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If you are considering implementing local mail replicas for your IBM Lotus Notes users, learn more about the advantages of this model and how to create local mail replicas manually or administratively using Setup and Desktop policies. Customize the Desktop policy to control users’ Location documents.
The flexibility and freedom provided by replication has been an unsurpassed benefit of using IBM Lotus Notes. Many organizations choose to leverage this powerful feature on a full-time basis and have configured their users to work with local replicas of their Notes databases, including mail databases.
In addition to the points discussed in this article, Lotus Notes/Domino added features that may make implementing local mail replicas even more enticing. This article discusses these additional enhancements and recommends ways to set up local mail replicas. Prior to explaining the local replica model and the technical details behind establishing the environment within your infrastructure, let's look at an example of the applicability of the model.
Example for implementing local mail replicas
Every environment has unique requirements, and therefore, it is difficult to outline a set of standards or recommendations that can be applied to all organizations. The following example is intended to assist you in outlining a successful plan for deploying local mail replicas.XYZ Company over time has deployed Lotus Domino mail servers for each new location because that was the standard configuration architected and because most sites with less than 25 users had low bandwidth available to them. Most of the email communication within the company takes place between locations, and there is minimal requirement to email users located within the same office. Over time the number of Lotus Domino mail servers in the environment grew to 37 outside of the central location serving approximately 1,400 users, while the main office had two clustered Lotus Domino mail servers serving 2,900 users. The Corporate Finance department questioned the number of servers and licenses that were required to run the electronic messaging environment. To reduce the number of servers and licenses required, but to still provide high availability and load balancing, the IT department decided to re-locate a portion of the user population to the central office and to implement local mail replicas.
The IT team assessed the company's current usage patterns, determining the location of servers, number of users, and the bandwidth available. The following categories are defined in table 1.
Table 1. Current usage patterns assessment
| Number of sites in the environment | Number of users | Bandwidth available | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | Less than 25 | Centralize | |
| 1 | 25 – 50 users | Less than 256 KB | Centralize (monitor) |
| 7 | 25 – 50 users | Greater than 256 KB | Centralize |
| 2 | 50 – 150 users | Less than 1 MB | Deploy clustered servers |
| 13 | 50 – 150 users | Greater than 1 MB | Centralize |
| 3 | More than 150 users | Deploy clustered servers |
The senior IT leadership requested that all users in the environment leverage the same access methodology. To accomplish this, the IT team developed the customized Setup and Desktop policies to automate the deployment process. The environment contained one Desktop and one Setup policy prior to the decision to move to local mail replicas. To ensure that the environment was not overloaded with requests to replicate data to the end users, the IT team developed a Setup and Desktop policy for each location so that they could control the replication process. After the shift to local mail replicas, the IT team shifted back to a smaller number of Setup and Desktop policies by implementing one set of policies for each server.
After the environment was shifted to local mail replicas, the IT team reduced the number of servers. The reduction of servers and the implementation of clustering allowed maintenance to take place on the servers without requiring any downtime for the users. Overall satisfaction with the environment from the users increased.
Local mail database replication explained
Many times, we hear people talk about local mail versus server-based mail. But what does this really mean? Local mail database replication refers to taking a replica of a user’s mail file onto his or her workstation to allow the user to work with his email without connecting to the server. At a periodic interval, the outgoing email is sent, and the mail file is replicated with the server version to exchange any changes between the two databases. A depiction of this environment configuration is represented in figure 1.Figure 1. Local mail replica environment configuration
To create this type of environment, you need to configure certain settings on a user’s Lotus Notes client.A replica of the user’s mail database must be created on the user’s workstation. It is highly recommended that a directory catalog be used to let the user look up names when addressing mail messages while working locally. Either you, the administrator, or the user can create local replicas manually from the user’s workstation or by use of Lotus Notes/Domino policies. After a local replica and directory catalog are created, they must be set to replicate with the server replicas of these databases to keep changes synchronized. We recommend that these databases replicate every 30 minutes. By configuring replication to occur every 30 minutes, you ensure that the client will not reduce performance of the server and client by replicating too often.
The Lotus Notes user preferences on the workstation must be set to check for new mail on the server. This preference should be set to check for new mail every five minutes, which allows the user to receive mail on a much shorter interval than the 30-minute replication interval. This ensures that the client maintains an open session with the Domino server and receives notification of new mail on a frequent basis.
