Specifications

Lotus Redbooks Wiki – IBM Lotus Notes and Domino V8.5 Deployment Guide

Domino Deployment

This section describes the deployment process of Lotus Domino in general terms.

In this section we primarily describe deployment on Windows.

Pre Upgrade Checklist

Before starting to deploy Lotus Domino 8.5, please make sure the following checkpoints have been verified:

• Is the latest version of the Domino server installation package available?

• Is the public Domino Directory template (pubnames.ntf) available locally?

• If you are currently using a customized Domino Directory template, are these customizations

included in the new Domino Directory template?

• Server downtime was communicated and is approved in your change management system.

• All administration tools used in this Domino domain are compatible with Domino R8.5.

• Are all system tools (for example, backup programs) R8.5 compliant?

If not upgrade your server hardware before you upgrade Domino.

• Do you have sufficient disk space available?

Note: You need to plan additional space as all view indices will be built-up and therefore a

database can become larger than before. A minimum of 1.5 GByte of storage is required for

upgrading a server. On the Domino data drives, you also require as much free space as the size of

the largets Domino databases located on that drive in order to perform a successful compact.

• Are all customized templates R8.5 ready? This means are they tested and, if necessary, adapted?

Please especially be aware of customized templates that are based on Lotus system templates such as

directories, directory catalog, and so on. These templates have to be upgraded so that they use the latest

R8.5 version of the Lotus template as a base, otherwise errors might occur later

•

Is the access to the Domino server console available and guaranteed to be working during the

maintenance window (local or via a remote control tool)?

•

Local hands and eye support is available during the deployment.

• Helpdesk is informed about the upgrade activities.

• Downtime has been estimated and is approved?

• If you have a system management tool installed (like Tivoli Intelliwatch) make sure that you do not

have an automatism in place which restarts add-in tasks automatically which should not be started

on the server if it is upgraded to R8.5.

• If you have other automated tasks running (for example, System Agents) make sure that all

automated tasks are disabled during the upgrade (for example, automatic server restart

procedures) or disabled permanently (for example, deleting of NTF files).

• If you have configuration documents with an “*” as server name (valid for all servers) make sure

that you create a separate configuration document for every single server to be upgraded with the

appropriate settings before starting the upgrade.

• If you have program documents with an “*” as server name (valid for all servers) make sure that

you create a separate program document for every single server to be upgraded with the

appropriate settings before starting the upgrade.

• If you have mixed connection documents for mail and replication it’s recommended to split them up

and create separate connection documents for mail routing and replication.

If you are upgrading an existing environment, the following additional items apply:

•

Did you perform a successful full backup of the existing Domino environment?