DDM is designed to be an autonomic tool that consolidates and displays the status of multiple servers across one or more domains in a single location in the Domino Administrator client. Real time probes of server statistics will give suggested resolutions to emerging problems in Domino environments. We saw some of this last year, but now we're seeing details like being able to monitor which agents are overdue or consume the most CPU cycles, or being able to create custom probes of our own applications. I'm very comfortable doing Domino administration, but these still sound like real time-savers.

Mick
Right. In addition to Notes 7 and 8 being discussed, Notes 9, 10, and beyond were mentioned, but with no content. It seems that Notes 7.5 will be the last traditional Notes client, and also the first Linux one. That's because the future of the Notes client is the Workplace Rich Client--now called Workplace Client Technology or WCT plug-in.

I already mentioned that Notes 7 will ship the WCT plug-in, and we were shown some screen shots of this, like the one shown in Figure E.

FIGURE E


Notes 7 Mail inside the Workplace Rich Client via the Notes plug-in. Roll over picture for a larger image.

In Figure F, you'll find another example of the Workplace Client Technology plug-in.

FIGURE F


The Notes 7 plug-in for WCT surfaces the familiar Notes menus. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Finally, Figure G has one more screenshot of the WCT plug-in for Notes 7.

FIGURE G


A Notes application inside the WCT, showing off a DB2 access view. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Get used to this because it's the future of the Notes client. Notes 7.5 was talked about as featuring Mac and Linux WCT plug-ins, which means the Notes 7.5 client can be used on Linux by users that have WCT. There's also to be integration from the 7.5 Notes client to Workplace's documents, and support for the Eclipse programming model. Like us, we're sure you're as clear as bullets when it comes to what that means in detail.

At the current time, IBM's roadmap for the future shows Notes 8 will only exist as a WCT plug-in, but there'll be a big difference; the Domino 8 server will be able to Auto-provision the WCT. You see, there's convergence between the ND product line and Workplace, in that a previous Workplace-only feature of fully auto-provisioning the client will be extended to Domino.

Auto-provisioning means that a complete IBM collaboration client install can be done from a workstation merely by contacting the server with a browser, and once installed, the client will automatically be kept up to date--that's the WCT itself and all the plug-ins. This means no more client visits for installs, ever. And there'll be more. Things like access to calendar and scheduling functionality via Web services, and so on. But to be honest, they weren't sharing any serious detail on these plans with us.

And Workplace? There's now an overall brand for the whole Lotus collaboration product set. Not just Lotus Workplace, but also including Notes and Domino--that's IBM Workplace. It's called IBM Workplace because, according to Ed Brill who's now in Sales, IBM is the brand that's most recognised in the big wide world. We heard quite a lot about some Workplace deliverables, led by WSE (Workplace Services Express), which features a new tool called AE (Activity Explorer). We also saw the new Workplace Designer tool.