Intranet Journal: Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 Coming Soon

September 25 2009

John Roling has been in the Notes/Domino 8.5.1 managed beta program, and has this to say in his Intranet Journal story:

While Notes and Domino 8.5 was a great release feature wise, 8.5.1 really improves on it in every imaginable way. This is likely to be what many organizations will consider to be their standard Lotus version to build upon.

If you are looking to upgrade your Notes environment right now, I would wait a few weeks for 8.5.1 to hit. If you are already at 8.5, upgrading to 8.5.1 is a no-brainer. The speed and reliability pieces alone are worth it, and you'll have a lot of goodwill gains with your end users.

And trust me, it will make your life easier as well.
Appreciate the good words, John!  We took in hundreds of additional beta testers in 8.5.1 vs a "normal" maintenance release, and the feedback has been tremendously helpful to making this a great release.  Glad that John and company were able to contribute, along with so many other edbrill.com readers...

Link: Intranet Journal: Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1 Coming Soon >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Notes and Domino 8.5  Add/View Comments [22]

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  1. 1  Mike Brown http://www.browniesblog.com | 9/25/2009 8:32:47 PM

    Can't wait!

    His screen shots are all from the Windows client, inevitably. Are all these wonderful speed and reliability improvements coming to Linux and Mac too?

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 2  John Roling http://www.greyhawk68.com | 9/25/2009 9:30:32 PM

    I have two machines and was writing on my Mac (in Symphony BTW) and had Notes and Photoshop on my Windows machine. It was just easier to do the screenshots there and bring them over.

    I've been using the Mac version almost exclusively, and I can tell you that it's mainly the perspective I wrote from. So yes, the Mac version rocks, and the stuff you see in the screenshots are there too.

    Take Care,

    John

  1. 3  rishi  | 9/26/2009 1:25:28 AM

  1. 4  rishi http://lotus-blogs.blogspot.com/ | 9/26/2009 1:28:47 AM

    I'm already using 8.5.1 beta in my development environment and it's wonderful and stable.I've already written five series of article on 8.5.1 series and more to come.I'm sure 8.5.1 going to start new era in Lotus Notes history.

  1. 5  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 9/26/2009 5:31:24 AM

    @2 - I installed the Mac version a couple of days ago (still beta of course). Working on a Mac is generally a better experience than using Windows anyway, so my assessment of running Notes 8.5 on the Mac was generally excellent, performance not a problem, but with some minor UI niggles (fonts, help balloons that stick, that sort of stuff). It's all fixed in 8.5.1 plus you have the new features.

    We have a joint event with Canonical (Ubuntu boys) coming up so I'll upgrading my Linux client soon.

    As for Windows - despite my general apathy for the OS, the Windows version of 8.5.1 flies compared to previous versions and generally has a feeling of being 9 months on from 8.5 - it's slicker, more polished, just better all round. 8.5.1 is the version that companies are going to want to deploy.

  1. 6  Bernard Horowitz http://www.raisingeli.com | 9/28/2009 3:52:09 PM

    Ed,

    I know you are extremely busy, but I have a question for you that I was hoping you can answer offline. I am about to undertake our 8.5 FP1 server upgrade across my company, project plan is done, approved, testing of all our applications etc have been completed. Now, with 8.5.1 being released my management has questioned whether we should push back the start date and go with 8.5.1 or stay with 8.5 FP1. In the past, I have always waited for the first fix pack before widespread release of a domino server version, to me, it is the safest thing to do.

    I was wondering your thoughts on this. As a Domino Admin for 15 years and a project manager switching at this late of a game requires me to restart the testing phase of my project, we have very complex home grown applications and a very unique architecture and push my project back. I was wondering if the new features in 8.5.1 is worth the risk as compared to just going with a fully tested 8.5 FP1 implementation (Upgrading from 7.0.3 FP1 with DWA hotfix - attachments)

    Thanks

    Bernard

  1. 7  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/28/2009 7:44:17 PM

    I would wait for 8.5.1. There are 4x the number of defects addressed in 8.5.1 than a normal maintenance release, and more than were in the fixpack. Now, we're a couple of weeks off, and admittedly 8.5.1 hasn't been in production in the same way the fixpack has, but from everything I've seen from development, I think 8.5.1 is going to be "the" deployment release.

  1. 8  Erik Brooks  | 9/29/2009 12:11:34 AM

    @6 - Wait for 8.5.1.

    We're on 7.0.3 also (albeit with 5 Hotfixes). We run *the* most complex Domino web app in the world (literally). It's all HTTP, Amgr, and Update for us. Trust me, if you need server reliability you want 8.5.1 over 8.5FP1.

    Disclaimer: 8.5.1 is still unshipped Beta software, features and enhancements may change prior to launch.

    Ed, here's a relevant question - is there likely to be an 8.5.0 FP2?

