Reality: In R4, 5, and 6, the Probable Cause information was accessed from a tab, in R7 it's from a button.

Marketing Claim: DDM provides "monitoring that you can schedule any time, 24/7 "

Reality: While useful, this is really nothing new. We prefer to monitor 24/7, not to schedule a specific monitoring activity for anytime 24/7.

Marketing Claim: "Top-down, feature-oriented view of the domain status (from which you can selectively view detailed information)"

Reality: Lotus has improved the user interface of an existing feature set. We do like the new UI better, but new features would have been better.

Marketing Claim: "Automated problem determination and probable cause in multiple feature areas."

Reality: This is really nothing new, having been first introduced in R4.5.

Marketing Claim: "Visual indicators that identify which problems remain unresolved and which have been addressed."

Reality: This seems like a relatively minor customization to the Events database but we do agree that this will make it easier to keep track of open issues.

Marketing Claim: "Configuration defaults for easier setup."

Reality: Defaults already exist.

Marketing Claim: "The option to combine data generated on one or more DDM-enabled servers into a single database on another server."

Reality: A similar functionality was already available with statistics reporting, which was also architected in this way. An important point here for DDM is that all servers must be running Domino 7.

Conclusion
Is there still a place for third-party monitoring tools, such as GSX Monitor in a world that now includes Domino Domain Monitoring? Absolutely. Third-party vendors have been called to answer a similar question with every release of Domino, and a visit to the vendor area at Lotusphere will show that the third-party market for Domino-related tools is still very strong.

We agree that a few areas have been improved (for instance, the GUI and new probe types) but we seriously question the need of creating a new product name and advertising a "major breakthrough" in Notes monitoring when, in fact, there's really only a few improvements concerning features that have already existed for over a decade.

The issues that existed in previous versions of the Domino Administrator remain in DDM:

• Server-based code consumes server resources and can possibly even slow or crash servers.
• Installation/configuration for each and any server is tedious.
• Probe creation and maintenance are still active concerns, and
• In general the whole thing is hard to maintain once it is configured.

We believe that DDM is really only for advanced administrators. The best feature of DDM is the new Agent Probes, which offer module-level performance debugging and performance analysis. But debugging is not a simple task and requires serious skills in development as well as administration.

The R7 Domino Domain Manager is certainly not going to compete with GSX Monitor because (and this is our shameless plug) GSX Monitor offers many features still lacking in DDM, such as a truly efficient GUI, reliable mail routing and replication monitoring, Sametime, BES, Cluster, and URL performance monitoring, with graphs and reports, and much more. Once you've had a detailed look at DDM, please give GSX Monitor a try too.

With over 13 years experience working with Lotus Notes from version 2 to 7, Philippe Schlier is a recognized Notes specialist. He has been a leading architect in the design and deployment of several of the world's largest Notes networks. Prior to joining GSX, Mr. Schlier worked for IBM and Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting. He was awarded both a Masters degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems and Science Engineering by the University of Sophia-Antipolis. Mr Schlier is a CLP and has been the CTO of GSX Groupware Solutions GmbH since 1996.