Lotus Notes and Active Directory Integration

[Bluecrack]

I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with the following.

We running Active Directory with Exchange 2000 and are being forced to migrate to Lotus Notes. Luckily we are moving to 6.0.1. However one of the problems we see is that Notes has 2 seperate passwords. An internet password used for webmail and IMAP/POP access and a 2nd password regular Notes clients. This causes a real problem for us with our password policy (everything is based on our Active Directy [AD] user). According to the Release Notes there is a way to synchronize the Notes users with Active Directory users so passwords can be changed in Active Directory and the change will be propogated to Notes. Has anyone had any experience doing this? Or can you tell me where to find the documentation on setting this up?

Thanks in advance for any help,
Frustrated Notes Newbie

 

[AmazingDominik]

The documentation is in the Notes Administrator Help that comes with your Domino server.

Create a full-text index and perform a search on active directory. This will show you everything you need to know.

If you are new to Domino I advice you to do this together with a Notes specialist. Domino is a far more complex environment then Exchange.

The internet password can be synchronized with the Notes Client password by the way.

If you are really starting from zero, I would like to give you the advice to not use the Notes Client anymore but use only Internet Explorer with Domino as the content management server, together with iNotes functionality.

In the future the Notes Client will disappear anyway.



Kind regards,

Dominik Malfait
dominik@amazingit.com

http://www.amazingit.com

 

[deftonesman]

We are a Notes Shop, using novell as our File server, we are moving to AD also with 2003 and taking our current notes 5.x enviroment to 6.x. We use the client and I disagree with the previous comment about loosing the client because it will be eliminated. I cant ever see notes being a fully web client, even with the use of Inotes, if you use any kind of application development, its impossible to loose the client all together..the day i see all databases able to function FULLY with a web client..i will s^iT myself...they promised us in versions 5..more web..and now in 6..more web..but the limitations will always remain..so in short buddy...use inotes if you have allot of remote users, wanting a flexible login enviroment, but stick with the client...

As far the password sync with AD, we want it too..not sure what has to be done just yet, we did use the single signon feature built into notes client but that might be useless with ad because i think it takes the local credentials and if using ad, you have no local accounts on the workstations..but if you find anything interesting, let us know.

 

[Bluecrack]

Thanks for your input. We'll take a look at the Help and see what we can do with it.

Bluecrack

 

[AmazingDominik]

Well Deftonesman I suggest you talk a bit more with IBM and look at the evolution of modern computing... The Notes client will disappear wether you like it or not.

It has nothing to do with functionality or being "the best" but all with the way new technologies will function. Nobody wants difficult to maintain client software anymore, including IBM.

Everybody wants to go back to centralized computing. Corporate portals are the future. IBM has always recognized business needs long before the businesses themselves saw it.

IBM itself has announced several times already that it will go for an environment with a WebSphere front-end (Browsers that means) with a back-end of DB/2 and Domino databases.
In the long run even the .nsf format will disappear and be replaced entirely with DB/2.
The first Notes applications that use a full D/2 engine are already running in the IBM labs, and the first full blown DB/2 based e-mail server is already for sale!

Domino will be an e-mail and content-management engine that will work together with WebSphere (JEE2 technology) to provide a better end-user experience.

Altogether it can maybe not offer the power a Notes Client can, but hey: who is using all of that power anyway? Most organizations never get past implementing e-mail if they do not have some dedicated people around.
Ever found a normal user that understands more then 5 percent of all the features and options that a Notes Client offers? Let a normal user look at the new security settings of a R6 client for example. He will think you come from Mars!

Remember the times when WordPerfect 5.1 was the best wordprocessor around? They sticked to their old superior technology and got beaten by the very first Word for Windows that could not even do a tenth of WP 5.1! The whole world went for it except the technology freaks like me that sticked to the sinking ship as long as possible. Well, I learned my lesson. It is not the technology with the most features that will be used, but the one that can be used by most people.

IBM will not let that happen to Domino, and is now already preparing for the future. You better prepare yourself also and get ready for JEE2 and WebSphere!



Kind regards,

Dominik Malfait
dominik@amazingit.com

http://www.amazingit.com