The Lotus Notes client on the user’s workstation must also specify the local replica of the user’s mail file as the location to work with email. Additionally, a number of changes must be made to the client configuration to specify the use of a local directory catalog when addressing mail messages. By making these changes, the user can work seamlessly on his local replica and have an experience very close to that of working on the server.
This may seem like a lot of changes for a user or you to make manually from the user's workstation. While manual configuration is an option, it is also possible for you to create policies in the Lotus Notes/Domino environment that make these changes without having to visit a single workstation. Because policies let you reconfigure a great number of workstations at the same time, great care should be taken to roll out these changes in a granular fashion so as not to flood the network with requests to create replicas of mail files and directory catalogs all at the same time.
Enhancements to working with local replicas of mail
Many organizations prefer to have their users work with local mail replicas for a number of reasons. However, there traditionally have been a number of drawbacks to this configuration from an administrative perspective. These drawbacks are related to configuration of the workstation, user training, and providing directory services to the user. Thanks to advances in replication, policies, and directory catalogs in recent versions of Lotus Notes (V6.0 and later), local mail replicas are even easier to manage.Network compression
Starting with Lotus Notes 6.x, there have been major changes to replication that greatly increase efficiency both in speed and in network usage. The introduction of replication compression reduces the amount of data between the client and server by up to 30-40%, if the network traffic is not already compressed by routers or VPN software. You can read more about network compression in the developerWorks Lotus article, "Network compression in Domino 6."Streaming replication
Additionally, streaming replication was introduced in Lotus Notes V6.0. This feature increases the user experience when working with a local mail replica. When replication occurs, new documents are replicated to the local mail replica in the order of smallest to largest in size. This eliminates waiting for a number of mail messages while a single message with a large attachment replicates first. Also, streaming replications allows users to see and work with documents as they are replicated into the local mail database, so there is no longer a wait for replication of all changes to complete before working with new messages.Asynchronous notification
Starting in Lotus Notes V6.5.x, asynchronous notification was introduced. If the Notes client works with a local mail replica and has an open connection to the Domino server, the Domino server sends notification of new mail messages to the client. This notification sent by the Domino server triggers the Notes client to replicate the mail file, bringing the new message into the local mail replica. This replication happens without intervention from the user and does not rely on the replication schedule set up in the Lotus Notes client. This feature allows users to receive incoming mail message right away when working with local replicas.Policies
Policies were introduced to assist you in configuring and maintaining settings on user workstations. This powerful feature gives you a great deal of flexibility when configuring workstations for users. Through the use of policies, you can set the entire configuration settings needed to enable a user to work with a local mail replica without visiting the user's workstation. Later in this article, we show you how to set up your policies to manage this scenario. For more information on policies in general, see the following developerWorks Lotus articles, "Policy-based system administration with Domino 6" and "Creating Mail policies in Lotus Notes/Domino 7."Directory catalogs
While advances in replication and policies are very powerful features, the key to successfully implementing local mail replicas for users lies in the creation of a directory catalog. There are two types of directory catalogs that can be created.- Condensed or mobile directory catalog
A mobile directory catalog contains user and group entries from your Domino Directory and other directories that you choose. The mobile directory catalog condenses the entries from directories that you select into a directory catalog database. The default ratio used to condense entries is approximately 255 notes (one note equals one user or group entry) in a Domino Directory are compressed into one note in the mobile directory catalog. As a result, the directory catalog is very small in size, but can only be sorted by firstname or lastname, which must be designated when creating the directory catalog. - Extended directory catalog
An extended directory catalog is based on the user, group, and server entries in your Domino Directory and other directories of your designation. The extended directory catalog offers no compression of entries, which results in the extended directory catalog being much larger in size than the mobile directory catalog. However, the extended directory catalog is smaller than the Domino Directory because it does not contain Connection documents, program documents, and so on. It is also very flexible in terms of providing lookups for users, working in the same way as when a lookup is performed against a regular Domino Directory (that is search firstname, lastname, shortname, and so on).
Now that we’ve discussed the key elements to an environment that uses local mail replicas, let’s have a look at how it is created and configured.
