Sneak Peak at Domino 10.0.1 on IBM i

It’s coming … just around the corner … can’t wait!!!!!!

One of the biggest questions I have been getting is which IBM i operating systems will support Domino 10.0.1. You will be very pleased with the answer 🙂 The releases supported are: 7.2, 7.3, and 7.4 (when it becomes available). The huge relief is that 7.2 is supported, whew!

In addition to the plethora of functionality that is provided in release 10.0, 10.0.1 brings some unique enhancements that are specific to the IBM i, let’s take a look at what these are.

Daylight Saving Time enhancement

This first one is long overdue. It’s one that is very subtle, until daylight saving time hits, then wham!! In Domino 10.0.1 on the IBM i, it will default to *TIMEZONE when you configure a new server. This means no more times being off by one hour when DST sets in because you forgot to add the DSTLAW= variable to the notes.ini when you configured the server.

Easier control over JVM used by Domino

Another enhancement to make administrator’s lives easier is the ability to change which JVM is in use for a Domino server. By default the 32-bit JVM is used for Domino on the IBM i. The process of changing from the 32-bit to the 64-bit JVM has been to add the JAVA_HOME variable to the notes.ini. While this doesn’t sound like a big deal, it can be a bit tricky. Below is the JAVA_HOME variable to convert a Domino server to use the 64-bit Java 8 JVM.

  JAVA_HOME=/QOpenSys/QIBM/ProdData/JavaVM/jdk80/64bit

The main trick is case sensitivity, specifically with /QOpenSys. If you do not have the correct case for this portion of the path, it will not work. Domino 10.0.1 to the rescue! In this new release, there is a JVM version option available with both the Configure Domino Server (CFGDOMSVR) and Change Domino Server (CHGDOMSVR) commands.

MEMCHECK automatically collected in Domino 10.0.1

If you get into debug mode with your Domino servers, you will be elated that MEMCHECK is enabled by default on an IBM i Domino 10.0.1 server. You may be wondering why this is a big deal. Prior to Domino 10.0.1, this valuable debug data was not available unless you manually ran a memcheck on the IBM i, which very few customers know how to do.

Licensed Program Product (LPP) and Library changes

Other changes to be aware of are the licensed program product ID and library where the Domino 10.0.1 code resides. We are used to seeing 5733L85 and 5733LD9 for 8.5.3 and 9.0.1 respectively for the product ID. The 10.0.1 product will be 5733D10 with *BASE being the Domino 10.0 code and Option 1 being 10.0.1. We can quite easily guess that 10.0.2 will be Option 2.

The library where the Domino 10.0.1 code executables resides is probably the most noticeable difference. With libraries having a maximum length of 10 characters, the nomenclature of QDOMINO8xx and QDOMINO9xx no longer works with version 10.x. Therefore the library structure changes to QDOM100001 for version 10.0.1. The table below provides a summary of what the Domino releases and their respective LPP, library, and directory details look like for releases 8.5.3, 9.0.1 and 10.0.1.

Domino Release	LPP ID	Option	Program Library	Product Directory
8.5.3	5733L85	*BASE, 1, 13	QDOMINO853	/QIBM/ProdData/LOTUS/domino853
9.0.1	5733LD9	*BASE, 1, 11	QDOMINO901	/QIBM/ProdData/LOTUS/domino901
10.0.1	5733D10	*BASE, 1, 11	QDOM100001	/QIBM/ProdData/LOTUS/domino100001

When do we get all of this?!?

So now the big question remains, WHEN will Domino 10.0.1 be available on the IBM i?!?

I have some important discoveries to share on this front. In preparing for the Domino Technical University webcast I will be doing with Chris Adler on February 7th on Best Practices to Upgrading to Domino 10 (https://bit.ly/2BiMrVO), I found the following when reviewing the product documentation:

In addition when searching in Passport Advantage, I see this for Domino 10.0.1 for the IBM i.

When clicking the link to download it, this secret is revealed 🙂

I hope you are as excited as I am to get this phenomenal, feature rich, self-healing release available on the hardware platform that is most synonymous with Domino, the IBM i: it’s integrated, secure, scalable, and highly available.

I’ll leave you with some helpful links:

What’s New in Domino 10.0.1 for IBM i: https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=ibm10794261

IBM Domino 10.0.1 Software Product Compatibility Reports: https://ibm.co/2RBJkO6