2.8 Domino planning

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A successful production environment requires strong Domino administration skills. You should not attempt to implement Domino for Linux on zSeries without these skills. You can obtain them by hiring an experienced Domino administrator or contracting with a services organization.

If this is your first installation of Domino, there are many things to plan, including the following:

Defining an organizational structure including domain and certifiers
Setting up the Domino server infrastructure
Defining user and server naming conventions
Choosing a pilot application
Planning a replication strategy
Defining a mail routing topology
Planning the Domino directory structure

A comprehensive discussion of these topics is beyond the scope of this redbook. There are, however, several other good sources of information on this subject that you can refer to:

Other IBM Redbooks; see "Related publications" on page 375.
Lotus yellow books.
Lotus Domino documentation, including the Lotus Domino Administrator 6 Help database.
Classes that are available from IBM and Lotus business partners. Refer to Appendix C, "Educational material" on page 355 for a list of recommended courses.

2.8.1 zSeries - just another server platform

Linux on zSeries is just another server platform to Domino. The Notes architecture means that the server platform is transparent to the users.

Users access a Domino for Linux on zSeries server in exactly the same way that they access any other Domino server. It looks the same, and users cannot tell what the underlying platform is. Domino for Linux on zSeries supports all the clients that are supported on other platforms including Notes, Domino Web Access (formerly known as iNotes™), POP3, and IMAP.
A Domino administrator can manage a Domino server on Linux using the same tools they use to manage any other Domino server, including the Domino Administrator client or the Domino Console. The only difference between Domino on zSeries and other platforms is that there is no native console function on the zSeries processor. This results in some minor operational differences. For example, you cannot start a Domino server from the Domino Administrator client, although you can start it from the Domino Console. For more information on administering Domino on Linux, see the chapters on.

This means that there is very little Domino planning that is unique to Linux on zSeries. If you are moving servers from Windows platform, however, there are a few differences.

Domino on Linux is case-sensitive.
Domino on Linux requires TCP/IP for networking.
Some applications, such as fax or telephony, won't run on zSeries because the hardware support is not available.

For more information on migrating from another platform, refer to Chapter 14, "Migrating to Domino 6.5 for Linux on zSeries" on page 323.

Table 2-2 lists the information you should gather before beginning the installation, as well as the values we used for our server during the writing of this redbook.

Table 2-2: Our Domino environment
Field	Default value	Settings used in this redbook
Domino server name	none	domservb/ITSO
Domino domain	none	ITSO
Domino certifier	none	ITSO
Linux user ID for Domino server	notes	domservb
Linux group for Domino server	notes	notes
Install directory for Domino code	/opt/lotus	/opt/lotus
Notes Data Directory	/local/notesdata	/domservb/notesdata
Notes Mail Directory	/local/notesdata/mail	/domservb/notesdata/mail1 /domservb/notesdata/mail2 /domservb/notesdata/mailn
VM user ID for Linux guest	none	LINUXB
DNS domain	none	itso.company.com
Domino server hostname	none	domservb.itso.company.com

2.8.2 Server consolidation

There is one area of planning which is unique to Domino on zSeries: choosing the number of Domino servers to run. Moving to Linux on zSeries provides the opportunity to examine your Domino infrastructure to see if there are benefits to server consolidation. In zSeries there are two forms that server consolidation can take.

Consolidate the existing Domino servers to a single hardware server, while retaining your logical Domino server infrastructure. If you have 15 Domino servers today, you will have 15 Domino servers on zSeries.
Consolidate the number of Domino servers. Move your servers to the new platform and reduce the number of Domino servers by exploiting the scalability of the zSeries platform.

Option 1 is done most easily when running under z/VM. Option 2 can be done under z/VM, or in a native LPAR. Which of these consolidation plans you implement depends in part on the function of the Domino servers. It is a good idea to consolidate mail servers, because fewer mail servers are more efficient than many; refer to our discussion in 2.4, "A few large servers - or many small servers" on page 17.

In addition to the Domino planning considerations, you may also be consolidating Domino servers that are running on other platforms, such as Windows or Linux on Intel. When implementing Domino for Linux on zSeries, you have an opportunity for different kinds of server consolidation; refer to 14.2.3, "Server consolidation tips and methods" on page 326 for a detailed discussion.

2.8.3 Partitioned servers

You can run multiple Domino servers within a single zSeries LPAR or VM guest. Prior to Domino 6, these servers would all be partitioned servers. Domino 6 introduced the ability to run multiple versions of Domino in a single OS image on UNIX systems. These can be either partitioned servers or independent servers.

With Domino partitioned servers, all partitions share the same Domino program directory, and thus share the set of Domino executable files. However, each partition (Domino server) has its own Domino data directory and NOTES.INI file; thus each has its own copy of the Domino Directory and other administrative databases.
With Domino 6 and above, you can run multiple versions of Domino in a single UNIX server. Each Domino server has its own program directory; code is not shared between the Domino servers. Each Domino server also has its own Domino directory and NOTES.INI file. To run different levels of the Domino code requires that you install the executables at different directory locations. For example,

At /opt/Dom650/lotus - Domino 6.5 code

At /opt/Dom651/lotus - Domino 6.5.1 code

For each of these versions of Domino executable code, you can have partitioned servers. They share the executable Domino code, but each partitioned server has its own Domino data directory.

Deciding whether to use partitioned servers

Implementing partitioned servers is most useful when all servers have the same function and are managed together. Since the servers share the same set of executables, you upgrade all the servers at one time. This reduces the management of multiple servers. If you plan to have multiple mail servers in an LPAR, these are good candidates for partitioning.

On the other hand, if you have one mail server and one application server, you may wish to keep them as independent servers so that you can manage them independently. Although you must upgrade them individually, you have the flexibility to run them at different Domino releases. You can upgrade one server more frequently than another. You may also make changes to one server while the other server is running.

When you install or upgrade Domino for Linux, you will be given the opportunity to install a new Domino server or to add data directories only. The first option will install the Domino executables and create or upgrade the templates and system databases in the Domino data directory of your Domino server. You can be installing or upgrading an independent server or partitioned servers. If you choose to add data directories only, the install program will create a new Domino data directory and tie it to the executable code you have previously installed. In other words, you will create or add a partitioned server. When you select add data directories only, the executables are not changed.

In Chapter 7, "Domino installation" on page 129, we first describe the installation of a single Domino server, and then describe how you would install multiple partitioned servers.

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