Configuring the environment
Many settings need to be enabled and configured on the user’s workstation to successfully have users working on local mail replicas and to maintain a rich user experience while working with mail. These setting are found in the User Preferences and Location document on the user’s workstation and are identified in table 2.Table 2. Overview of fields to be configured
| Workstation setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Create Local Replicas | Mail file, Directory Catalog |
| User Preferences | |
| Cascade Directory Catalog (Mail\General tab) | Name of directory catalog database |
| Check for new mail every (Mail\General tab) | 5 minutes |
| Automatically refresh Inbox (Mail\General tab) | Enabled |
| Create full-text indexing for searching (Replication tab) | Enabled |
| Should Notes encrypt new replicas? (Replication tab) | Locally encrypt using Medium encryption |
| Location Document (Mail tab) | |
| Mail file location | Local |
| Recipient name type-ahead | Local Only |
| Mail addressing | Local and Server |
| Transfer outgoing mail if | 1 |
| Location Document (Replication tab) | |
| Enable Replication | Enabled |
| Create new replicas | Immediately |
| Replicate when Notes starts | Enabled, Prompt before replicating |
| Schedule | Enabled |
| Replicate daily between | 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM |
| Repeat every | 30 minutes |
| Days of week | Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri |
| Replicate when Notes ends | Prompt to replicate when Notes shuts down, In anything is waiting to be sent. |
Creation of the local replicas
By default, the setup of the Lotus Notes environment does not create a local replica of the mail database or the directory catalog that is required to leverage the local replication model. The following tasks focus on the mail database, but it is important to complete these steps for the directory catalog as well.NOTE: Before creating a local replica of a directory catalog, first create a directory catalog on the Domino server. For more information on how to create a directory catalog see the Lotus Domino Administrator Help.
NOTE: If the end user environment has a local replica of the mail database that has not consistently been replicated, delete that database and recreate it to avoid previously deleted documents from reappearing in the database when replication is enabled. For more information, see the Lotus Domino Administrator Help.
Create a new mail database replica by selecting the mail database on your workstation and choosing File – Replication – New Replica. Accept the defaults for the new replica and click OK to confirm the creation of the new replica on the local workstation (see figure 2).
Figure 2. Create Replica dialog box
Setting the encryption for the local mail replica
Ensure that the mail database is encrypted locally to protect the data. Open the Database Properties box, and click the Encryption Settings button. In the Encryption dialog box, select the "Locally encrypt this database using" option, and then select the appropriate level of encryption from the drop-down list. The default is Medium Encryption.NOTE: Depending upon the security requirements of the environment, different levels of encryption may be required. The Domino environment allows for three different levels of encryption. More information on encryption levels can be found in the Lotus Domino Administrator Help.
Configuring the user preferences
The User Preferences dialog box contains the client configuration settings. To open the dialog box, choose File – Preferences – User Preferences. To ensure the timely appearance of new mail in the local replica of the mail file, select the Mail - General tab and configure the following settings (see figure 3):- Under the Configuration section, enter or browse for the file name of the local directory catalog in the Local address books field.
- Under the Receiving section, select the "Check for new mail every" option, and then set the interval to five minutes.
- Under the "When New Mail Arrives" section, select the Automatically refresh Inbox option.
Figure 3. Mail settings on the User Preferences dialog box
Select the Replication tab and configure the default settings that are applied when creating new replicas (see figure 4).- Select the "Create full text index for searching" option to ensure that all new replicas are ready for searching.
- Select the Locally encrypt using option, and then determine the appropriate encryption level. This ensures that all databases that are replicated locally are encrypted by default to protect the data.
