Ed Brill

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1. 1  Alberto Perez  | 1/27/2011 2:33:58 AM

   Ed,

   Seems spanish site has not the same info of the global one, and unfortunately, each time I am triying to go the the global one, i got redirected (due my location) to the spanish one.

   I like the concept of "Hybrid" cloud, and would like to evaluate to mantain my current Domino infraestructure, using only LotusLive for advanced feautures (mobile connection, colaboration, and mail gateway). I guess that I would be able to do some kind of hybrid infraestructure using cross-certification, but could not find to much info about it.

   Going to the maximum of hybrid infraestructure, I would like to be able to replicate my mailboxes on lotuslive inside my local servers.........althouht I understand that the hibryd concept may be only oriented to be able to access my Domino applications localy forcing me to use the mailboxes / pab on the cloud.

   Is that possible ? Would it be possible to find any info regarding it ?

   thks for your blog.. ;-)

1. 2  GarryL  | 1/27/2011 3:39:46 AM

   @1 - I don't know if you can replicate Live to Local, as you ask, but if you take the cloud mail it will look exactly like local mail in your client - your users should not notice any difference whether you have on premise or not.

   The same applies to the LotusLive Connections - this would just appear as a side-bar in your client, if you so wished.

   The hybrid stuff if pretty neat, actually.

1. 3  Ed Brill http://Www.edbrill.com | 1/27/2011 6:03:13 AM
   
   

   @1 I have heard this request a few times. What is the reason for wanting to also replicate the mailboxes to local servers?

1. 4  Kevin Lee  | 1/27/2011 7:40:41 AM

   I like the concept of the "Hybrid" cloud, Id like to keep apps and mail on local servers, but have sametime and video conferencing managed by someone else on the cloud, is this possible?

1. 5  Mark Hughes http://hughesconnect.com | 1/27/2011 7:46:34 AM

   @3 I am just guessing, but local area network is MUCH faster than the wlan in most companies.

1. 6  Erik Brooks  | 1/27/2011 7:50:44 AM

   @3 - The primary reasons I've seen tend to stem from the need for faster/better integration with custom apps.

   One reason is, as Mark mentions @5, to eliminate the network delay when using custom apps that integrate with mail/todo/etc.

   If everything's on local servers at the office then app-to-mail talk is usually fast since you're running on all internal bandwidth/latency. If everything's on the *same* server and running server-side then the network piece is removed entirely. That can mean a literally 1000x increase in speed for those processes versus having to hit LL servers across the net. And that's the difference in UX between "Notes sucks/is slow" and "Wow, this is awesome!"

   Another reason is DOLS. If I recall the LL servers aren't running DOLS so if a customer uses that at all then they're forced to use their own local server's replicas. When DOLS installs or syncs the dbs *have* to be sourced from a server that has the DOLS DSAPI filter running.

   This may be something very simple to offer with LL though since the DOLS admin db already allows security/access filtering by org, etc.

1. 7  Chris Blatnick http://interfacematters.com | 1/27/2011 8:28:29 AM

   GMCH was great! I was fortunate to get to work on the rollout with them. They really liked the collaboration components.

   @1 - I'd also like to know why you would want to replicate between on-premises and LL. Seems like it kind of defeats the purpose of cloud.

1. 8  Bruce Currier  | 1/27/2011 8:36:31 AM

   @3 - Ed, the most important reason I would want to replicate to local servers is so I can do backups of my companies data. This is very important when it's just the mail file, but if you start allowing actual applications to be in LotusLive, this is critical.

   Also, even though we are implementing managed replicas, so in one sense it doesn't matter where you are in relation to your mail server, I still would like to have some level of control over how much and how often data is traveling over my Internet connections. By having the mail file local and in the cloud, I would hope a person could replicate with the internal server when they are at one of my facilities, and with a LotusLive server when they are at home or traveling. Kind of the best of both worlds idea.

1. 9  Mark Hughes http://hughesconnect.com | 1/27/2011 8:50:45 AM

   @6 if only there were DOLS for XPAGES!!!!!

1. 10  Alberto Perez  | 1/27/2011 9:06:57 AM

   @3...I may have my own domino server connected to internet.. that is, for example, acepting connections from other domains (ie, mydomain1.com) while I have on cloud main domain (mydomain2.com).

   If on my own server I have my own Public Names & Address book that states that my mailbox is the private replica copy of the one on cloud, I can pick up mails from severals sources and domains in a single mailbox that gest replicated across private cloud & public cloud. If on the future I o not want to use liveservice because I feel not comfortable, is just a matter of pointing back the MX of the domain on the cloud to my private domino mails servers.

