What Mike Rhodin said about Foundations

Yesterday I came across a blog by Charles Robinson detailing his experience of Lotusphere 2008. Now I haven't been to Lotusphere for almost ten years but reading Charles' comments made me start to yearn again for the 24 hour commute from Sydney to LA to Orlando followed by five days of information overload then another day-long commute back to civilization. Anyway, in the interests of respecting Charles' copyright (and moral right) over his blog I'm not going to repeat the points he makes about Foundations regarding ...

• Will Foundations include a hosted mail component?
• Will there be a certification for the SMB products that were announced?
• What does IBM see as the role of partners in the new Foundations and bluehouse SAAS offerings?
• Why did IBM buy Nitix?

... but I will recommend you go to his site and read the answers for yourself under the section on '6:15 - Blogger Press Conference'. I wouldn't presume that IBM's plans are still the same after six months have elapsed but it does make interesting reading. Mike Rhodin was answering the questions at that session and that's as close to the horse's mouth as you can get.

Bundling your own software with Foundations

The newly-rebadged Nitix site says "Lotus Foundations is a family of software appliances ..." which raises some interesting points.

Family: The IBM blurb says that Foundations Start is the first installment in a series of Nitix-based software bundles that IBM is planning for release over the next few years. The name should make it fairly obvious though - Start . So what comes next?

Appliances: Appliance means hardware. I'm betting we'll see bundling of Foundations with IBM X-Series hardware as an easy introduction into network computing for those SMB who still don't have a network file server. This offering will rapidly expand to tempt those companies who are still running on an ancient Windows NT server because they found Active Directory too much of a technical or financial challenge. After that Foundations will settle in for the long battle with Microsoft's Small Business Server and start nipping at the heels of Microsoft's Essential Business Server.

The Other Sister: Another route to market share for IBM comes through tempting software developers to write or port their applications to the Foundations platform. A low overhead generic or specialty business application could open up a whole new market for IBM and they're more than happy to talk about that. Remember that Foundations is Nitix is Linux and that's an open development platform plus it's more attractive than SUSE or Red Hat in the small marketplace because of its low technical overhead.

So if you're an ISV who has a Domino or Linux application already written for the SMB marketplace then give Kevin a call. I'm sure IBM will fall over themselves to $upport you while you rewrite it so that it runs on Foundations.


LATE ADDITION:
In January this year Tech Republic reported that "According to Lotus general manager Mike Rhodin, a Foundation communications server is also in the works, incorporating software from ISV partners."

Foundations: Where IBM went wrong...

People will have different answers to this topic but for this post I want to talk about the LFS documentation. I started keeping a list of the typos in the LFS manuals to pass on to IBM but gave up on that when I realised that the problems ran far deeper than just misspelling 'the' as 'teh' or 'you' as 'yuo'. Here are some examples:

• In the section on FTP two posts ago I mentioned the documentation issue with CD installation which cost me an hour of embarassing 'can't-bill-for-this' time on a customer site.
• In the section on 'Disk management' where the Lotus Foundations Start User Manual says... "To take advantage of RAID, you must have Lotus Foundations Software RAID Technology. Software RAID Technology comes standard with the Lotus Foundations Premium Edition" ... but the reality is that there is no Lotus Foundations Premium Edition. RAID support is part of the standard product.
• If you run the compatibility testing option from the LFS main menu then when you have finished testing you are told that you can reboot and choose to do a memory test. That 'memory test' option existed in Nitix but was removed in the transition to LFS. That's confusing for a customer trying to do the right thing and completely burn-in and test their new server before loading LFS.
  

I could talk about some other 'gotchas' and setup issues but I'm not going to list them here since I want this post to be seen by IBM as a hefty prod with a blunt stick rather than a stiletto in the back.

Allowing for the ramp-up time to the January announcement at Lotusphere IBM had over six months to get the LFS manuals into shape and most of the work was just a rewrite of the existing Nitix manuals. They now have a bigger problem in compensating for the unnecessary workload imposed on existing Domino Business Partners whom IBM want to take this product on board. We know Domino and we could work our way around errors in an upgrade to a Sametime manual, but LFS is a whole new ballgame. Some prospective Business Partners might now decide the LFS technical merry-go-round is too difficult without an accurate roadmap and choose to invest their time in a different technology.