Figure 4. Replication settings on the User Preferences dialog box
Configuring the Location document
Through the typical client installation process, the Notes client is configured to leverage the server-based mail database and directory information. For the user to work with a local mail replica, modify the Location document within the Personal Address Book to use local resources on the workstation versus the server-based resources.Open the Location document, select the Mail tab, and set the following values (see figure 5):
- Mail file location: Local
- Recipient name type-ahead: Local Only
- Mail addressing: Local then Server
- Transfer outgoing mail messages if: 1 (messages pending)
Figure 5. Configuring the Mail options within the Location document
The
next step is to enable replication of the databases from the server. On
the Replication tab of the Location document, set the following values:- Enable replication: "Replication is enabled for this location"
- Create new replicas: Immediately
- Replicate when Notes starts: "Replicate when Notes starts" and Prompt before replicating
- Schedule: Replication Interval
- Replicate daily between: 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM
- Repeat every: 30 minutes
- Days of week: Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri
- Replicate when Notes ends: "Prompt to replicate when Notes shuts down" and "If outbox is not empty"
Figure 6. Configuring the Replication options within the Location document
Configuring server-based policies
In the previous sections of this article, we outlined how to manually configure the use of local mail replicas for users in your environment. These steps can be automated by implementing Lotus Notes/Domino policies. The following sections review the implementation of policies specific to preparing the environment for local mail replicas. For a more extensive review of policies in Lotus Domino, refer to Lotus Domino Administrator Help.There are two types of policies used to initiate and maintain settings related to local mail replicas. Setup policies are applied to new clients as they are set up in the environment. It is important to note that Setup policies are only applied when a Notes client is configured for the first time. Desktop policies are applied to the Notes client each time the client starts and opens a session with the Lotus Domino server. A Desktop policy is very useful to implement and to enforce configuration settings for users who already have a Lotus Notes client.
Creating a Setup policy
The following steps walk you through the creation of a Setup policy focusing on the elements specific to local mail replicas. If you already have a Setup policy established, you can alter it to incorporate the modifications specified here to enable the local mail replica configuration. As noted earlier, the Setup policy applies only to new configurations. You must apply these settings to a Desktop policy to ensure that they are enforced on an on-going basis.Open the Domino Directory and navigate to the Policies\Settings view. Click the Add Settings button and select Setup to create a Setup policy. On the Basics tab of the Setup Settings document, select the "Create local mail file replica" option (see figure 7).
Figure 7. Configuring the Basic options within the Setup Settings policy
On
the Databases tab of the document, add the database link for the
directory catalog to the Mobile directory catalogs field. Then select
the Preferences tab, and on the Mail and News subtab, set the interval
for checking for new mail to five minutes and select the Automatically
Refresh Inbox option.On the Preferences - Replication subtab, enable "Create replicas ready for searching," set the Encrypt replicas field to Locally encrypt, and set the Encrypt using field to the level of encryption that you want (High, Medium, Low). See figure 8.
Figure 8. Configuring the Replication options within the Setup policy
Creating and extending a Desktop policy
Using only the current functionality that is delivered with Setup and Desktop policies, you cannot fully configure the user’s Location document. Changing mail type settings, enforcing replication, and managing the replication schedule are not part of the default options in the Desktop policy document. However, you can customize the Desktop policy document in the Domino Directory to gain control of all settings in the user’s Location document. This section provides information about how to customize the Desktop policy document to configure and to manage those settings.The ability to customize the Desktop policy form to control Notes.ini parameters and Location document settings is documented in the Lotus Support technote, "The desktop policy in the Domino Directory can be designed to set notes.ini and Location parameters." We recommend minimizing the impact of customizing the directory by developing a separate subform that you can insert into the Desktop policy form.
First, open the Domino Directory in IBM Lotus Domino Designer. Navigate to the Shared Code\Subforms area of the database and create a new subform with the name $ClientLocationDoc.
On this subform, create a table with two tabs: Mail and Replication. On the Mail tab, recreate the design of the Mail tab in the Location document of a Personal Address Book. However, make sure that you add LocAll to the beginning of each field name as indicated in figure 9.
Figure 9. Creating the new Mail subform in the Domino Directory
NOTE:
If you copy the table from the Location document in the Personal
Address Book, be careful to change the field names in all hide-when and
field formulas (default, input translation, input validation, and so on)
to accommodate the LocAll added to the field names. Also, make sure
that you remove the fields MailFile and MailFormat from the copied
table. These fields are either already located elsewhere in the Policy
document or are specific to the user and should not be managed with
policies.After you complete the Mail tab of the subform, go to the Replication tab to recreate the design of the Replication tab in the Location document of a Personal Address Book. Again, make sure that you add LocAll to the beginning of each field name as indicated in figure 10.
Figure 10. Creating the new Replication subform in the Domino Directory
NOTE:
Recreate the table from the Location document in the Personal Address
Book, but do not copy and paste the table because most fields on the
Location document are shared fields. By creating these fields in your
subform as individual fields, you can maintain subform independence in
the future and accommodate your changes of all hide-when formulas, field
formulas (default, input translation, input validation, and so on), and
add the LocAll to all field names without impacting other shared fields
in the Domino Directory.After completing the $ClientLocationDoc subform, save and close it. Then, open the "Policy Settings\Desktop Settings" form. On this form, insert another tab in the main table between the Databases and Dial-up Connections tabs. Name this new tab Location Document and insert your new subform on this tab (see figure 11).