   On the other way, hibrid cloud is only for applications... is a good value, but only for organizations than have a lot of domino applications...

   Hibryd cloud computing is very flexible, and do not tie me to an external service that in the future may have limitations (ie, when I need to integrate sametime with my local pbx/phones).

1. 11  Alberto Perez  | 1/27/2011 9:13:06 AM

   Do you known, for example, egnyte cloud hibryd services for NAS ?

   See here -> { Link }

   They have a file server (either an appliance or ar VMWARE server) that is installe locally, and replicated to the cloud.

   You access to the files, while in the office, to the local NAS that gets replicated to the cloud. While out of the office, or mobile (either smartphones) you use the cloud. THIS IS FAST for office access, while minimizing also wan traffic, and very optimized.

   If you have a problem with the internal NAS, you have a backup. Also, on the other way. Like this concept. Like to have a copy of my private data on my own.

1. 12  Stephen Hood  | 1/27/2011 9:35:38 AM

   @7 -Chris, Hybrid is a actually a big advantage for many people.

   Why would people want local replication instead of defeating the purpose of their Domino servers :)

   Others have already touched on them but here is my short list:

   Local "backup"

   Performance/Integration

   Feature sets

   Regulatory/data privacy issues

   Some people will NEVER use the cloud as their primary/only access. But as a complimentary service it's very compelling. Notes is ideal in that regards. I would not use Google Apps for my business for this reason.

   Ideally I could replicate my full LotusLive feature set down to my servers as IBM upgrades the cloud version. But that would require everything being available on Domino :)

   It's a powerful market advantage you should be exploiting. An obvious one your competitors will have a tough time matching for both data and APPS. It's relatively free on the technical side because of the Notes infrastructure. And there are a large group of people that will never fully trust only the cloud for their business.

   As @8 says - Best of both worlds.

   P.S. Supporting custom apps that are easy to push up to LotusLive could open up additional possibilities for ISV as well.

1. 13  Steve Medure  | 1/27/2011 9:56:03 AM

   So how does LotusLive handle the typical help desk call from the user?

   "I accidentally deleted everything in my All Documents view and emptied the trash, can you get it back?" Sadly it does happen, so how are the Lotus Live mail files backed up.

   - Is there a built in backup/restore utility for administrators? O

   - r is this a phone call to LotusLive support to recover data?

   - Is backup/restore an additional charge to the standard service or is it included?

   Just curious how this scenario plays out in the cloud space.

1. 14  Bill Geimer  | 1/27/2011 10:09:50 AM

   Ed, great news.

   Sadly, I am still waiting to see Microsoft's annual on the eve of Lotusphere ad blitz which should be out later today or tomorrow. Seems they do, don't they.

1. 15  John D.  | 1/27/2011 10:15:49 AM

   I transferred one of my clients to LotusLive back in November and I've have a few issues with it.

   1.) Little to no feedback during the process. My client wanted to use LotusLive for an upcoming project and wanted status updates. Letting customers know where they are in the LotusLive process with an ETA for a "go live" date would be very helpful.

   2.) The LotusLive wiki documentation needs some work. Tried using it to figure out what DNS changes needed to be made to enable mail via LotusLive. The wiki gave some inaccurate samples and did not even mention what page within LotusLive actually displayed the required DNS changes.

   3.) Discovered AFTER trying to switch client email that iNotes and Notes can't run on the same domain name. Initial request via IngramMicro stated clearly that all users required Engage and iNotes, but it seems there wasn't a SKU for that combo - WHY?!

   4.) Took 8 plus hours waiting for return support calls to find out that number 3 was the problem. Meanwhile the client wasn't getting messages.

   5.) If IBM/Lotus knew that #3 was an issue why would you even configure the system with a mixture of clients knowing it wouldn't work without ever notifying the client?

   While my client likes the LotusLive product they aren't very happy with IBM.

1. 16  Mark Davids  | 1/27/2011 11:49:34 AM

   Agree with the local replication issue. I'd love to have a single onsite server (covers 99% of our use), but then replicate to LotusLive in case the server goes down or for use from our DR site.

1. 17  David Bell  | 1/27/2011 6:38:45 PM

   @3, @8 - maintaining on-premise infra and replicas just dilutes the value prop of cloud. Either you want to manage infra on-premise or you are happy to go with a cloud service to save money. Doing both does not make sense.

   @6 - depends on the integration model. If the client is doing the work and the replica is local, WAN does not play any part.

1. 18  Erik Brooks  | 1/27/2011 7:16:15 PM

   @9 - "...DOLS for XPAGES!!!!"

