| The Domino platform has the capability to provide many key groupware and collaboration functions "out of the box." These key built-in functions include e-mail or messaging, directory services, collaboration, document management, and security services. Mail, Address Book, and Calendaring Domino has long provided excellent support for mail, address book (directory services), and calendaring. Mail and Directory Services are discussed further in the paragraphs that follow. Please see Appendix B for additional discussion on these Domino 6 features. Collaboration and Document Management Providing collaboration support has always been the main focus of the Lotus Notes and Domino products. In addition to built-in collaboration features, Domino provides the platform for the Lotus Instant Messaging, Lotus Web Conferencing, and Lotus Team WorkPlace (QuickPlace 3) collaboration products. IBM Lotus Domino Document Manager (formerly called Lotus Domino.Doc) is a ready-built solution for organizing documents for effective shared access by work teams , managing versions so that each team member has the latest and automating document-driven processes such as review and approval, assembly and publishing, archiving, and records management. Mail Domino functions as an e-mail server with support for several Internet open standards: POP3, SMTP, and IMAP, in addition to the Lotus Notes e-mail protocol. These e-mail protocols have been provided by Domino almost since its inception and have been continually improved and made more robust. In Domino 6 the IMAP server has been redesigned to improve performance throughout by use of multi-threading and data streaming and by enhancing the Domino database format to support IMAP data elements directly. Other Domino 6 features enable better detection and control of unsolicited e-mail ("spam"). The Domino product has the capability to provide many key groupware and collaboration functions out of the box. These key built-in functions include e-mail or messaging, directory services, collaboration, document management, and security services. Directory Services The Domino directory is central to the function of a Domino server environment. Information about users, servers, and processes are maintained by the Domino directory. The key feature of the Domino directory relative to a combined Domino/WebSphere environment is its support of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). In many ways, LDAP can be considered the directory access protocol of the Internet. WebSphere and the J2EE platform also enable LDAP access to directory information especially for naming and authentication, which can be configured to access a Domino directory. Domino 6 provides enhancements to LDAP support including improving the performance of LDAP directory access, providing a new directory schema database, and better change tracking. Security Domino has provided strong security features since its first release. It pioneered the use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) mechanisms for user authentication, document encryption, and digital signature functions. Although the PKI implementations within Domino have been largely proprietary, they are being made more open, along the lines of Internet defined PKI standards. As they become more open, the Domino security mechanisms will better interoperate with Internet and J2EE security mechanisms. An example of this direction is the recent support for "single sign-on" between Domino and WebSphere-based Web applications. Also along this direction are the Domino 6 enhancements of its Certificate Authority (CA) function. With Domino 6, administrators will have a unified mechanism to generate both Notes and Internet user certificates and to register notes and Internet keys. |
