Lotus Notes 8.5.3

[Marva Richardt]

HCLNotes (formerly Lotus Notes then IBM Notes[2][3]) is a proprietary collaborative software platform for Unix (AIX), IBM i, Windows, Linux, and macOS, sold by HCLTech.[4] The client application is called Notes while the server component is branded HCL Domino.

HCL Notes provides business collaboration functions, such as email, calendars, to-do lists, contact management, discussion forums, file sharing, websites, instant messaging, blogs, document libraries, user directories, and custom applications. It can also be used with other HCL Domino applications and databases. IBM Notes 9 Social Edition removed integration with the office software package IBM Lotus Symphony, which had been integrated with the Lotus Notes client in versions 8.x.

Lotus Development Corporation originally developed "Lotus Notes" in 1989. IBM bought Lotus in 1995 and it became known as the Lotus Development division of IBM. On December 6, 2018, IBM announced that it was selling a number of software products to HCLSoftware for $1.8bn,[5] including Notes and Domino.[6] This acquisition was completed in July 2019.[7]

Domino provides email, calendars, instant messaging (with additional HCLSoftware voice- and video-conferencing and web-collaboration), discussions/forums, blogs, and an inbuilt personnel/user directory. In addition to these standard applications, an organization may use the Domino Designer development environment and other tools to develop additional integrated applications such as request approval / workflow and document management.

Domino competes with products from other companies such as Microsoft, Google, Zimbra and others. Because of the application development abilities, HCL Domino is often compared to products like Microsoft Sharepoint.[8][9] The database in Domino can be replicated between servers and between server and client, thereby allowing clients offline capabilities.

Domino, a business application as well as a messaging server, is compatible with both Notes and web-browsers. Notes (and since IBM Domino 9, the HCAA) may be used to access any Domino application, such as discussion forums, document libraries, and numerous other applications. Notes resembles a web-browser in that it may run any compatible application that the user has permission for.

The standard storage mechanism in Domino is a document-database format, the "Notes Storage Facility" (.nsf). The .nsf file will normally contain both an application design and its associated data. Domino can also access relational databases, either through an additional server called HCL Enterprise Integrator for Domino, through ODBC calls or through the use of XPages.

As Domino is an application runtime environment, email and calendars operate as applications within Notes, which HCL provides with the product. A Domino application-developer can change or completely replace that application.[10] HCL has released the base templates as open source as well.[11]

The client supports a formula language as well as JavaScript. Software developers can build applications to run either within the Notes application runtime environment or through a web server for use in a web browser, although the interface would need to be developed separately unless XPages is used.

Notes can function as an IMAP and POP email client with non-Domino mail servers. The system can retrieve recipient addresses from any LDAP server, including Active Directory, and includes a web browser, although it can be configured by a Domino Developer to launch a different web browser instead.

Notes can be used with Sametime instant-messaging to allow to see other users online and chat with one or more of them at the same time. Beginning with Release 6.5, this function has been freely available. Presence awareness is available in email and other HCL Domino applications for users in organizations that use both Notes and Sametime.

Since version 7, Notes has provided a Web services interface. Domino can be a Web server for HTML files; authentication of access to Domino databases or HTML files uses the Domino user directory and external systems such as Microsoft Active Directory.

A design client, Domino Designer, can allow the development of database applications consisting of forms (which allow users to create documents) and views (which display selected document fields in columns).

In addition to its role as a groupware system (email, calendaring, shared documents and discussions), HCL Notes and Domino can also construct "workflow"-type applications, particularly those which require approval processes and routing of data.

Notes and Domino are client/server database environments. The server software is called Domino and the client software is Notes. Domino software can run on Windows, Unix, AIX, and IBM mid-range systems and can scale to tens of thousands of users per server. There are different supported versions of the Domino server that are supported on the various levels of server operating systems. Usually the latest server operating system is only officially supported by a version of HCL Domino that is released at about the same time as that OS.

Domino has security capabilities on a variety of levels. The authorizations can be granular, down to the field level in specific records all the way up to 10 different parameters that can be set up at a database level, with intermediate options in between. Users can also assign access for other users to their personal calendar and email on a more generic reader, editor, edit with delete and manage my calendar levels. All of the security in Notes and Domino is independent of the server OS or Active Directory. Optionally, the Notes client can be configured to have the user use their Active Directory identity.

The first release of Lotus Notes included a generalized replication facility. The generalized nature of this feature set it apart from predecessors like Usenet and continued to differentiate Lotus Notes.

Domino servers and Notes clients identify NSF files by their Replica IDs, and keep replicated files synchronized by bi-directionally exchanging data, metadata, and application logic and design. There are options available to define what meta-data replicates, or specifically exclude certain meta data from replicating. Replication between two servers, or between a client and a server, can occur over a network or a point-to-point modem connection. Replication between servers may occur at intervals according to a defined schedule, in near-real-time when triggered by data changes in server clusters, or when triggered by an administrator or program.

Creation of a local replica of an NSF file on the hard disk of an HCL Notes client enables the user to fully use Notes and Domino databases while working off-line. The client synchronizes any changes when client and server next connect. Local replicas are also sometimes maintained for use while connected to the network in order to reduce network latency. Replication between a Notes client and Domino server can run automatically according to a schedule, or manually in response to a user or programmatic request. Since Notes 6, local replicas maintain all security features programmed into the applications. Earlier releases of Notes did not always do so. Early releases also did not offer a way to encrypt NSF files, raising concerns that local replicas might expose too much confidential data on laptops or insecure home office computers, but more recent releases offer encryption, and as of [when?] the default setting for newly created local replicas.

Notes and Domino also uses a code-signature framework that controls the security context, runtime, and rights of custom code developed and introduced into the environment. Notes 5 introduced an execution control list (ECL) at the client level. The ECL allows or denies the execution of custom code based on the signature attached to it, preventing code from untrusted (and possibly malignant) sources from running. Notes and Domino 6 allowed client ECLs to be managed centrally by server administrators through the implementation of policies. Since release 4.5, the code signatures listed in properly configured ECLs prevent code from being executed by external sources, to avoid virus propagation through Notes/Domino environments. Administrators can centrally control whether each mailbox user can add exceptions to, and thus override, the ECL.

Access control lists (ACLs) control a user of server's level of access to that database. Only a user with Manager access can create or modify the ACL. Default entries in the ACL can be set when the Manager creates the database.

Notes and Domino is a cross-platform, distributed document-oriented NoSQL database and messaging framework and rapid application development environment that includes pre-built applications like email, calendar, etc. This sets it apart from its major commercial competitors, such as Microsoft Exchange or Novell GroupWise, which are purpose-built applications for mail and calendaring that offer APIs for extensibility.

Domino databases are built using the Domino Designer client, available only for Microsoft Windows; standard user clients are available for Windows, Linux, and macOS.[15] A key feature of Notes is that many replicas of the same database can exist at the same time on different servers and clients, across dissimilar platforms; the same storage architecture is used for both client and server replicas. Originally, replication in Notes happened at document (i.e., record) level. With release of Notes 4 in 1996, replication was changed so that it now occurs at field level.

A database is a Notes Storage Facility (.nsf) file, containing basic units of storage known as a "note". Every note has a UniqueID that is shared by all its replicas. Every replica also has a UniqueID that uniquely identifies it within any cluster of servers, a domain of servers, or even across domains belonging to many organizations that are all hosting replicas of the same database. Each note also stores its creation and modification dates, and one or more Items.

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