The saving grace for IBM is the outstanding support given by the LFS technical support team in Canada. Hats off to Rob and Allen and the rest of the team who have always gone the extra mile to get me over a technical issue. I did my own two-year stint on the Lotus Hotline in Australia some twenty years ago and I know the effort these guys have to put in to deal with support calls. Thanks for your help.

OK... my rant is finished. Over to you Kevin and Bilal. I know that this isn't your personal responsibility but you guys are the public face of LFS for Business Partners. When are we going to get a corrected user manual for Foundations?

Foundations and Monty Python's Black Knight

Do you remember the scene in Holy Grail where the Black Knight still wants to fight on after losing both arms and both legs in a swordfight with King Arthur? That vision came to me when my server refused to reboot after I had changed some hardware components. I figured that I needed to reinstall LFS so I booted from CD#1 and went to get some lunch. After I returned I noted that Foundations had booted and autodetected my internet settings so I didn't actually get around to checking the rest of the hardware until I'd finished lunch and wasted half an hour catching up with PlanetLotus. When I checked Webconfig I got a nasty surprise.

My (non-RAID) hard drive was dead.

It had ceased to be.

Bereft of life, it rested in peace.

Foundations, on the other hand, was quite happy to boot from a CD and do what it could to resume normal services. It's internet and firewall and local DNS services were all humming away and doing their job.

Losing your hard drive? For some software it's only a flesh wound.


All hard drives mentioned in this blog were fully backed up at the time of their demise. I've now invested in a new IBM X-Series just in time to claim the depreciation in the current financial year.

Cost of hardware for Foundations & SBS & EBS

What does it cost to buy servers for your SMB software solution? Let's consider the absolute minimum dollar cost to get a hardware platform for a cost-concious small business.

Lotus Foundation Server:
The LFS manual lists the hardware requirements as an x86 based system with one GB of memory and a hard disk. (Note that it is feasible, but not recommended, to run the core LFS system from the CD drive). When you add on the requirements for providing Domino services in LFS the picture changes slightly. The manual recommends 1 GB of memory on a Pentium 4 3.0GHz processor (or AMD equivalent) with SATA disks. Personally I'd bump the minimum ram up to 2GB, but I'd suggest that for any server running Domino 8.

That configuration is about as low end as you can get for a server, and if uptime isn't an issue then you might get away with installing LFS on a high-end PC. In reality, you're looking at an IBM X-series or equivilent which might set you back $2-3,000 once you add hard disks and some extra ram.


Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 R2:
Microsoft recommends 1GB of ram and a minimum of 16GB of hard disk space although additional available hard-disk space may be required if you are installing over a network. The OS footprint is a little heavy for my liking but we're still playing in the same financial ballpark as LFS.


Microsoft Small Business Server 2008:
Microsoft recommends a 2GHz Processor with 4 GB RAM and 60 GB hard drive. If you want to run the additional server which is required for SQL then that box will need a 2 GHz processor with 2 GB RAM and 40 GB disk space. That's a heavier investment than you need for LFS, but not dramatically so. Say $5,000 for both servers.


Microsoft Essential Business Server 2008:
Microsoft recommends the following configuration:

• Three physical servers with 64-bit processors running a 64-bit operating system. If you want to install EBS Premium edition to run SQL server you will need a fourth server.
• 10GB of RAM split up between Management Server with 4 GB , Security Server with 2 GB and Messaging Server with 4 GB.
• 60GB of hard disk space per server with hard disk speeds = 10K RPM or greater.

I think the hardware investment just moved seriously into five figures with a corresponding jump in the cost of consulting to glue it all together along with the question of where you are going to physically locate these boxes. I hope they have a properly air-conditioned server room. One of my SMB clients with 25 staff is reasonably free with their IT dollars in terms of investing in technology but I can't figure how I could persuade them to invest in four new servers just to have the honor of running the latest and greatest server package from Microsoft.

Fortunately I don't need to :)

Yes, but what does Foundations actually do?

When talking to clients (and sometimes other IBM Business Partners) I get the feeling that IBM hasn’t really done a great job in explaining what’s in the Foundations box. I figured it might be worthwhile to give a high level overview of the product using the Table of Contents from the User manual as a prompt:

1 Introduction: Just an overview to tell you how wonderful Foundations is and how it will save the world while making your coffee and paying off the US National Debt.