   I agree, 500%. :-)

   @17 - "Doing both does not make sense."

   Tell that to the customers who are doing it. But if you think about it there's definitely scenarios where you'd want to consider it.

   E.g. What if I've got a handful of mission-critical apps used by 10% of my users but the other 90% are mail-only? I could definitely see running with LL for the bulk of everything, offloading my hardware/support infrastructure to IBM, but still having local servers for the other stuff.

   "If the client is doing the work and the replica is local, WAN does not play any part."

   Yes - that's the same point I was making regarding server code running on the local server. But there's plenty of scenarios where local client replicas suck, e.g. you want immediate, fast access to a shared server to ensure everybody's working with the most up-to-date data possible. And that requires a low-latency LAN, and rules out the cloud. Unless you ditch the ultra-chatty NRPC and go pure browser-based to leverage HTTP.

1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/27/2011 8:01:06 PM
   
   

   I'm with David @17, I am really surprised by the discussion about replicating to on-premises. You wouldn't be having this conversation in a BPOS/Office 365 or Google Apps context -- the technology option doesn't even exist. That it does in the Notes world doesn't mean it makes sense.

   Hybrid - I get that -- some users on premises and some users in the cloud. Leaving app servers on premises -- I get that too -- and having them in the same domain we can do. But replicating mail from LotusLive servers to a local server -- I'm not seeing how that has benefit versus either keeping your mail o premises or running it on LotusLive. I'll re-read these comments to see if I am missing something - it's certainly not a use case we designed for.

1. 20  David Bell  | 1/27/2011 9:53:46 PM

   @18 - but that scenario is a separation of what is hosted where, not hosting all of it in both places which is what the @3/@8 posts describe.

   The hybrid configuration is designed to support hosting some things on-premise and some in the cloud; but not having everything in both places.

1. 21  BenH  | 1/28/2011 2:34:16 AM

   @19 Ed, I am glad IBM did not design the Use Case that you are referring to. Please don't! The value of the Lotus Live offering is that we do not need all our mail on local servers, the terabytes of storage we are using up can be reallocated and the backups are handled.

   We are in a POC at the moment and excited at the potential once we smooth out a few issues.

1. 22  BenH  | 1/28/2011 2:48:30 AM

   @15 Did you ever resolve issue #3? we want to have both Notes and iNotes users and have purchased a small amount licences for both. At the moment we have only configured the Notes users and iNotes is next.

   It is my understanding the the "iNotes" offering is not based on Domino just branded iNotes. The backend is a platform that IBM acquired. This separate infrastructure may be the cause of the domain issue.

1. 23  Mark Davids  | 1/28/2011 3:44:04 AM

   @19 When I visited Google for a sales talk about Google Apps, several people asked whether Apps would be available as a local appliance for a hybrid solution (I was one of them!)

   It's true that Google and BPOS can't do this, but this is something that Notes/Domino does well and it is a selling point.

1. 24  Carl Tyler http://www.ibm.com | 1/28/2011 8:35:42 AM

   "I'm with David @17, I am really surprised by the discussion about replicating to on-premises. You wouldn't be having this conversation in a BPOS/Office 365 or Google Apps context -- the technology option doesn't even exist. That it does in the Notes world doesn't mean it makes sense."

   So you have a differentiator, that's a good thing.

   I see this as a benefit like the others. By having a hybrid model, local internet network traffic can be kept local, and people that work from home etc can access servers in the cloud. Companies don't have to worry about the security of the servers in the cloud, IBM does that, so people working from home access the cloud servers. That domino server has one open connection to the IBM Cloud servers, reduced exposure to hacks etc.

   The Sametime servers are calling out for a hybrid model and have been for years. Put meeting servers in the cloud, and local, internal users get great speed and connections, even though the cable coming into the SMB maybe a slowish cable modem, customers can access the cloud meeting room, still great speed because it's connecting to IBM servers with great internet connections.

   This is the thing IBM misses out on by not focusing on SMB enough and focusing on really large companies, the costs involved in running systems are more than just people, licenses and server hardware. With todays social businesses internet connections can be expensive, adding IP addresses can be expensive, sure GE don't give a crap about that. But if you're an SMB and as an example need to run a Sametime 8.5 server and your internet costs more than double because you need additional IP addresses to run the beast, you start looking for alternatives, SaaS is one of those.

   I'm surprised you're surprised by the requests for a hybrid model, there are lots of additional reasons it makes sense that I haven't covered here.

