What is lotus domino

Lotus Notes is enterprise email software by IBM. The software has been rebranded and is now sold as IBM Notes. While Lotus Notes is the client part of the software platform, Lotus Domino is the server.

IBM Notes is essentially a desktop workflow application providing instant messaging, email, calendars, blogs, personnel directory and forums to organisations. White papers from our partners VMware U. But it's what Lotus Notes offers beyond the mail client that makes it so valuable to the enterprise.

In addition to its e-mail capabilities, Lotus Notes is also a full-featured rapid application development platform. Notes uses a semi-structured data store that allows for the creation and processing of "documents" which are similar to records in relational database systems. Documents are displayed to the user as "forms," which reveal the application's pertinent fields.

This means that you can use Notes to build electronic workflow applications that can create requests, notify approvers via e-mail and process the requests once the approval is granted. For instance, an expense reporting application built on the Notes platform could allow users to enter their expenses, route the document to their supervisors for approval perhaps with an additional level of approval if the amount is over a certain limit , and then generate a notice to the Accounting department to reimburse the user.

Another example might be an information request form on your corporate website. Once the form is completed and the "submit" button is clicked, Notes could route the request to the correct department and track its fulfillment.

A goal of many organizations want to avoid getting too closely tied to any single vendor or technology. If not careful, the proprietary nature of the technology can limit the future choices of the company when it comes to upgrading or integration with other platforms. Developers who already know some of these technologies can quickly come up to speed in Notes application development, producing complex workflow applications very little time.

To build Notes applications, developers use the Designer client to create and modify all the different parts of a Notes application, such as forms, views and agents. It can be viewed and tested in the Notes client or in a web browser for instant feedback.

In terms of productivity, developers get a lot done with very little effort. But useful Notes applications don't always require attention from the IT department. It's common in Notes for power users to develop applications that meet a tactical need, with little assistance from IT.

On the other hand, Designer's easy-to-use interface historically can be a frustration at times to high-end developers. Lotus Notes refers to the Notes client, which is installed on the user's personal computer, and is used to access both mail files and Notes applications. When a user connects to the server replica of their mail database using the Notes client, it's the Domino server that is serving up the content from the user's mail database.

The Domino server is also responsible for controlling access and security to mail files and application databases. The Domino server has a robust security model that can control access in Notes documents down to the field level. This includes both user access based on the user's Notes ID, as well as database and network traffic encryption. Notes and Domino run on a number of operating systems: from an Intel Pentium 2 desktop machine to the "big iron" of IBM mainframes.

This attention to multi-platform support means that IT departments can use existing servers and data center architecture to consolidate hardware and keep a tight rein on costs. One of the most impressive features of Notes is its level of backwards compatibility between versions. It's possible to take a Notes application built in version 1 back in , and run it in the current Notes 8 release without any need to convert or rewrite the application.

We're not talking about showcase "proof point" applications, but real-world legacy applications which are still giving good value to the organization and do not need any feature enhancements.

Few software applications can boast about compatibility across versions like Notes can. Lotus Domino is business collaboration software developed by IBM for hosting critical applications, messaging enterprise-grade email and workflow, and providing security features for business-critical information. Lotus Domino uses a document-oriented database called a notes storage facility to manage data such as rich text documents formatted text and images and other document files with attachments.

This database is the central component of the Domino architecture. Core services include the following server functions: Web, database, email, applications, and directory. Lotus Domino products are released simultaneously with the same version of Lotus Notes client products.

Lotus Domino products include:. Although Lotus Domino is independent of the hardware or software used, the version of Lotus Domino supported by the operating system must be the one released at about the same time as the operating system release.

By: Justin Stoltzfus Contributor, Reviewer. By: Satish Balakrishnan. Dictionary Dictionary Term of the Day.