Newbie seeks advice, opinions and assistance, please!

[mjstanton]

I have a real problem and need some advice and assistance. Our IT dept consists of 3 people - me, Bob and Graeme. Bob's area of expertise is Lotus Notes. Mine is networking and software, Graeme's is networking and hardware. Bob is our boss. In April Bob became seriously ill, and has been out on disability ever since. I am going to get some Lotus Notes training, but not until August. In the meantime, Graeme and I are floundering around like fish out of water. One of our goals was to upgrade from R5 to R6. Our Domino Servers are R5.0.8 and the clients are R5.0.11. Graeme and I are going to set up a mini "test" network, one that will simulate our current environment.

We have 3 Domino Servers, one on "P1", one on "P2", and one on "P3". The one on P1 is the administrative server. The one on P2 is the application server. The one on P3 keeps a replica of what's on P2. Mail comes in and is directed to P1. P1 hands the mail off to P2. P2 has all of our databases, including mailboxes. I'm not sure why or if it's necessary to have it set up this way, but since we are going to upgrade, we're going to keep things the way they are (at least for now). So I have a few questions:

Can we install Domino Server 5.0.11 like we were just installing Notes for the first time, or is it just an upgrade? And if it's just an upgrade, what version to we need to install? BTW, when I first came on board, we were using R4.6, but neither Graeme nor I were involved in the upgrade to R5.

Is anyone out there familiar with TFS Secure Messaging? We are using this as our mail server. We know we don't need this anymore, and we want to stop using it. Hopefully, when we get R5 running on our test network without it, we can figure out how to upgrade to R6 without
keeping it in the mix.

Lastly, can anyone suggest some good training materials for me until I start attending classes in August?

Thanks so much for any/all replies!

MJ

 

[pmonett]

Well, sounds like quite a project.
Normally, upgrading from R5 to R6 is no big deal. Nevertheless, doing a test first is always a good thing.
However, it sounds like you're going to have quite a task in making your test reflect reality. After all, you have to ensure your test environment is identical, and that seems complicated from where I sit.
From what I've understood, you have an admin server that recieves mail and gives it to the application server. The application server is clustered with a backup server. I fail to see the use of the admin server, but no matter (I'm just a programmer after all).

So, first question : couldn't you just ghost the configuration of the production servers to three hardware-similar test servers ? That should ensure that all the other bits & pieces (like the TFS thingy - I suppose it is filtering mail for Notes) are in place also. Of course, they need to be in an isolated network.
Failing that, you can indeed install R5 as a First Server (have to do it once anyways), but then there's the question of domain name : the test servers should not be in the same domain as the production servers if they are on the same network.

Once you set up the first server - which you'll probably want to use as admin server, you can then set up the application server, and the backup app server, and cluster those two together (a simple change in the Server document for both is enough for this, if I remember correctly).

When you've done that, you should have a working environment. To upgrade, I would down both clustered servers and upgrade them at the same time - don't want any template mess-ups with mail files. When you've done the uograde to R6 on both, restart Domino on both servers and watch things ramp up.
Before or after the cluster, you'll have to down the admin server and do the same.

I fail to see how this could be a problem, but then again, I don't have much admin experience.

Good luck !

Pascal.

 

[mjstanton]

Thanks so much, Pascal!

I think I'm going to wait until I can take an R6 class or two. If I'm lucky, I may have an instructor who might not mind giving me some tips and advice. It is not critical that we upgrade now, but I *DO* want to try to create the test network. Ghosting is out, as we don't have compatible software. All I really want to do for now is to set up 2 R5 servers - one administrative and one application server. I am hoping to copy one of our production databases into the data file of the new "test" server. Is this possible?

Thanks again,
Marcia

 

[pmonett]

Setting up a Notes server is no big deal. Setting up a second one and clustering the two is just as easy.

The problem I see, as I said before, is that just upgrading two R5 servers in a cluster to R6 is not representative of your environment, therefor it is useless.

You need to create a copy of your environment that is as representative as possible in order for the test to be meaningful.
Since the easy Ghost is not possible, I'd suggest rebuilding what you need from scratch (ie installing the environment as it should be). Then you can do some useability tests, like importing the app you're thinking of. Once the environment responds as you think it should, you can then go on and upgrade, then re-test to ensure it all works again as expected.

Pascal.