Thursday, May 15, 2008

Has anyone deployed a Notes 8 roaming solution ?

Every single enterprise account I know uses a roaming solution (other than IBM). Most use a network drive to store the data directory, and some use a copy down/copy back script.


I’d love to here from anyone that has implemented a ND8 roaming solution. What did you do and how did it go?.


I know a new roaming solution has been promised in 8.5, but what do we do in the meantime. A number of organisations do not want to wait, so what should they do ?


What does IBM recommend for Roaming users that want to deploy 8.01 ?


6 comments:

Keith Brooks said...

I feel your pain, but hate the idea of Roaming users.
Not really sure what the point is these days anyway. You can run Notes on a USB and most traveling people have laptops, unlike years ago.
Not saying there isn't a need, but rarely have I found someone that uses it. The few who did, don't see any reason anymore, they issued a USB to the staff to run NOMAD off it.
Afraid of losing an ID? Someone will get a different desktop?
Contacts are in your mail file now for DWA, I just don't see the point.
Will your user really be that lost without their desktop or bookmarks?
I think a script on open and close is all you really need.

Adam Osborne said...

(1) Hi, thanks for your reply. The issue is that staff move between workstations and they need access to their Notes applications. Add to this slow WAN links, and it all becomes a mess.

Anonymous said...

(1) I use Notes roaming with a client primarily to support users moving between desktop and Citrix access. Works very well, and I don't want lose it. Also handy for sharing access to personal address books (in version 7, at least).

I've been puzzling over the situation in version 8, too. Some of the roaming functionality is there. If I install a Notes 8 client against a v7 server for a roaming user, the roaming files are copied down from the server to the client (bookmark/names/journal). Also, it's documented that the 'basic' client supports roaming (http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21282303), so I assume this means that the v8 server must also have all the functionality. So what is the part of roaming the doesn't work in v8?

Adam Osborne said...

The problem is that they all want the standard (Eclipse) client, and roaming is not supported in it. So I assume it is a case of 'build your own'. Hence the question, what have people done ?

Mark Dowling said...

We're sticking with the 7.x and Basic 8.0.x client until 8.5 - roaming trumps Eclipse. It's also helpful that waiting a while for roaming means a few more of our older machines which would have had trouble with the Eclipse client anyway go away to replaced by something with 2Gb and a dual core :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Adam, We're in the process of getting our Notes8 upgrade under way. At present we simply 'roam' five key files for the user (as we did in Notes65). What we're now trying to understand in model office is what problems this might cause, as far as I can see with Notes8 there is now a 'workspace' folder which looks like we might need to roam for the user but not sure yet. How've you got on? Any ideas/pointers for us? Let me know if you want anymore info. Rgds Neil