1. 25  Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 1/28/2011 9:04:25 AM

   @17 and @19. Sorry guys, telling customers what they want doesn't make sense is hardly the way to win friends and influence people!

   This replicated hybrid model makes perfect sense to me. Take small steps toward the cloud by moving DR and high availability options there, so as to negate comms, server and site failures and make the most of low cost/high-functionality cloud storage and services rather than having to manage that internally.

   But keep the principal servers that users hit all day everyday on site on the LAN for speed and security reasons.

   Also, I have a number of customers where users are in far flung locations - in the depths of Africa or South America, where comms lines are still too expensive and too unreliable to have users rely on cloud-based or remote servers. That's where Domino still has a massive advantage over the competition - put in a small appliance-style server and replicate when the line is available. For these types of situation, a central cloud-based server for mail delivery and management, plus a local replica on a small Domino server makes a lot of sense.

   I would echo Carl's comments regarding thinking about SMBs and startups. One of Domino's great strengths is its flexibility and options for deployment for companies that don't have the resources of large corporates. It would be a shame for LotusLive Notes to negate some of the positives if it were possible to include them with some clever licensing and management thinking.

   LotusLive Notes is a great solution BTW, its amazing how far it has come since last Lotusphere.

1. 26  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 1/28/2011 9:35:06 AM

   @17 “Doing both does not make sense.”

   Of course it does. Most organisations are pretty risk-averse, and for them, when it comes to moving their IT infrastructure outside of the firewall, it pays to take baby-steps. So, cloud-based infrastructure, working with local application / mail replicas sounds like a good idea to me (and as pointed out by Carl and Mark, it's a unique selling point for IBM Lotus).

   Let's turn the question around for IBM Lotus: why would *not* offer a hybrid model, given how straightforward it is for you to implement?

1. 27  Kevin Pettitt http://www.lotusguru.com | 1/28/2011 10:25:59 AM

   First, it's worth pointing out that there are other "cloud" providers (aka "hosting" providers) that have been in the Domino space for ages. Prominic and Connectria are two that come to mind right away, with the former happening to host my blog and mail. So for those truly interested in hybrid models where you still have some in house admin resources to manage that part of your infrastructure, LotusLive may not be your best option.

   That doesn't mean LotusLive shouldn't offer this option, because as others have pointed out it is a competitive differentiator and does offer advantages in performance etc. More importantly, it is one that will become a much more important selling point as other cloud providers suffer major outages (or in the case of startups going out of business altogether).

   Also keep in mind there are other services beyond pure Domino that might better be hosted, such as a BES or Traveler server, or anything involving folks outside the firewall (customers, partners, etc.) such that the cloud becomes a glorified DMZ, or that are simply more complicated to maintain (Connections, Sametime), or a combination.

   Lots of folks are mobile, using many different devices, for varying purposes, depending on where they are. When out of the office, hitting the cloud directly makes sense, whereas sitting at their PC in the office it may make more sense to hit the LAN server. If you are located in the developing world where network bandwidth is slower and less reliable, but often travel to more developed markets (e.g. because you sell your inexpensively manufactured wares in those markets), this usage pattern is particularly compelling. Actually, a Foundations box at the home office would be most ideal because IT resources may be harder to find, but that's another can of worms.

   The idea I would propose for ANY aspiring cloud provider would be to offer a local appliance of some sort but one that can be managed remotely BY the cloud provider (or in Lotus' case a BP as well). That way you get the benefits of on premises without having to hire a full time admin. Seems Lotus is in a very good position to offer this before anyone else.

1. 28  Erik Brooks  | 1/28/2011 11:31:15 AM

   @Ed - "But replicating mail from LotusLive servers to a local server -- I'm not seeing how that has benefit versus either keeping your mail o premises or running it on LotusLive."

   Even if I've got servers distributed throughout the world so that my users can have local, fast-access servers, it may still be of benefit to have mobile users access their own server in your cloud. Our on-premise servers may not have the outside bandwidth/connectivity needed to serve to all of my mobile users, but I may have enough to can stomach replication to/from LL.

   "It's certainly not a use case we designed for."

   Yeah, I wouldn't have expected it either, but there it is. Fortunately Iris did, and since LL is Domino through-and-through, everybody gets it "for free." :-)

   And it's REALLY freaking cool that you can do it.

1. 29  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/28/2011 2:33:59 PM
   
   

   Aha! What I think you are all describing makes sense as, perhaps, a virtualized Domino server in the cloud. I get that. Have lots to say on the subject this week.

   LotusLive Notes is truly a SaaS environment, not on-demand Domino. As it is offered today, it doesn't fit the use case described above, but it's an awesome offering in the pay-as-you-go cloud collaboration space.

