Customer Reviews

Lotus Notes Domino 8: Upgrader's Guide: What's new in the latest Lotus Notes Domino Platform

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I was given a reviewers copy of this book.

With the availability of Lotus Notes and Domino Release 8, comes a host of new features for the software. I am sure that if you are working with that software, you are aware of most of them. However, this book does a great job of examining all of the new features and functions, and more.

Contents:
Forward
Preface
Chapter 1: A Short History of Notes and Domino
Chapter 2: Overview of New Lotus Notes 8 Client Features
Chapter 3: Lotus Notes 8 and SOA
Chapter 4: Productivity Tools
Chapter 5: Lotus Domino 8 Server Features
Chapter 6: Deployment Enhancements in Notes/Domino 8
Chapter 7: Upgrading to Notes/Domino 8
Chapter 8: Coexistence between Notes/Domino Releases
Chapter 9: What's New in Notes/Domino 8 Development
Chapter 10: Integration with Other IBM/Lotus Products
Appendix: Third-Party Tools
Index

If you are working toward upgrading your Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructure, or deciding if Lotus Notes/Domino is for you, Lotus Notes Domino 8: Upgraders Guide, by Tim Speed, Bennie Gibson, Joseph Anderson, Dick McCarrick, Brad Schauf, Barry Rosen, and David Byrd, will give you quite a lot of information in a slim (253 pages) book. From a history of Notes and Domino to what to expect with Notes/Domino 8, this book covers a lot of ground.

If you are expecting a book to help you upgrade your environment, Chapter 7 will help you with the planning. The other chapters will show you what to expect. The final chapter will give you an excellent overview on integrating your Notes/Domino environment with Quickr, Sametime, and Connections. A lot of information in a small book. But if you are simply looking to upgrade your environment, the authors put quite a bit in about 17 pages (Chapter 7). After following their upgrade plan, you should be very confident of taking on the task of moving your environment to Release 8. I am well aware of the new features, but I did pick up quite a few new ones by reading this book. They give the important new server features a lot of consideration as well as why the Eclipse platform is so important. Further, I was surprised that this book included a chapter on the new development features and explanations of leveraging Web 2.0 (like RSS) in your applications.

As weird as it sounds, I did get a laugh from the book due to a typographical error. In Chapter 1, they told about a new Release 7 feature, "Frivolity Autonomic Monitoring Engine (TAME). I think the word should have been "Tivoli." My only other gripe with this book is that the Index needed to be better. It seemed that they spent a lot of space on the third-party tools at the expense of LDAP, DirLint, and others. Other than those issues, the authors did an exceptional job with this book, especially since there are a lot of new features in this release in the Client, Server, and Designer areas.

This book is worth your time if you are upgrading your environment or looking at Notes and Domino 8.

The book is contains a good overview of what you can expect when you upgrade to Notes and Domino 8. The book is written by "some of the senior architects and specialists of IBM Software Services for Lotus". The content:

* A Short History of Notes and Domino

* Overview of New Lotus Notes 8 Client Features

* Lotus Notes 8 and SOA

* Productivity Tools

* Lotus Domino 8 Server Features

* Deployment Enhancements in Notes/Domino 8

* Upgrading to Notes/Domino 8

* Coexistence between Notes/Domino Releases

* What's New in Notes/Domino 8 Development

* Integration with Other Lotus/IBM Products

After a useful recap on the history of Notes and Domino, a number of screenshots show you what to expect when you make the move.

A longish chapter on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) introduces the reader to the topic and describes the components that Notes provides in terms of web services. The IBM productivity tools are given their own chapter with a few screen shots. Upgrade planning and coexistence of Notes and Domino versions are discussed in quite a bit of depth, as are the coexistence of Notes with other members of the Lotus product portfolio (Quickr, Sametime, etc.). An appendix with "advertisements" of commercial add-ons to Notes/Domino rounds off the book.

As an overview, the book is a good read for managers who want an introduction into what Notes/Domino 8 have to offer. Admins and programmers want to dig into the product documentation after reading the book.

Lotus Notes Domino 8: Upgrader's Guide is a good read. On the downside, the index is lacking. I checked the word LDAP, a topic which is discussed several times in the book, and it doesn't show up in the index.

This is a good overview of the client but not the server! Title should only be Lotus Notes(Client) 8, the Domino(server) part needs to be dropped.

the book is like what you should get when you purchase the product. A small sample of what the product does. For the price this book should be the complete book on 8.5.
My huge big mistake, assuming this would be a large complete book. Just by the picture you would never know or would you never know how basic the information in the book is.
Nothing helps you understand the product, it's like just saying, 8.5 now can send emails and you can retrieve them, so what. or it can now work with...
I feel sorry for anyone who purchases this book.