Moving HCL Notes Domino to a new datacentre, Azure Cloud or AWS Cloud, need not be as daunting as you might think. Asking the right questions and getting into the detail makes for a successful migration project.
When customers need to move HCL Notes Domino to a new location, there are a number of questions we ask in a Notes Domino audit. The audit is a framework that allows for the preparation, planning, setup and testing that avoids gotchas that could trip you up. The output from the audit produces a migration strategy and plan implementation.
Here is a selection of the critical questions and why you should ask them.
Target Destination
- What is the destination for HCL Notes Domino migration?
- Is the IT strategy looking to support a single preferred platform?
- What are the options for datacentres?
- Have you considered AWS Cloud, Azure Cloud, Microsoft 365 or a hybrid approach?
Selecting the optimum target infrastructure for an HCL Notes Domino migration depends on the priority applied to requirements, security, performance, resilience and cost.
Consideration of jurisdiction, server location, disaster recovery options and proximity to disk, are all factors in deciding the best target infrastructure for HCL Notes Domino infrastructure and applications.
The primary reason for the target datacentre is often the result of compromise. HCL Notes Domino has a great degree of flexibility and can be configured to work well as long as it is architected to avoid bottlenecks, particularly in Cloud hosted environments.
Hardware
- How is the HCL Notes Domino platform performing?
- What specification will be needed?
Review the configuration and maintenance of servers.
Record details of server hardware, CPU, RAM, disk, network and performance. What regular maintenance activities are completed such as patching, disk optimisation and server chacks.
Define the target environment for migration, how it should be architected and performance considerations.
Notes Domino
- What operating system, Notes client and Domino server versions?
- How are Domino scheduled maintenance tasks performing?
- Notes mail and applications strategy?
- Are you looking to apply zero trust security?
Decide on the versions of the operating system, HCL Domino server and HCL Notes clients for the new data centre.
Design the Notes Domino architecture to be optimised for the target environment.
Identify changes to support and maintenance processes that will be required.
Applications
- Which Notes databases and Domino Web apps are critical?
- Where are the issues?
- What needs to be cleaned up?
Notes databases and Domino Web apps are prioritised by criticality to the business, number of users and security requirements.
Analyse each Notes database and Domino Web app and record:
- 3rd party or in house developers
- Longevity
- Level of support
- Quality of application code
- Migration issues eg server names hard-coded
- Application issues eg speed, security, size, resilience
- Options for improvements
Web App Modernisation
- Which Notes databases need to be modernised?
- Modern Web front-end on legacy Notes database?
- Migrate to new SaaS platform?
For any Notes database, you can add a responsive modern web front end that does not look like Lotus Notes but uses HCL Notes Domino database and functionality on the Domino server. The benefit of this is that you can extend the use of an application to outside your organisation or if there is a move away from Notes, you can extend the life of an application.
Notes Domino Support
- Is support provided in house or outsourced?
- Is any technical training required?
- Do you have pro-active monitoring?
- How often do you run health checks?
360 Systems’ Notes Domino administrators and developers provide technical support and training to inhouse and outsource helpdesks who need the back up of deep expertise. We provide support with problem resolution, project definition and delivery, as much or as little as you need.
Archive Domino Server
- Have any databases grown too big?
- Where are archived documents and databases stored?
- Which Notes databases need to be decommissioned?
An Archive Domino server is configured for access & restore only and not day-to-day operation of Notes databases. The Archive Domino server is used to store
- Archived mail documents
- Archived mail files of leavers
- Archived Notes database documents
- Archived Notes databases
Having a server controlled archive mechanism means that production servers and databases can maintain good performance and have access to a complete record of documents.
Archive Notes database to SharePoint Online
- Looking to archive a database outside of Notes Domino?
SharePoint Online or other document repository can be set up to store the contents of a Notes database outside of Notes. At 360 Systems we run utilities against Notes databases to convert Notes documents to XML and PDF for load into SharePoint Online.