1. 30  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 1/28/2011 2:45:25 PM

   Aha!

   FWIW, we in the London Developer Co-op have a virtualised Domino box in the cloud. And it's very nice, we like it :-)

1. 31  Carl Tyler http://www.ibm.com | 1/28/2011 3:03:07 PM

   @29 Still not sure you get it. It's not purely for Disaster recovery, which you is what your response makes me think we are asking for.

1. 32  Carl Tyler http://www.ibm.com | 1/28/2011 3:08:54 PM

   Damn the trackpad and it's sensitivity and my fat palms...

   What that should have read was

   @29 Still not sure you get it. It's not purely for Disaster recovery, which is what your response makes me think you think we are asking for.

1. 33  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/28/2011 3:23:56 PM
   
   

   @32 no, I get it, at least moreso.

1. 34  Alberto Perez  | 1/28/2011 6:12:58 PM

   @19, sorry ed, not agree with you.

   On my organization does perfetly makes sense. I would not have all 400 mailboxes on both, local cloud, and lotuslive cloud, but I WOULD do i with part of them. Management (70-80 mailboxes) and VIPS would be not only on LotusLive, but also localy. g to cut down the service with lotuslive for whatever reason). Rest would be only on the cloud. Taht way, WIP would work faster, and I would have more control of their data, concerns, and integration needs.

   Also, if something goes wrong, I still have my data localy (not talking about bakup or contingency, i am talking about having to cut down the service with lotuslive for whatever reason).

   Most companies are not happy with having all their critical data outside their organization... and loosing control.. and this would minimize that concern.

   So, again, you have a differenciator with google mail apps.. i am quite sure that if gapss could offer an appliance with some mailboxes replicated, would do it... can not understand why you have some to differeniate as an offer, and you say you dont do it because others that can not do it, are not able to do it.. so.. are you willing to be always behind the competence ?

1. 35  David Bell  | 1/28/2011 6:54:54 PM

   @25 - what customers are telling us they want to do primarily is reduce cost, reduce infrastructure and mgmt of messaging environments. The scenarios discussed here increase all of those things.

   @26 - "So, cloud-based infrastructure, working with local application / mail replicas sounds like a good idea to me"

   That is exactly what hybrid is; servers in the cloud, clients with replicas local. Unless you mean "local" as in a replica on a server on-premise. If the user has a local mail replica on the client anyway, does it matter ? They will get the same performance.

   As far as ease of implementation, server to server replication is very easy to set up. Keeping control of the costs of a shared service, and meeting SLOs, is far far harder when dealing with a workload that is almost impossible to predict and is exerted by potentialy hundreds of customers who may or may not choose to schedule replication between N on-premise servers and the LLN service at any given time ?

   Given that IBM own the service level, how do you expect them to stand behind that, when there is no control over the customer behaviour in that regard ?

   What we are talking about here is far more significant than thinking about dedicated infrastructure and one customer at a time.

   @28 - "Even if I've got servers distributed throughout the world so that my users can have local, fast-access servers, it may still be of benefit to have mobile users access their own server in your cloud." - our hybrid model exactly supports this. You can move part of your user base to LLN. What you would not want to do with those servers is have replicas from LLN on them, specifically because of the lack of bandwidth.

   P.S.

   I'll be in the Meet the Developers lab at Lotusphere between customer meetings and my jump start on setting up the hybrid environment.

   Feel free to drop by and discuss further.

1. 36  Alberto Perez  | 1/28/2011 7:23:20 PM

   @35, yes cost is important... but on some scenarios (ie, management & vip staf) there is issues more important... that is way i like to have a mixture of them... may have most of my mailboxes outside, and not invest on new servers, and have important people mailboxes & data (vips), on both, local servers and externa ones.

   In fact, some of my managers would never allow me to get their data only out of the organization, they woud be very reluctant to do it.

   And.. could you also ensure that cloud infraestructure would give me the same adavantages than local for integration issues, perfomance, upgrades, etc ? To have part of my organization on both enviroments, allow me to swap later if something does not advance as expetedd

1. 37  John D.  | 1/29/2011 7:20:27 PM

   @22

   Nope. That drumming sound you hear is my fingers as I wait to hear back from IBM. Hey it's only been over a week - who's in a rush?

   Not my client anymore since they've decided to see if their current email provider can offer the services they wanted from LotusLive.

   I've never heard that iNotes was something other than Notes/Domino, but given that the two won't run on the same domain you may be correct.

   You can run one or the other, but not both on the same domain.