Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Notes 12 vs Outlook 2021

They sure look similar to me !

Is this the ultimate Small Business Domino backup solution?

Here’s a super simple solution we put together for a small Domino customer that provides a fully automated, local backup of their data AND encrypted, ransom proof, multi version, cloud backups for a couple of hundred dollars. 

It uses the Domino Optimizer, Domino Backup, a locally attached USB 3 drive and Cloudberry backup software.

1. Use The Domino Optimizer to optimizer NSF file size. This is covered by this blog entry 

2. Get the Optimizer to call Domino Backup once everything is optimized.

3. Configure Domino Backup to backup to a locally attached USB3 drive. Then get Domino Backup to call Cloudberry to backup the files to S3 storage by running a post-backup command that looks like this:

"C:\Program Files\CloudBerryLab\CloudBerry Backup\cbb.exe" plan -run Domino1-Backup

4. In Cloudberry create a backup plan (eg. Domino1-Backup) to backup the information on the USB drive and also DAOS objects and other critical Domino Files.

Once that's in place, adjust how many versions of the files you require and you're done.

At the end of the process you'll have a local backup and also multiple S3 versions available for restore.

A complete solution for a couple of hundred dollars.

Let me know if there are any questions.

How to make your Domino backups faster - Part Two

At Collabshpere, HCL Lifetime Ambassador, Daniel Nashed presented on Domino 12 Backup and Restored and outlined additional way's to improve backup times. If you haven't seen the presentation, please find the time to review it, it's excellent.

Simply put, one of the easiest ways to improve backup times is to Optimize the size of your NSF files before you do a backup. 

Smaller NSF = quicker backup.

Features you can utilize are:

1. Design Note Compression
2. Document Compression
3. Attachment Compression
4. Implementing DAOS
5. Implementing NIFNSF
6. Move Full Text Indexes to a different disk
7. Using DBMT

And in our opinion the easiest way to implement these options is to use The Domino Optimizer.

Here are some of the settings:

It does it all, and much more. So why not check it out for yourself with a free trial https://www.preemptive.com.au/optiimizer/

How to make your Domino backups faster - Part One.

We have seen some great CollabSphere2022 presentations and there has been some focus on backups, so here's our tried and tested...... 

How to make your Domino backups faster

The newly released Domino V12 includes the Domino Backup component as one of it's new features. Domino Optimizer V12 has also been released as a V12 companion including integration with the new Domino Backup feature, so we thought it would be a great time to look at what happens when you back up non-optimized and fragmented databases, in comparison to optimized databases.

It is a fact that non-optimized and fragmented database files (In a physical or virtualized environment) have an insidiously bad impact on the Domino server's overall performance, the O/S itself and also backups. For the Windows O/S to work with fragmented files it must issue more I/O requests. This results in Split I/O's, a situation where unnecessary multiple I/O requests are generated to deal with the many fragments of each file, contributing to I/O bottlenecks and then resulting in some requests being blocked while others are fulfilled and this will occur regardless of storage type. Here we look at the differences seen when backing up non-optimized nsf files compared to nsf files that have been maintained by the Domino Optimizer.

The advantages can be clearly seen during testing, as measured by the server O/S and seen depicted graphically when backing up a database, non-optimized versus the same database optimized (we have seen production Domino servers chock full of databases like this). You should maintain not just the databases themselves but also the contiguous free-space required for the Domino DBMT pre-allocation feature to work, the Domino Optimizer does all this.

The pics below show the substantial difference in backup stats logged for the exact same database as typically maintained by Domino Optimizer in a contiguous state and also in a typically un-maintained fragmented state.

Maintained database showing fragment count in the Domino Optimizer - Database View:

Same database Fragmented and showing excessive fragment count in the Domino Optimizer -  Database View:

Database Backed up when maintained by the Domino Optimizer:

Same database backed up when not Optimized:

Database Backup I/O when maintained by the Domino Optimizer:

Same database backup I/O when NOT maintained by the Domino Optimizer:

After the testing completed the Domino Optimizer performed it's am scheduled maintenance on the nsf file and returned it to a contiguous state as part of optimization processing.

NEW - "Then backup with options" setting on the Domino Optimizer's scheduler for each day to call Domino 12's new backup feature automatically after maintenance:

Head over to our website and give it a try for free.

https://www.preemptive.com.au/optimizer/

Our Collabsphere presentation

Preemptive was a proud sponsor of Collabsphere 2022.

Here is a link to our presentation  on the Optimizer.

I hope you find it interesting.

For more information go to www.preemptive.com.au

Steps to manually remove HF11 from 12.0.1

A couple of weeks ago, we tried to back out HF11 before applying FP1 on Domino 12.0.1.

Unfortunately, halfway through the back out process, we got the infamous "Related process is still running" error. The uninstall process crapped out and it then proceeded to deleted the recovery files (wtf!), so we were stuck in limbo and could not rerun the process.

As a result, we came up with the following steps to manually remove the Hot Fix. They worked for us, but your mileage may vary.

1. Shutdown the Domino server completely.

2. In the Domino program directory:

delete nstrings.res
delete patch.ini
remove the Release1201 directory

3. Drop a copy of the following files from a 12.0.1 base build of Domino into the Domino Program directory

nstrings.dll
aswrapper.dll
ndgts.dll
nnotes.sym
nnotes.dll

4. Open the Domino Server's Notes.ini and make the following changes:

FaultRecovery_Build=Release 12.0.1

Remove the three lines starting with the following from the Notes.ini file (they will likely be at the bottom of the file)

CFP_LP_BASE_VERSION
CFP_LP_CURRENT
CFP_LP_PREV

Restart the server.

Good luck.

NIFNSF functionality automated

HCL Domino 12.0.2 Early Access Drop 2 has a neat feature to help configure NIFNSF view index separation. Ulrich covers this on his blog post here https://www.eknori.de/2022-06-23/domino-early-access-program-drop-2-is-available/

Our customers have been enjoying this feature for the last 5 years as well as many, many other very handy admin features in our Domino Optimizer product. 

See our blog entry here ->  https://ab1osborne.blogspot.com/search?q=view+separation+

Why not get WAY ahead of the curve and give the Domino Optimizer a free 30 day trial today?

Welcome to the party HCL!  :)