Figure 11. Adding the new subforms to the Desktop Settings Policy form
NOTE:
Create a copy of the "Policy Settings\Desktop Settings" form before
making alterations to it. Additionally, turn off its ability to be
updated from the design template of the Domino Directory to keep your
customizations from being overwritten when the design is replaced or
refreshed during regular directory maintenance.After inserting your new subform on this new tab, save and close the "Policy Settings\Desktop Settings" form. Test this form to ensure that your customizations are showing in the directory and can be configured with values.
After the customizations are complete, open the Domino Directory with the Lotus Notes client and navigate to the Policies\Settings view. Click the Add Settings button and select Desktop to create a Desktop policy.
On the Basics tab of the document, under the Server Options section, select the "Create local mail file replica" option. On the Databases tab of the document, add the database link for the directory catalog to the Mobile directory catalogs field.
On the new Location Document tab that you added, select the Mail tab (see figure 12). Configure the following settings:
- Mail file location: Local
- Domino mail domain: The name of your Domino mail domain
- Recipient name type-ahead: Local Only
- Mail addressing: Local then Server
- Transfer outgoing mail if: 1 messages pending
Figure 12. Configuring the Location Document – Mail settings in the Desktop Settings document
On the new Location Document tab, select the Replication tab (see figure 13). Configure the following settings:- Enable replication: "Replication is enabled for this location"
- Create new replicas: Immediately
- Replicate when Notes starts: "Replicate when Notes starts" and Prompt before replicating
- Schedule: Replication Interval
- Replicate daily between: 7:00 AM – 7:00 PM
- Repeat every: 30 minutes
- Days of week: "Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri"
- Replicate when Notes ends: "Prompt to replicate when Notes shuts down" and "If outbox is not empty"
Figure 13. Configuring the Location Document – Replication settings in the Desktop Settings Policy document
On
the Preferences - Mail and News subtab of the Policy document, set the
interval for checking for new mail to five minutes and enable the
Automatically Refresh Inbox setting. On the Preferences - Replication
subtab, enable "Create replicas ready for searching," set the Encrypt
replicas field to Locally encrypt, and set the Encrypt using field to
the level of encryption that you want (High, Medium, Low). Save and
Close the Desktop policy document.End user and help desk education issues
The local replication model should not require significant user training if properly configured. The goal of the implementation is to automate as much of the process as possible with policies. However, there are a few items that may require some training to ensure that users understand issues that may arise.Notification of new mail
The Lotus Notes client checks the Domino server for new mail on a regular interval. If there is new mail on the server that has not yet been replicated to the client, the user receives a notification of new mail, but is unable to find the new mail in his local Inbox. The delay in delivering the messages depends upon the size of the mail message and the activity on the server. When the user leverages the server copy of the mail database, the message is in the Inbox prior to the notification.Delay in routing messages to the server prior to shutdown
If a message is sent prior to closing the Notes client, the routing process may not have time to route the message to the server. The configuration is set to route messages immediately, but depending upon the size of message or connection type to the server, the message may be in the process of routing. The following prompt box (see figure 14) is displayed if the message has not completed the routing process.Figure 14. Warning of outgoing mail awaiting transfer before closing the client
Replicating mail only to minimize load on the server
One problem with users who leverage local mail replicas is that they tend to replicate all databases on their Replication tab instead of using the replicate Mail Only option. On the Replication tab, click the Start Now button and choose one of the following:- Start Now. This starts the replication of all databases on the Replication tab.
- Start Mail Only Now. This starts the replication of the mail database.
- Start High Priority Databases Now. This starts the replication of all databases that are marked for High Priority.
Options for configuring the Replication tab
You can modify the Replication tab to fit the users' needs. The following is a quick set of instructions to point the user to the configuration options for the Replication tab.Users can click the down arrow on the Replication button (see figure 15). They can change icon sizes, change how the replication tab is displayed, display all databases or only those marked for replication, or create folders to organize the databases.
Figure 15. Modify the look and feel of the Replication tab
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