UPGRADING TO LOTUS NOTES 6 AND LOTUS DOMINO 6

Planning the upgrade
The upgrade of a Domino system needs to be an organized process to minimize work and to avoid disrupting users. Upgrades of single servers (that is, a server that is not part of a cluster), for example, should take place at times when few users are connected -- such as weekends or late at night.

Track your procedures, difficulties, solutions, and questions so that you can refer to this information in later upgrade stages. Use a Notes database or a Domino Web site to provide "best practices" for upgrading the rest of your organization.

Upgrade to Lotus Notes/Domino 6 in the following order:


By upgrading servers before clients, and servers and clients before applications, you minimize disruption to users and to business activities. Users don't see Lotus Notes/Domino 6 features until their clients can utilize them; conversely, users don't attempt to take advantage of Lotus Notes/Domino 6 features until their servers can handle them. In addition, this order allows administrators to become accustomed to the new Domino Administrator client before assisting users with upgrading.

Domino Administration server and Domino Directory or Public Address Book

Upgrade your first server and the Domino Directory at the same time. If the Domino Directory resides on a designated administration server, upgrade the administration server, then when prompted to upgrade the Domino 4.6 Public Address Book or the Domino 5 Domino Directory, do so. Otherwise, whichever server you choose to upgrade first, make sure to also upgrade the Public Address Book or Domino Directory to the Domino 6 design.

The Domino 6 Domino Directory template is backward compatible. After you upgrade to the Domino 6 Domino Directory, you can replicate the directory design to Domino 4.6 and Domino 5 servers. However, to administer the Domino 6 Domino Directory, upgrade or install the Domino 6 Administrator client.

For more information about Domino Directory and Domino server upgrades, see the topics Upgrading the Domino Directory and Upgrading a Domino server to Domino 6.

Domino Administrator client

Install the Lotus Domino 6 server and any Lotus Notes 6 clients -- including the Domino Administrator -- on separate machines. This is a change from Lotus Domino 4.6, in which installing a server automatically installed the Domino Administrator on the same machine. When you install a Domino 6 server, the Setup program does not install the Domino Administrator or NOTES.EXE.

For more information about upgrading the Domino Administrator client, see the topic Upgrading the Domino Administrator client.

Hub servers

Hub servers handle significant mail and replication traffic and benefit greatly from the improved performance and administration in Lotus Domino 6. When you take a hub server off-line to upgrade it, be aware of the disruption it may cause to your network. Though users may not access a hub server directly, they can be affected when you take a hub server off-line.

At the same time you upgrade the hub servers for your organization, upgrade the administration clients that administer your Domino servers.

Mail servers

After upgrading your hub servers, use the knowledge gained from that process when you upgrade your organization's mail servers. Lotus Domino 6 includes numerous performance enhancements and new features to make your mail infrastructure faster, more powerful, and more reliable. Users benefit from increased performance and features such as native network compression, improved Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and soft deletions. Upgrading mail servers takes longer than upgrading hubs and involves more people, but the experience gained from working with the hubs should streamline this process.

Wait to upgrade users' mail files to the Domino 6 mail template until Notes users move to Lotus Notes 6. For your users who access mail only from POP (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) clients such as Microsoft Outlook(R) and Netscape(R) Communicator, you can upgrade their mail files to the Domino 6 template immediately.

If you are upgrading Domino 4.6 mail servers to Lotus Domino 6, you have several options from which to choose.

To help you in planning your Domino 4.6 mail server upgrades, see the topic Domino 4.6 mail server upgrade scenarios.

Application servers

Your applications, and the servers they run on, are often the heart of your business, so upgrade them after your team is thoroughly familiar with the procedures, issues, and techniques required for moving to Lotus Notes/Domino 6. Carefully test your applications on Lotus Domino 6 before upgrading your production environment -- while complete backward compatibility is the goal for Lotus Domino 6, issues may arise with applications that use undocumented features or workarounds. Consider whether to upgrade the format of your applications to Domino 6 -- gaining performance improvements, backup and transaction logging capabilities, or whether to leave them in Domino 4.6 or Domino 5 format, so Domino 4.6 or Domino 5 clients and servers can create replicas from them.

Notes clients

Roll out Lotus Notes 6 to users after upgrading the servers those users access. Lotus Notes 6 upgrades Notes 4.6 and Notes 5 clients automatically. For Notes 4.6 clients, Lotus Notes 6 creates a set of bookmarks based on a user's workspace and upgrades the design of the Personal Address Book. Lotus Notes 4.6 users may need training on how to use the new Notes user interface, though the similarity between the new user interface and Web browsers eases the transition.

Lotus Notes 5 users will find the Lotus Notes 6 user interface familiar, though some new features, like the Welcome Page wizard to help you customize your Welcome page, are available.

For more information, see the topic Upgrading Notes clients.

Applications and databases

After you upgrade Domino servers and Notes clients, begin upgrading applications and databases. This involves replacing the designs of standard databases (such as mail files, discussion databases, and document libraries) with Notes/Domino 6 templates. Because Notes 5 and earlier clients cannot use Notes/Domino 6 features, make sure your users have upgraded before implementing the new templates or features in your databases and applications.

Database format does not replicate, so you can upgrade a replica to the new format on Lotus Domino 6 and let it replicate with a Domino 4.6 or Domino 5 replica on Domino 4.6 or Domino 5 server. However, after you upgrade a database, new replicas and copies of that database use the Domino 6 format by default. During the time your infrastructure has mixed releases, you may want to keep some databases in Domino 4.6 or Domino 5 format. After your system has completed its transition to Lotus Notes/Domino 6, though, upgrade any remaining Domino 4.6 or Domino 5 databases to gain the performance and reliability enhancements that the new format offers.

Before upgrading applications and databases, test them in a Lotus Notes/Domino 6 environment. For more information, see the topics Testing applications before upgrading and Upgrading databases and applications.

See Also