This Week In Lotus: IBM is Market Leader in Enterprise 2.0 Platforms

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Shortly before I left on paternity leave a great podcast kicked off for all things Lotus. I'm currently returning from a trip to New Jersey and catching up on this wonderful podcast: This Week In Lotus. One of the things that I've come to like about the podcast is the interaction from the participants **and** the actual participants. Each episode has representation from IBM, business partners and even customers for a complete 360 degree perspective.

I'm currently listening to episode 8, where the crew discusses the IDC report where IBM is named the Market Leader in Enterprise 2.0 Platforms. I highly recommend this episode to anyone interested in evaluating Enterprise 2.0 platforms and those interested in IBM's Enterprise 2.0 offerings. In this episode you will hear:

• IBM's response to IDC's report
• Lotus Connections vs Microsoft Sharepoint (which IDC doesn't consider a social platform)
• Adoption of Lotus Connections
• Business Partners offerings along Lotus Connections
• A preview of new things to come in the next release of Lotus Connections

Another thing I like about this podcast is how each episode ends with a random tip from each of the participants.

For more information on this podcast click here and to subscribe in iTunes click here.

Moving Lotus Connections to New Hardware

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Recently, I was asked what it would take to move a Lotus Connections deployment to new hardware. Not sure if this is valuable to anyone else, but I figured I would document it here just in case anyone else needs it.

Note: The awesome people at ISSL put this together, and with their permission, I'm including here.

The estimated duration will depend on several factors. Regardless, you will have to perform a full install of an empty system in the new environment to prepare for the migration. Other estimates are dependent on how the different environments are configured:

Pilot Version to Production Version: If the source environment is Lotus Connections Pilot Version, you will need to follow the detailed instructions in the information center to perform the data migration: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ltscnnct/v2r0/topic/com.ibm.connections.25.help/c_pilot_migrate_overview.html

I have done this migration with one customer - it took about a day or two to complete, then there were a couple of days of setting up administration/product configuration specific to the new environment

Production Version to Production Version, same DB type, same LDAP: This is the simplest migration possible, which basically involved copying the shared file system and performing a native DB restore of the Connections databases, which should take a few hours. if there are any administrative or product configuration differences, they may take a couple of days to complete.

Production Version to Production Version, different DB type, same LDAP: A bit of a blend of the two migrations listed above - instead of using native database restored, you would either use the DB Wizard or manual scripts and migration utilities to move from the source DB type (ex.: Oracle) to the destination DB type (ex.: DB2). This type of database migration ay add a couple of days to the overall effort - and you have to be especially careful to validate that the scripts/utilities complete successfully

Production Version to Production Version, same DB type, different LDAP: This is a very complex migration if there is pre-existing data. There is no supported way to migrate data from one LDAP type to another and retain all of the non-Profiles user data. If they want to take this approach, it could take several weeks to design, develop and test the raw SQL scripts to perform the data conversion

Moving On To A New Job

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Effective September 1st, I've started to transition to a new job. While I won't take the new job until October 1st, I've started the transition to get used to my new responsibilities.

When I first joined IBM more than 8 years ago, I joined as a developer in the Lotus Development organization. 2.5 years ago, I left Lotus Development to become one of the evangelists for social software and Enterprise 2.0 at IBM. That was a very rewarding experience and I truly enjoyed working with so many customers and helping them be successful with their Enterprise 2.0 deployment.

In the past 2.5 years, I've gotten to learn a lot about the industry, our competitors, the needs from our customers, how they use our products, how they would like to use our products, and more. When possible, I've created solutions and got my hands "dirty" to ensure the success of our customers. I've also collaborated heavily with many business partners. It's been a blast!

I still have to figure out, with my new manager, what blogging activity will be acceptable, but I hope I can continue to engage with you virtually as I've been doing in the past.

So with that, I'm hoping that I can take everything that I've learned and apply it in my new job because I'm re-joining the Lotus Development organization again, this time as a Product Manager for Social Software at IBM.

Lotus Connections Community Newsletter Generator Plug-In

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As you know, I was recently out of the office for my paternity leave. In my previous post I hinted as how I was working with Sacha Chua on a new project. Well, it turns out that during my paternity leave, my first TAP (IBM's Technology Adoption Program) contribution was published: the Lotus Connections Community Newsletter Generator!

Based on some code that I had already written (and it's also used in the Lotus Connections Notifications Plug-In), Sacha Chua took my code and built an amazing toolkit for Lotus Connections community owners. Part of the toolkit quickly generates a newsletter based on the community's recent activities for distribution to community members. (IBMers, see my internal blog for more details that I can't disclose right now).

I then took Sacha's code and converted it into an Eclipse plugin. Just like my other plugin, this plugin will soon be available in the Plugin Catalog.

Here's a demo so you can see how it works.

Feedback from internal users has been overwhelmingly positive and I'm glad I can provide some value.

Let me know what other features you would like to see!

Enjoy!

3 weeks away from work: Only 53 emails!

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So after 3 weeks of being away from the office, I'm back. What kept me out for so long? This beautiful baby that just arrived .

And besides this beautiful creature arriving, I was glad to open my email on Friday to find 570 unread emails! Yikes. Before starting to tackle this mountain of email, I decided to use Lotus Notes attention indicators to figure out which emails really needed my attention. Turns out, only 53 emails needed my attention, 6 were spam, and 511 were Bacn. So 53 emails over 15 works days works out to 3.5 emails per day. There's your proof that Enterprise 2.0 software significantly reduces the need for email.

Now, a lot of things happened while I was away and I wanted to do a quick re-cap:

• Lotus Connections v3 is now deployed on the Greenhouse - If you have a Greenhouse account, go take a peek!
• A little project that I've been working on with Sacha Chua was published to IBM TAP site (Technical Adoption Program). This is my 1st TAP contribution! - more on this later
• My Lotus Connections notifications plugin for Lotus Notes has been published to the Lotus Catalog - download and install from here.
• My Lotus Connections notifications plugin for Lotus Sametime has been published to the Lotus Catalog - download and install from here.
  
• The Australian Bureau of Statistics announced they have adopted Lotus Connections
• RIM released the 2.5 version of their Blackberry Client for Lotus Connections
• US Banks picks Lotus Connections over Microsoft SharePoint

Now I'm going to record a video of the thing Sacha and I are working on which will soon be in the Lotus Catalog as well.