Concurrency issues with current Lotus software
by Volker Weber
At Lotusphere 2004 Lotus announced a unified version 6.5.1 of Notes, Domino, Quickplace and Sametime. They were all supposed to be compatible and tested together. From that version on Lotus was going to make sure that the products would work together, tested and certified by Lotus. Quickplace and Sametime made huge advances in version numbers to mirror this initiative.
These times are long over. Now you can't upgrade from Notes 8.0.1 to 8.0.2 without losing your connectivity to Quickr 8.1.
Quickr/Websphere, Connections, Websphere Portal and the Sametime gateway all require very particular versions of Websphere Application Server and DB2, and you cannot run them on the same infrastructure.
It's a complete mess.
Comments
I saw that technote too and immediately opened a PMR with Lotus since we had just moved a good number of people to 8.0.2 and were about to launch into a Quickr 8.1 pilot. What I got back was an ftp link to a Notes 8.0.2 compatible Quickr connector install and was informed it was supported. Not sure why they don't correct that technote (which I referenced in the PMR) unless they're slooooowly releasing this to just those customers that ask for it and we're part of some secret beta. Squeaky wheels get the grease it seems. It installed fine and seems to be working for us. We're on i5/OS so our fixpacks seem to lag the windows versions.
@Roland - I guess that is HF7 for the Quickr Connectors? If so, did they give any idea when it would be released publicly?
I don't really understand why Lotus can't just make the Quickr connectors an optional part of the Notes client install, much like the Activities sidebar integration is - particularly since a limited use entitlement for Notes/Domino customers exists for Quickr Entry, but not for Activities.
I can sympathise with the development teams - keeping all that stuff in sync whilst working crushing deadlines is *hard*.
But yeah - unless Lotus want to keep a publically posted (and up to date!) matrix of all products and compatibilty - I guess they might want to try harder.
---* Bill
@Stuart
Yes, I received HF7 for the Quickr Connectors and Support did not give me any indication about public release. Maybe its a case of releasing it to those who ask (those who contact Lotus Support) and see if there are any issues reported back before putting it out there publically.
We are running Quickr 8.1 with latest hf-ses. After upgrading 8.0.1 to 8.0.2 I lost the Quickr connectero for Notes. However after resintall of the connector everything is going just fine.
Matt, shipping a working plugin with Notes is probably a good suggestion. Unless the plugin needs to talk to a specific Quickr version.
this does not mean GreenIT.
This incompatibility is an easy answer of IBM regarding our interests in Quickr - don't buy. We have to upgrade to 8.0.2 for different reasons and we evaluate(d) Quickr. Congrats to IBM.