2 First-time Lotus Foundations setup - Net Integrator: How to install Foundations if you buy it with the Nitix hardware bundle.

3 First-time Lotus Foundations setup - third-party hardware: How to install Foundations if you buy the software to put on a non-Nitix server.

4 Connecting to WebConfig: After you boot your server from the Foundations CD#1 you can connect to the Foundations server from a browser and start building your Foundations environment.

5 Configuring Lotus Foundations: Lots of meaty configuration options from picking your server name to doing software activation, enabling ftp/ imap/ pop3, configuring DHCP and network routes.

6 Client access licenses: Setting up users. Foundations uses a "Per User" licensing model. That is, any number of individuals can connect to the Lotus Foundations-powered server; however, you must purchase a Lotus Foundations Client Access License (CAL) for each individual, or "user account," where access to Lotus Foundations services (such as email, file, print, MySQL and FTP services) is needed. For example, if an individual is only utilizing the Lotus Foundations-powered server as gateway or firewall, that person does not require a CAL.

7 DoubleVision: Foundations allows multiple internet connections to the server with automatic load balancing and failover.

8 User & team management: The Foundations email, file, Web, and FTP services are tightly integrated. Every user and team account that is created has instant and automatic access to all of these services. The System Administrator needs to create these user accounts and (optionally) add them to Teams.

9 File services: Foundations provides file sharing services for Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX-style clients. Files created by Windows users can transparently be seen by Macintosh users and vice versa.

10 Disk quotas: Defines the maximum amount of hard disk space allowed for a user's files and email.

11 NT domain services: Foundations can be configured as a domain controller or just as a domain member or can provide Windows file sharing services without a domain.

12 Print service: Foundations can manage the print queues for multiple network enabled printers.

13 Email services: Lotus Domino email and calendaring (including Domino Web Access).

14 Web services: Provides options to configure the inbuilt Apache web server with support for CGI scripts, Perl and PHP.

15 Web filtering: Netnanny for networks. The System Administrator can allow users to access to specific Internet sites, while blocking access to all others.

16 FTP services: FTP is FTP... Watch out for the (ahem…) ‘typo’ in the Lotus Foundations Start Manual that suggests loading the Foundations CD#2 from the server’s CD drive. That process doesn’t work. You have to FTP the files from your System Administrator’s workstation into the \autoinstall folder, and just to make it easy you’ll find that the default setting for FTP on the Administrator's account is ‘Disabled’.

17 Backup & restore: Foundations supports automatic continuous Data Backup as often as every 15 minutes to a Hot Swappable device.

18 Software update: Foundations periodically contacts distribution servers via its internet connection and requests an updated list of available software releases. You can view the list of available software releases and choose when to download and install the updates.

19 Virtual private networks: Extend your network across the internet to users on remote sites.

20 IPsec: Network traffic encryption. Foundations supports PSK keys but not RSA or PKI.

21 Remote access services: Allows users to access your Foundations network across the internet.

22 Firewall services: This service is auto-configuring and you can also choose to restrict outgoing traffic plus view a log of all requests to traverse the firewall.

23 Domain name services: Foundations supports DNS Lookup and Caching (converts domain names such as www.yahoo.com into IP addresses) and DNS Publishing (adds names for your own network such as www.yourcompanyname.com into the global DNS system so that people can find your IP address to access your website or to send you email). DNS Publishing is possible regardless of whether your ISP uses static or dynamic IP addressing for your connection.

24 Workstation viewer: Allows the system Administrator to list the workstations and servers that are connected through the local network. The Workstations screen tells you which computers are on the network, what their names and IP addresses are, and who is logged on.

25 FastForward: A Proxy server. Allows creation of multiple websites on your server with each site mapped to a separate IP address by using virtual network ports on the ethernet adapter.

26 Disk management: Configure the RAID array on your hard disks.

27 MySQL server: Version 5.0 of MySQL is provided with Lotus Foundations.

28 Hardware components reporting: Foundations has the capability to report on hardware that is detected in the server - including processors, memory, Ethernet and hard drives - and verify whether or not that hardware is currently supported by the version of Lotus Foundations being run. Quite a useful tool to confirm that your server hasn’t blown a component.

