In early September, IBM released a new kind of AS/400. IBM has called this new box the Dedicated Server for Domino (DSD), and it is specifically configured and designed to fill an interesting niche in the rapidly maturing electronic messaging marketplace. On the outside, it looks like a yellow-paneled model 170 (a “bumblebee,” as IBM’s Tom Jarosh called it). On the inside, it runs nothing but Lotus Domino R5.

Customers immediately began asking questions. Can it run more than Domino? Why just Domino? Why not some server-side Java or other standalone traditional AS/400 application? It seemed that IBM was setting a pointless, artificial software barrier. However, if you look closely at IBM’s real strategy and combine it with the Lotus organization’s focus on something called Knowledge Management (KM), you may see the point. In fact, it may be a point that will put new sting into your organization’s effectiveness.

NT Blossoms and Serves Up Exchange

In most IT shops, the email server wars of two or three years ago are now nearly over. Most companies that were ever going to embrace email communications have already chosen their messaging platform. The final two products still slugging it out are Microsoft’s Exchange Server and Lotus Domino. Microsoft, which entered the battle rather late in the game with a flawed Exchange Server, has rebuilt the product and now bundles Exchange Server with BackOffice, bringing the cost of email messaging systems to a new low. The results of this software bundling scheme, combined with the free distribution of MS Outlook, have allowed Microsoft, in 1999, to finally overcome Lotus Domino’s once- commanding lead in this desktop messaging arena.

But, as anyone who farms MS NT server boxes will tell you, the underlying server support structure for Exchange—with Domain Name System (DNS) servers, firewalls, and Remote Access Service (RAS)—will quickly fill a room with cables, server boxes, and potential support nightmares. This reliance on “cheap” translates into greater server-farm complexity, an increased requirement for in-depth technical support, and a dependence upon a structure of commodity-built hardware that leaves the organization’s critical messaging infra-structure always exposed to the weakest software or hardware link.

Lotus and IBM can realistically claim that Domino on the AS/400 is a better, stronger, and more secure messaging system. They can point to AS/400’s better (more than

99.9 percent) reliability, Domino’s added capabilities as a Web server and work flow enabler, and the combined scalability of Domino for the AS/400. However, until the introduction of the Bumblebee DSD, they were waging a losing battle against cost- conscious IT managers who were looking at the nearest bottom line. For these IT managers, it made no difference that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the AS/400 was significantly better than either UNIX or NT solutions. It also made no difference that Exchange Server ran on only Intel-based hardware platforms. What mattered for these IT managers was simply the up-front cost of installation.

Now, the DSD addresses this challenge by offering three AS/400 models that cut to within a hair’s breadth of a comparable vanilla NT Exchange solution. With the DSD, you can get rid of the multiple NT server support boxes, scale your email system up to several thousand users, perform Web serving tasks, and (with the high-end model of the DSD) begin to experiment with direct AS/400-to-Domino work flow applications. But, best of all, the Bumblebees provide all this functionality in a single, manageable server footprint at a competitive cost per user. This is a true turnkey messaging system that any organization can feel comfortable supporting.

Seeing the Garden for the Flowers: Beyond Email Messaging

Meanwhile, Lotus and IBM are changing the landscape. They see email as the first flower in a much larger garden of message-enabled information strategies that will help propel customers in their search for e-commerce solutions in the next two to five years. These strategies are loosely grouped into something called KM. Knowledge Management is a systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling, and presenting information in a way that captures content and improves a person’s ability—or an organization’s ability—to use that information. Two familiar examples of KM tools are the DB2 UDB relational database and any email message archive. Both tools systematically contain information that enables decision making.

The AS/400’s predecessor, the System/38, revolutionized the management of the knowledge contained in accounting systems with the introduction of its integrated relational database. Lotus Domino holds a similar promise for email messaging technologies by using its highly configurable Lotus Notes document database structure. The merger of these two technologies in the DSD and the Domino for the AS/400 product now positions the AS/400 to lead the way for Knowledge Management technologies through the next five years. This will enable your users to make use of structured DB2 UDB relational data and wrap it inside less-structured, casual decision-supporting devices such as email. Let’s see how a practical example of this works.

