This article will try to answer the question of "what's really new?" with DDM and separate the marketing hype from reality.

The architecture of DDM
The gathering of information is based on a hierarchy of collection servers, all of which must be running Domino Release 7. A group of servers can collect information for a region, and roll them up to a central database. This is exactly the way statistics collection worked, starting in R4.

It seems that many of the familiar Notes databases have been simply renamed and enhanced in DDM. For instance, The R4 Event database is now the R7 Event Resolution Center, R4 Probes and Monitors is now R7 Probes, and R4 Probable Cause and Possible Solutions fields is now the R7 Probable Cause Possible Solution (PCPS) button. Such changes are introduced in every version of Notes, but do the changes in R7 really constitute a "new product"?

To illustrate the point, Figure A shows a side-by-side comparison of Events4.nsf in R5 and R6, and R7. You can see that many items are the same, while others have been moved about a bit or renamed.

FIGURE A


You can see how Events4.nsf compares in R5 and R6, and R7. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The Major claims made of DDM
Let's take a closer look at some of the more common marketing claims being made by IBM and others in regards to the new capabilities offered in DDM.

Marketing Claim: "Domino Domain Monitoring (DDM) provides a single location in the Domino Administrator client that you can use to view the status of multiple servers across one or more domains."

Reality: This claim has been made since the release of 4.6, as the following screenshot will remind experienced readers. (see more at http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ls-Graphical_tools_for_Domino_admin/index.html) Will that goal finally be achieved in R7? If so, is IBM planning to discontinue the other 8 products on the list? We're not so sure.

FIGURE B


Anyone remember this from Domino 4.6? Roll over picture for a larger image.

Marketing Claim: "DDM uses configurable probes to gather information across multiple servers."

Reality: This was already true in previous versions of Notes, starting with R4+ Probes and Monitors. So this is not really new. However, there are some new probe types, and we're particularly impressed with the Agent probes.

Marketing Claim: "These probes check for issues involving the Directory, SMTP, routing, replication, ACL, security, and agents. DDM then consolidates and reports that information on specially-designated collection servers in a Notes output database called the Event Resolution Center (DDM.NSF)."

Reality: A couple of new probes have been added and the Event database is now called the Event Resolution Center database.

Marketing Claim: "From the Event Resolution Center, you can select an event and view detailed information about it. You can then click Probable Cause Possible Solution (PCPS) to view information explaining the cause of the event and (in some cases) to access a link to the database from which you can correct the error."