29 Log messages: Lotus Foundations keeps a log that displays the messages from all of the Lotus Foundations subsystems.

30 Network file system: NFS (Network File System) is a protocol invented by Sun Microsystems that enables clients using UNIX and similar operating systems to mount file systems from remote servers.

31 Rsync: A utility that enables incremental file and directory synchronization from one location to another. This can be used to copy data files from the Lotus Foundations server, to another system which must also support rsync.

32 Spam scanner: The (optional) spam scanner filters all incoming emails received via SMTP before the messages are delivered to the user's mailbox.

33 Virus scanner: The (optional) virus scanner implements Kaspersky virus scanning for files and email.

All of this for USD$849 for five users (plus a free account for the System Administrator) makes quite an attractive bundle. I wonder what it would cost to buy the equivilent services in Microsoft technology?

I'm also starting to ask myself what IT service a SMB requires that isn't provided by Foundations?

Vista SP1: Microsoft says 'Wow!' - I say 'Why?'

I was intrigued this quote from Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President for Windows Client Product Management at Microsoft.


"If I ran an IT organization, I would first test and remediate my applications on Windows Vista. Then I would make sure that all new machines had 2 GB of RAM and run Windows Vista Enterprise Service Pack 1. For existing machines, with modern processors and less than 2 GB of RAM, I would consider upgrading the memory, BIOS and drivers, and then loading Windows Vista Enterprise SP1."


Remediate? Dictionary.com defines remediate as 'The act or process of correcting a fault or deficiency' or to 'set straight or right'. I think Mike has a problem with reality here. My applications don't need remediation - they work just fine on Windows XP just like they were designed to do. The software which needs remediation is his new-fangled, backward-incompatible, memory-hogging operating system which doesn't do the most important job I require from it - namely, running my existing applications.

Then we get on to the issue of upgrading my computers. If I am a SMB with (say) forty computers I would guess at least 80% of them would need a memory upgrade by Mike's logic. But even if all of those computers had available memory slots and my IT person was currently sitting around doing with nothing else to do for a week, I still don't understand the business benefit in getting them to pack more ram into the PCs and migrate all of the boxes to Vista. I know Vista does lots of things that XP doesn't do, but that kind of thinking could be extended to show that I should trade in my family car on a semi-trailer or an Abrahms Battle Tank simply because those two items can do more things than my current vehicle. The real question is whether I can get a business benefit from moving to the new environment.

IMHO the Vista question is completely irrelevant for most SMB. There might be some incremental security benefits in moving to Vista but they're not worth the $x0,000 cost in software testing, application 'remediation', cost of new hardware, user disruption and retraining, IT staff disruption and retraining plus the thrill-a-minute ride of knowing you are working on the bleeding edge of MS technology.

So what has this to do with Lotus Foundations Server? Not much really, but I just loved the sheer chutzpah of Microsoft in shifting the blame for OS incompatibility from Vista onto the existing applications. I'm thinking I'll stick with XP on my workstations for the next year then see how Linux for the desktop is coming along.

How not to set up Foundations - #01 in a series

I almost didn't install Foundations server on a customer site today.

Just to set the scene I'll tell you that I run my own LFS server (Server1) internally and it was running perfectly. My WinXP workstations were seeing the internet, the firewall was active, DHCP was running well, FTP access was there... generally I was getting all of the services you expect from LFS and I had a happy little network.

Over the weekend I'd burned in the new X-Series (Server2) for a client using the LFS utilities with no problem. I then plugged Server2 into my hub and booted from the LFS CD and used the server console to configure the installation ready for transporting to the customer's site (allocated IP address, started DHCP etc) then used Webconfig from my XP workstation to access Server2.

I'm not yet down to the thirty minute setup time that's promised in the LFS documentation but I'm getting closer with every fresh install. Now I can zip through the first couple of screens on automatic pilot - create admin account, log in, allocate server name, software activation, reboot to run from hard drive yada yada its all looking good.

So why couldn't I run software activation this time? The Server2 status screen told me that I had no internet access which made no sense at all since my Win XP workstation had browser access to the internet and to Server1 and to Server2 and it could ping both servers. How could one PC on the network see the internet and Server2 not see the internet? Swapping cables and connections to check for faulty components made no sense since I had a perfectly good http connection from my workstation to Server2.

