Inbox (mailgeneral tab)	Enabled
Create full-text indexing for searching (Replication tab)	Enabled
Should Notes encrypt new replicas? (Replication tab)	Locally encrypt using Medium encryption
Location Document (Mail tab)
Mail File Location	Local
Recipient Name Type-ahead	Local only
Mail addressing	Local and Server
Transfer Outgoing Mail if	1
Location Document (Replication tab)
Enable Replication	Enabled
Create New Replicas	Immediately
Replicate when Notes starts	Enabled, Prompt before replicating
Schedule	Enabled
Replicate Daily between	7:00 am–7:00 PM
Repeat every	Minutes
Days of week	Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri
Replicate when Notes ends	Prompt to replicate as Notes shuts down, in anything are waiting to be sent.

There are two ways to configure these settings on a user station: manual or Use policy. This section configures the client manually by steps. The next section discusses how to use the Lotus Domino policy to set these parameters.

Creation of local replicas

By default, the settings for the Lotus Notes environment do not create a local copy of the mail database or a catalog catalog for the local replication model. The following tasks are centered on the mail database, but the steps to complete these catalog catalogs are equally important.

Note: Before you create a local copy of the catalog catalog, create a catalog catalog on the Domino server.

Note: If there is a local copy of the mail database that is not replicated in the end-user environment, delete and re-create the database to avoid the document that was previously deleted when you enabled replication to appear again in the database.

Select the Mail database on the workstation and select File–replication–new Replica to create a new copy of the Mail database. Accept the default settings for the new replica and click OK to confirm the new copy created on the local workstation (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Create Replica dialog box

　　

Set the password for a local message copy

Make sure that the mail database is encrypted locally to protect your data. Open the Database Properties box, and then click the Encryption Settings button. In the Encryption dialog box, select the locally encrypt this database using option, and then select the appropriate encryption level from the Drop-down list. The default encryption level is Medium encryption.

Note: Depending on the security requirements of your environment, different levels of encryption may be required. The Domino environment considers three levels of encryption.

Configure User Preferences

The User Preferences dialog box contains the client configuration settings. Select File–preferences–user Preferences to open this dialog box. To ensure that new messages appear in the local copy of the message file in a timely manner, select the Mail-general tab and configure the following settings (see Figure 3):

Enter or browse to the file name of the local directory catalog in the Configuration part of the Locals Address books field.

In the Receiving section, select the check for new mail every option, and then set the interval to 5 minutes.

In the When New Mail arrives section, select the Automatically refresh Inbox option.

Figure 3. Mail settings on the User Preferences dialog box

　　

Select the Replication tab and configure the default settings for creating a new replica (see Figure 4).

Select the Create full text index for searching option to ensure that all new replicas are ready for search.

Select the locally encrypt using option and determine the appropriate encryption level. This ensures that all databases replicated locally are encrypted to protect the data by default.

Figure 4. Replication settings on the User Preferences dialog box

　　

Configuring Location Documents

The Notes client is configured to use server-based Mail database and directory information through a typical client installation process. For users who are ready to use a local mail copy, modify the Location document in the Personal Address Book to use local and server-based resources on the workstation.

Open the Location document, select the Mail label, and set the following values (see Figure 5):

Mail file location: set to Local

Recipient name Type-ahead: set to local only

Mail addressing: Set to local then Server

Transfer Outgoing mail messages if: set to 1 (Messages pending)

Figure 5. Configure Mail options in the Location document

　　

The next step is to enable replication of the database from the server. On the Replication tab of the Location document, set the following values:

Enable replication: Set to "Replication is enabled to this location"

Create new replicas: set to Immediately

Replicate when notes starts: set to Replicate when notes starts and Prompt before replicating

Schedule: Set to Replication Interval

Replicate daily Between: set to 7:00 am–7:00 PM

Repeat every: set to minutes

Days of week: set to Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri

Replicate when notes ends: set to ' Prompt to Replicate as notes shuts down ' and ' If Outbox ' not Empty '

Figure 6. Configure the Replication option in the Location document

　　

Configuring a server-based Policy

In the previous chapters of this article, we briefly describe how to manually configure the use of local mail replicas for users in your environment. These steps can be completed automatically by implementing the Lotus Notes/domino policy. The following sections discuss the implementation of policies that are specific to the preparation of a local mail copy environment.