  1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/29/2009 5:31:09 AM

    @8 hmmm, that's a good question. Let me find out.

  1. 10  Greg MIchaels  | 9/29/2009 10:02:24 AM

    Oh man, I hope 8.5.1 lives up to the hype! I went 8.5 and tried to do some development work and it finally drove me back down to R7 after about a month of pain and frustration. John Roling says it's all been fixed. If that's accurate, I'll be back on 8 the instant it goes live.

  1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/29/2009 9:02:45 PM

    @8/9 - the answer is, no plans for a 2nd fixpack for 8.5.0. We put our hearts into 8.5.1 :-)

  1. 12  Erik Brooks  | 9/30/2009 7:38:39 AM

    @11 - Thanks for checking into that.

    No 8.0.3, no 8.5.0 FP2, no 7.0.5 and no 6.5.x... just 8.5.1+. THAT sounds like a plan!

    "Concentrate all firepower on that super star destroyer!"

  1. 13  Tom Berge  | 10/16/2009 5:58:24 AM

    Hi Ed

    I was at a Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 launch in Dublin yesterday where they also presented on Exchange 2010. Interestingly enough, they are mimicking IBM by using some very "lotus"-like graphics/color patterns, but I digress. They demo'ed a new feature in Exchange/Outlook where it prompts you on the address lookup when composing an email, that the recipient has their out of office enabled and displays the out of office notification so that you can see it an alternatively chose to email their alternate contact or not to send the email.

    I've been looking through the release notes for 8.5 and 8.5.1 (I haven't been able to install an 8.5.1 server yet) - so my question is:

    1) Were you aware of this new feature in Exchange (I assume you are, but I thought I'd mention it just in case)

    2) Is this already built into 8.5.1 and I'm just having a slow friday and didn't see it?

    3) @if(2="false) ;-), Do you think this would be a good feature to look at for the next point release of 8.5?

    Thanks,

    Tom

  1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 10/16/2009 6:59:26 AM

    don't have this feature in Notes today -- seems potentially interesting -- has some serious implications for distributed architecture.

  1. 15  Steve  | 2/4/2010 3:53:37 PM

    Is Domino Server 8.5.1 Windows Server 2008 R2 "ready" ??? I can't find any doco on the IBM site or web in general!

  1. 16  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 2/4/2010 4:11:55 PM

    @15 - The system requirements are here: { Link } . It does not mention Windows Server 2008 R2. There is supposedly a document that states that 8.5.1 FP1 supports Windows Server 2008 R2, but the only link I have found to it doesn't work { Link } (the link is in the last comment).

  1. 17  Sean Cull http://www.deliverytoolkit.com | 2/10/2010 6:12:22 AM

    Charles, the google cache of that document says that it is NOT supported

    { Link }

  1. 18  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 2/10/2010 7:39:47 AM

    @17 - Good find, thanks. Now we're back into the somewhat uncomfortable realm of it works but is not supported.

  1. 19  Robert Nuss  | 3/9/2010 11:56:33 PM

    Hi, I am upgrading from Domino 7.0.3 to notes 8.5.1 FP1. We are running both servers in a mixed environment until we migrate all the users over.

    We are having issues with desktop Policy. Excryption on many clients turned on out of the blue. The user is able to set the settings back but they seem to revert again the following day.

    We have disabled the settings in the Desktop policy but it does not seem to make a difference.

    I have been working with Notes tech support and they are having trouble getting this resolved.

    Can I remove the desktop policy all together? Would this resolve the problem?

    This is really becomming a problem,

  1. 20  MiroT  | 3/16/2010 1:15:36 PM

    Hi,

    mostly we have Domino 8.5FP1 in our organization. We want to upgrade to 8.5.1FP1 version. Do we need to uninstall FP1 for 8.5 first and after then install upgrade to 8.5.1 and then FP1 for 8.5.1?

    Thank you

    MiroT

  1. 21  Kenneth  | 7/9/2010 11:38:06 AM

    In response to Robert Nuss comment about encryption.

    We had same issue, and we boiled it down to this:

    wrong template version on the domino directory, and editing a policy. When we saved the policy we go errors.

    Only thing to do was to replace the design on the domino directory with 8.5.1, and edit and save the policy again!

    users still have to manually remove encryption in some cases.

    and even though the template said it was correct, it wasnt.

    under policies in the directory you have to have

    Dynamic policies and settings then you are pretty sure the template is correct and you can work with policies without error

  1. 22  Steve Zimmer http://www.co.genessee.ny.us | 2/28/2011 12:46:13 PM

    We are impementing Lotus 8.5.2 / Windows and want to use a Barracuda Message Archiver for lonng term email retention. Does anyone know how to set up journaling to 'push' the journal realtime to the Barracuda appliance? Thanks for the help