(Stop me if you've guessed the answer)

The problem was obvious once Lotus support told me the answer. In the 'Local Network' screen under 'Advanced Settings' my eth0 setting was showing the mode was set to 'Forced'. In other words, when setting up Server 2 I had allocated an IP address for it in the initial server setup screen and also activated DHCP. Now I had both servers thinking they were in charge of IP addressing on my network and since Server 1 controlled internet access via its eth1 port then Server2 was never going to win that battle. Server1 was doing its job and refusing to play ball with any server which did not acknowledge its control. My workstation had no problem accessing Server2 since I was typing the required IP address plus port 8043 directly into the browser navigation bar.

The problem was that I had been trying too hard to duplicate the client's environment on my own network. Once I disabled DHCP and ran Netscan on Server2 to delete the existing IP information it acknowledged that Server1 was Boss Hog of my network so it was allowed to go out and play on the web. Software activation ran perfectly and now Server2 is installed on my client's site doing what it's designed to do.

Thanks to Rob at Lotus (Nitix) support for getting me out of that one.

Who's who with Lotus Foundations - Kevin Krempulec

Kevin Krempulec is the world wide sales executive in charge of the Lotus Foundation Server brand and he is also responsible for international enablement.

If you are located anywhere outside of US/Canada and are interested in becoming a reseller for Lotus Foundations then give Kevin a call:

email: kkrempulec@ca.ibm.com
work: 905.946.1777 x 335

Who's who with Lotus Foundations - Bilal Jaffery

Lotus Foundations is an adopted child for Lotus/IBM and the lines of communication are a little bit different than for Notes and Domino.

Bilal Jaffery is responsible for qualifying and finalizing corporate partnerships in US/Canada. If you are located in US/Canada and are interested in becoming a reseller for Lotus Foundations then give him a call:

email: bjaffery@ca.ibm.com
cell: 416.414.6252
work: 905.946.1777 x 320

Costing Foundations against MS Essential Business Server

I don't understand the logic behind Microsoft's pricing model for Essential Business Server (EBS). They are pitching EBS for organisations from five to 300 users but if you are down the lower end of that scale the price per user is somewhat astronomical. If we look at the licencing RRP for three small organisations with 5 users / 30 users / 50 users then the price per user comes out as follows.


Lotus Foundations Start: $170 / $136 / $133

MS SBS 2008 Standard: $218 / $100 / $91

MS SBS 2008 Premium: $380 / $221 / $208

MS EBS Standard: $1,094 / $250 / $182

MS EBS Premium: $1,433 / $401 / $319


LFS is cheaper than SBS Standard for the first ten users and is always cheaper than SBS Premium but at least these products are playing in the same ballpark. When you look at EBS you suddenly move up to the to a whole new league. What staggered me was the cost per user for smaller (<30 user) organisations to purchase EBS. How can you expect small organisations to pay server licencing costs of $400 - $1,400 per user?

I know that EBS promises to have lots of bells and whistles but I don't think that small organisations are always impressed by that. Their owners and managers are so close to the financial coal face that they are always looking to save a dollar or three whereever they can. Perhaps Microsoft should consider repositioning EBS as software for the 50-300 user market? I doubt they will, but I'm sure cost per user will be important when selling against EBS in smaller clients.

Note I am not including the cost of the LFS Anti-Spam/Anti-Virus add-ons here but neither am I looking at the cost of Office v. Symphony nor the cost of EBS server hardware nor the cost of consulting to glue all the bits and pieces together so treat this as a broad brush picture rather than a definitive costing model.

EDIT: Thanks Sanel, I fixed the typo

Selling Foundations to the Small End of the SMB market

1. IBM positions Foundations for 5 to 500 users.
2. Microsoft's Small Business Server links a maximum of 75 computers.
3. The upcoming Microsoft Essential Business Server will service 300 computers or devices.