Crisscross, Flip-flop: Charting Out KM Roles

Take, for instance, that purchase request you made for that new desktop system sitting in front of you. When you first discovered that you needed a new device, you had a piece of knowledge that no one else in your organization had: You had a need. In KM terms, you were a “knowledge source.” Somewhere else in your organization, the CFO was preparing a detailed budget of proposed expenditures for the coming year, but he did not have the knowledge of all the needs of every department. In KM terms, he was a “knowledge consumer.” Throughout the organization, there were many other people who were knowledge sources (in terms of their individual needs), so the CFO sent an email message to their managers stating, “Gather up all your budgetary needs and submit them to me.” Your manager received this message and forwarded it to everyone in your department. In KM terms, your manager became a “knowledge broker,” connecting the knowledge consumer with the knowledge sources. The purchase request was a single knowledge transaction that he facilitated. Later on, after the budget was finalized and put into the financial model of the AS/400’s relational database, you may have wondered what

happened to your initial request. Now, you were the knowledge consumer, asking a knowledge broker to find out the status of that request from a knowledge source.

Each day, thousands of knowledge transactions take place within an organization every time someone asks a question. KM roles flip-flop, crisscross, and recondense over and over. But what’s interesting in a knowledge management model is that the value of the information is secondary to the pathways by which that information travels. What good is the knowledge of your need for a new device if there is no way for anyone in the organization to make use of it? What good would your purchase request be if it were stuck on the bottom of a pile of papers on your manager’s desk or stuffed in the in-box of his email client?

Taking the Sting Out of KM

What Lotus Domino provides, as a KM tool, is the ability to galvanize the pathways between knowledge consumers and knowledge sources. It also automates the role of the knowledge broker. In my hypothetical scenario, a simple, centralized email database of purchase requests could be created and managed by the CFO. When someone needed a new purchase, he or she could send an email to the database. The database could automatically route the email message to the appropriate manager for approval. At budgeting time, the CFO could consolidate the requests into a budgetary spreadsheet. When funding is approved, the data can be transferred into the AS/400’s financial system. And, so you aren’t kept wondering about the status of your request, the database can automatically email you a note telling you that your request was approved.

What is captured in this KM system is not only the data but also the pathways that allow everyone in the organization to use it efficiently. Other KM examples using Lotus Domino abound and include sales contact management systems, help-desk management systems, personnel management systems, and documentation management systems.

The Bumblebee Takes Wing

Of course, today, many AS/400 sites are just starting to address the requirements of email within their companies, and they will be attracted first to Microsoft’s bundling of Exchange Server with BackOffice. But to obtain the same integration with their AS/400 DB2 UDB infrastructure, they’ll have to install separate server programs and write customized code in one of Microsoft’s visual languages. By comparison, IBM has priced the DSD to be highly competitive against an NT Exchange Server installation. In addition, the DSD handles more email clients on a single box and delivers greater reliability with a lower cost of ownership. It delivers ready-to-run work flow templates and integrates to DB2 UDB with a range of built-in languages starting with simple macros and ending with Java. It delivers a Web server, an email server, an integrated security system, a replication system, and a work flow system—all in a single package.

Moreover, the three DSD models are designed to prepare the customer for using the Lotus Domino Knowledge Management toolset with the AS/400’s DB2 UDB. In other words, the DSD positions and readies the customer to strike at the real problems they will be facing down the line. These problems aren’t simple email installations; they’re Knowledge Management issues of the 21st century. In this garden of delights, the real value of the AS/400 “Bumblebee” can be seen taking wing.

Thomas M. Stockwell is an independent IT analyst and writer. He is the former Editor in Chief of MC Press Online and Midrange Computing magazine and has over 20 years of experience as a programmer, systems engineer, IT director, industry analyst, author, speaker, consultant, and editor.  

 

Tom works from his home in the Napa Valley in California. He can be reached at ITincendiary.com.

 

 

Also Read

What Does Domino 10 Really Mean?

The Domino 9.0.2 Waiting Game

Technology Focus: Employee Aids for Internal Communications