There are two types of policy that can be used to initialize and maintain settings related to local mail replicas. When you create a new client in your environment, the Setup policy is used for the new client. You must be careful to use the Setup policy only the first time you configure a Notes client. Use the Desktop policy when the Notes client starts and opens a session with a Lotus Domino server. The Desktop policy is effective at implementing and enhancing user Configuration settings for already owned Lotus Notes clients.

Create a Setup policy

The following steps outline the creation process for the Setup policy, focusing on the elements that are specific to the local message copy. If you have established a Setup policy, you can change it to include the modifications specified in this article to enable local mail copy configuration. As mentioned earlier, the Setup policy applies only to new configurations. These settings must be applied to the Desktop policy to ensure that these settings are performed on an ongoing basis.

Open Domino Directory and navigate to the Policiessettings view. Click the ADD Settings button and select Setup to create the setup policy. On the Basics tab of the Setup Settings document, select the Create local mail file replica option (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. To configure Basic options in the Setup Settings policy

　　

On the Databases tab of the Setup Settings document, add the database link for the catalog catalog to the Mobile directory catalogs field. Then select the Preferences tab, set the interval for checking new messages to 5 minutes on the Mail and News Child tab, and select the Automatically Refresh Inbox option.

On the Preferences-replication tab, enable the Create replicas ready for searching, set the Encrypt replicas field to locally Encrypt, and ENCR The Ypt using field is set to the desired level of encryption (high, Medium, low). See Figure 8.

Figure 8. Configure the Replication option in the Setup policy

　　

Creating and extending Desktop policies

The user's Location document cannot be fully configured using only the current functionality passed by the Setup and Desktop policies. Changing message type settings, forcing replication, and managing replication progress are not the default options in the Desktop policy document. However, you can customize the Desktop policy document in Domino Directory to gain control over all settings in the user Location document. This section provides information about how to customize the Desktop policy document to configure and manage those settings.

First, open Domino Directory in the IBM Lotus Domino Designer. Navigate to the Shared codesubforms area of the database, and then create a new child form $CLIENTLOCATIONDOC.

On the child form, create a table with two labels (Mail and Replication). On the mail label, recreate the mail label in the Location document for Personal Address Book. However, make sure that LocAll is added to the front of each field name, as shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9. Create a new Mail child form in Domino Directory

　　

Note If you copy the table from the Location document in Personal Address Book, note that you change the name of the field in all Hide-when formulas and field formulas (default, input interpretation, input validation, and so on) to add LocAll to the field name. Also make sure to remove the Mailfile field and the MailFormat field from the replicated table. These fields are either already in a different location in the Policy document, are specific to the user, and should not be managed using policy.

After you complete the Mail label for the subform, go to the Replication tab to recreate the Replication label in the Location document in Personal Address Book. Make sure you add LocAll to the beginning of each field name again, as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Create a new Replication child form in Domino Directory

　　

Note: Recreate the table from the Location document in Personal Address Book, but do not copy and paste the table because most of the fields on the Location document are shared fields. Create these fields as separate fields in the subform so that you can later maintain the child forms independently, modify all hide-when formulas, field formulas (default, input interpretation, input validation, and so on), and add LocAll to all field names without affecting Domino Other shared fields in the Directory.

After you finish $ClientLocationDoc child form, save and close the form. Then open the Policy settingsdesktop Settings form. On the form, insert another label between the Databases tab of the primary table and the Dial-up connections label. Name the new label Location Document and insert a new child form on the label (see Figure 11).

Figure 11. Add a new child form to the Desktop Settings Policy form

　　

Note: Before you make any modifications to the Policy settingsdesktop Settings form, create a copy of it. Also, turn off the ability to get updates from the design template for your Domino directory to ensure that your customizations are not overwritten when the design template is superseded or refreshed during regular directory maintenance.

