Lotus Domino V5.0.9
Lotus Notes is certainly a familiar client with a large number of e-mail and groupware users, and IBM/Lotus is engaged in a battle with Microsoft Exchange for the top groupware/e-mail client.
The server behind Lotus Notes is Domino. Domino and Notes are not renowned for ease of installation and configuration; but to be fair, both are very powerful entities.
Notes is much more than a simple e-mail client, and at the same time, Domino is certainly more than just a mail server. It is the foundation on which you can lay other applications such as Domino.Doc. As its name suggests, Notes/Domino is a highly evolved document management system.
Even taking this into consideration we feel the installation and configuration of Domino could be simpler. If you want to ensure Domino is easier to administer, you need to install the server and then separately install Domino Administrator. While Domino is not difficult to install, the process is more long-winded than either Imail or Exchange.
The vendor's minimum system configurations appear a tad conservative, or should that be optimistic. Under Windows 2000 for example, the minimum configuration is just 128MB of memory and 2GB of hard drive space.
We didn't test this configuration, but it's a fair bet that with those specs, Domino would struggle with even the lightest of e-mail loads. It was also interesting to note that although Domino runs under Windows 2000, the Web site states it has not been certified under this OS.
Domino is actually significantly less expensive than Exchange particularly if you intend purchasing the iNotes web-messaging client licences rather than the Notes messaging client licences.
Lotus does not directly supply antivirus solutions, but these are available from third party vendors such as Symantec, Trend, and McAfee.
Install Domino on its own and all you are presented with is a command-line interface that is even scarier than the Linux packages. Installing the Administrator package will have you sighing with relief, at least until you check out the incredibly complex menu structure.
While we think Exchange's menu structure could stand some pruning when compared to Imail, Domino could do with a jolly good logging. Yes, the Administrator is very powerful but until you get a handle on it, it will prove a tad daunting.
The configuration and set-up of the Web mail system under Domino was unnecessarily complex, compared to the almost default installs achieved by both Exchange and Imail.
The documentation is an absolute must! We didn't receive all the documentation and without the two volumes outlining the administration, flicking back and forth to the online help when trying to carry out even the simplest task is a pain.
Obviously the interface was made more challenging by the lack of docs, but even so most of the basic configuration tasks are painfully long-winded when compared to Exchange or Imail. Basically Domino tries to be everything to everybody and a lot of the functionality and complexity is totally unnecessary for a mail server.
If remote access is critical to your operation, then it would be advisable to purchase the Domino version that runs under Linux. We can see that the Windows server shortcomings as previously mentioned would also be applicable here.
As for protocols and security, we found that Domino supported most in one way or another along with its native Notes format.
Lotus has support packages ranging from web and telephone support during business hours, through 24x7 phone support, to on-site support plans which may include Lotus staff contracted on a weekly or monthly basis. Many Lotus/IBM business partners also provide support packages for Domino.
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Tree years ago we were wondering which will be the best mail server to deploy in my office ( we are 25 users). The choice were between Xchg (altough we had a lot of troubles when our EXCHANGE Server bundled in MS Small bussines Server crashed and decided to quit Exchange also It was slow and the client was annoyingly slow)and Domino (my friends told me that Domino was rather complex an expensive to deploy).
My solaris trainer told me "Why don´t you use sendmail. It´s free and works fast"
One day I recieved RH6.2 and it took me 15 days to figure out how to deploy the mail service until I´ve found linuxconf :).
It´s been more than two years now, and the machine works very fast and very well . I used the CPU that nobody wanted (P133 48Mb 4Gb machine)
My experience is that those fifteen days spent in learning worth very well because we saved more than 15 thousand dollars. THNX Sendmail Linuxconf & RH!!!