As a follow up to the presentation Domino 8 roadmap (ID201 being repeated Wednesday at 4:15pm),  Chip Carter, manager of Domino Administration teams, and I presented to a overflowing house on Monday and to a repeat of the session on Tuesday. Our topic was Lotus Domino 8 Administration (ID202). The focus here is on increasing administrative productivity and reducing TCO . Chip also gave a demo on Domino Domain Monitoring (DDM) 8.

We discussed:
  • Improved ease of deployment, such as policy-based management of new features for desktop settings (such as preferences and replication settings!), mail settings, and activities/productivity editor; client provisioning for new features and composite applications; and Smart Upgrade 'Run as Admin' feature from 7.0.2, which enables admins to upgrade Notes clients on locked-down desktops.
  • Improvements to monitoring and DDM, including new probes (e.g. Websphere Services and Automatic Report Closing); Common Corrective Actions for enhanced events; improved task monitoring on a per process/thread basis; integration with Tivoli Enterprise Console;
  • Better admin integration with other products, such as Websphere Portal through the Domino Portal Integration Wizard, a tool that connects Domino and Portal and eliminates dozens of configuration steps. Domino/DB2 admin integration is also being improved.
  • Other improvements, such as better Web Server administration, as well as Installshield multi-platform, a single installer for all non-Windows platforms.
  • The big hit features with the audience were 'Database Redirection'  (imagine the ability to fix up Notes links after DB is moved or deleted!) and improved adminP performance  - both got big rounds of applause! -

We also looked ahead to beyond Domino 8, at some potential feature areas undergoing investigation including:  
  • Notes/Domino integration with IBM CommonStore Archiving to reduce Domino mail storage
  • Simplified Admin client UI
  • Improved policy-based management for groups
  • Composite applications dashboards for administrators
  • A strategic focus on server optimization rather than only problem diagnostics

We also have a new admin survey you can fill in to give us your feedback - come to the 'Meet the developers' at Lotusphere or request a survey form be mailed to you by indicating your interest via comments to this posting.