After you insert a new child label on the label, save and close the Policy settingsdesktop Settings form. Test the form to make sure that your customizations are displayed in the directory and that you can configure the values.

When you are finished customizing, use the Lotus Notes client to open Domino Directory and navigate to the Policiessettings view. Click the ADD Settings button and select Desktop to create the Desktop policy.

In the Server Options section of the Document's Basics tab, select the Create local mail file replica option. On the Databases tab of the document, add the database link for the catalog catalog to the Mobile directory catalogs field.

On the new Location Document label that you added, select the Mail label (see Figure 12). Configure the following settings:

Mail file location: set to Local

Domino mail domain: Set as the name of the Domino mail field

Recipient name Type-ahead: set to local only

Mail addressing: Set to local then Server

Transfer Outgoing Mail if: set to 1 Messages pending

Figure 12. Configure Location Document–mail settings in the Desktop settings document

　　

On the new Location Document tab, select the Replication tab (see Figure 13). Configure the following settings:

Enable replication: Set to "Replication is enabled to this location"

Create new replicas: set to Immediately

Replicate when notes starts: set to Replicate when notes starts and Prompt before replicating

Schedule: Set to Replication Interval

Replicate daily Between: set to 7:00 am–7:00 PM

Repeat every: set to minutes

Days of week: set to "Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri"

Replicate when notes ends: set to ' Prompt to Replicate as notes shuts down ' and ' If Outbox ' not Empty '

Figure 13. Configure Location document–replication settings in the Desktop settings Policy document

　　

On the Preferences-mail and News Child label for the Policy document, set the interval for checking for new messages to 5 minutes and enable automatically Refresh Inbox settings. On the Preferences-replication tab, enable the Create replicas ready for searching, set the Encrypt replicas field to locally Encrypt, and ENCR The Ypt using field is set to the desired level of encryption (high, Medium, low). Save and close the Desktop policy document.

End user and Helpdesk training issues

If the configuration is correct, the local replication model does not require special user training. The goal of the implementation is to automate as many processes as possible with policies. However, some projects require some training to ensure that users are aware of possible problems.

New Mail Notification

The Lotus Notes client periodically checks for new messages on the Domino server. If a new message exists on the server that has not been replicated to the client, the user receives a new mail notification, but cannot find a new message in their local inbox. The latency of message delivery depends on the size of the message message and the activity on the server. When a user uses a server copy of the mail database, the message arrives in the Inbox before the user receives the notification.

Postpone sending a message to the server before shutting down

If a message is sent before the Notes client is closed, the sending process may not have time to send the message to the server. Although the configuration is set to send messages immediately, depending on the size of the message or the type of connection to the server, the message may be in the process of being sent. If the send process has not been completed, the following balloon appears (see Figure 14).

Figure 14. Warning messages are waiting to be delivered before shutting down the client

　　

Copy messages only to minimize load on the server

For users who use local mail replicas, there is a problem that they are trying to replicate all the databases on the Replication label instead of using the Replicate mail Only option. On the Replication tab, click the Start Now button and select one of the following options:

Start now. The replication of all databases on the Replication tab will be started.

Start Mail only now. Replication of the mail database will start.

Start High Priority Databases now. The replication of all databases marked as high Priority will be started.

Notice the check mark on the left side of the mail database on the Replication label. It marks the database to replicate, and the user can uncheck the option. The policy does not enforce the requirement that the check mark remain enabled. Therefore, if the user cancels the message file to be copied, it will not replicate unless she marks the database to be replicated again.

Options for configuring the Replication label

You can modify the Replication label to meet the needs of your users. Here is a set of quick instructions that will lead the user to the configuration options for the Replication tag.

Users can click the down arrow on the Replication button (see Figure 15). You can change the icon size, change the way the replication label is displayed, display all the databases, or only the databases that are marked for replication, or create folders to organize the database.

Figure 15. Modify the appearance of the Replication label

　　

Conclusion

This paper gives a comprehensive analysis of the local mail replica model, focusing on the steps required to implement the environment completely by manual and automatic means. If the local mail copy model is best suited to your environment, this article minimizes the problems, workloads, and management processes in the implementation.