Are these categories too broad? I'd say that these numbers include a specialised sub-class of business with the following attributes:

• Total staff is between one and thirty.
• Total information workers is between one and ten.
• Turnover somewhere between $100,000 and $10,000,000.
• No full time IT staff - one of the other staff (probably the owner) does IT in addition to their regular duties.
• Only the owner of the business has a discretionary budget.
• Probably a good relationship with the local computer store who sells them new computers and printer cartridges as required but there is no concept of using IT consulting services. IT is seen only in terms of hardware plus packaged software (Excel, MYOB etc).
• IT services just bump along with a break-fix mentality and the idea of upgrading the older computers from Windows 2000 and Office 97 hasn't yet crossed the owners mind.

For some of these smaller organisations the owner knows that the business will die when they retire so their objective is to maximise their own annual salary and dividends before they eventually have to wind down and shut the doors. The idea of making strategic long-term investments in IT systems is never considered.

I think autonomic computing is the key to selling to that kind of business. Showing the owner how they can spend less time tinkering with servers will be a hot button. It would be good to see some real life 'war story' kind of advertising pushing that point. The current advertising for Foundations on IBM's web site only shows ... "Fictitious character designed to illustrate customer pain points."

I guess that's always the problem when you launch a new line of software - you need a few weeks to get the first real-life customers bedded down and willing to talk about their experience.

Foundations 1.0.0a ships!

Well that didn't take long. Here's an overview of the features in the upgrade:

ADDITIONS:

• MySQL is upgraded to version v5.0
• Printing services can be enabled via installation of a NVS package (LFS originally didn't have a Print server function)
• New support for separate roaming profiles for NT/XP and Vista users.

DELETIONS:

• phpMyAdmin is longer be included in the installation package but is available for separate download and installation.
• The original Nitix Webmail is no longer supported - use Domino Web Access instead.
  
• Removal of automatic detection for mismatched PFS configuration in a IPSec tunnel.

MODIFICATIONS:

• The default permission for newly created files is now 770, which helps guard against accidental sharing of files.
• The behaviour of ftp has changed.
• The behaviour of mailing lists has changed.

Converting existing Notes licences to Foundations

I've spoken with two organisations who want to switch over to Foundations (one already has) and they both asked the same bleeding obvious question:

Can I get an upgrade from my existing Domino server and client licences?

The answer is no. Lotus Foundations provides a range of IT functions and providing email + calendaring + support for other Notes applications is only one part of the picture. The Linux-based O/S with web server plus integrated firewall and automated data backup plus a range of network domain features makes a very attractive alternative for small organisations who are dreading (or perhaps already regretting) an upgrade from NT to Microsoft's Active directory.

IMHO IBM is right in positioning LFS as a whole new ball game but I still think they should give a partial credit towards an upgrade from existing Notes/Domino licences. Perhaps allow any existing licences to be credited as a payment for the following years maintenance cost.

Why Blog about Foundations?

I'm blogging about Lotus Foundations because there is so much to talk about regarding this product and Ed Brill / Nathan Freeman etc are bogged down with weightier matters such as the iPhone SDK. Good luck to them but Foundations deserves some airtime too and by golly that's what I'll be providing.

I've been consulting in Domino since version one (sometime last century - yes, I am that old) and over the last eighteen months I've been sniffing at Linux without diving in. I'd installed Suse 10 and had a Domino server running over the top of it but there was no real feature advantage over my existing Windows installation.

Lotus Foundations changed all that. Like the majority of the world I first read about Foundations (nee Nitix) following the announcement at Lotussphere 2008. I saw that I could have a web server with integrated firewall and data backup running a Domino server all for the one low price which seemed a perfect solution for my SMB client who was looking for a way to dump his problematic web hosting ISP.

When I contacted Nitix in the US they told me that Kevin Krempulec, the WW Sales Executive for IBM Lotus Foundations, was currently in Australia. I met Kevin over lunch the following day and I haven't looked back. It's now a month later and this week I'm helping my client install the first Lotus Foundation Server licences sold in Australia.

Over the next few weeks I'll share that war story on this blog. I'll also cover technical and political issues. I've started a technical comparison of Lotus Foundations and the upcoming Microsoft Essential Business Server and that's going to be an interesting story (would you believe that the server components of EBS have a combined recommended hardware requirement of 10gb ram and 600 gb disk space? Check out this link).


Disclosure: I am an IBM/Lotus Business partner but I have no shares in IBM or in Microsoft so any axes I grind here will be based on the technology at hand.