Upgrading sooner than later is a good thing...

By now, you probably are aware of Lotus Notes and Domino 7 and have it on your upgrade radar. But where can you find a single source of information that shows all the new features for the user, the administrator, and the developer? One place to start would be Packt Publishing's Upgrading to Lotus Notes and Domino 7, by Tim Speed, Dick McCarrick, Tara Hall, Barry Heinz, Matthew Henry, and Wendi Pohs.

Often, one of the hardest things to do in an upgrade project is to convince management that the upgrade is needed. Vague marketing fluff won't (or shouldn't) sway those who want detailed explanations of the new features, including how they will benefit the organization. This book can help you get beyond the generalities in the three major areas of the Notes/Domino platform. From the client perspective, there is good coverage of the new mail features, Sametime integration, and the new Autosave function. In the course of 20 pages, you'll have enough information to start selling the benefits to your users. From the developer's perspective, the information is a little on the light side as there weren't a large number of changes or additions in the Designer. But there is good coverage on AutoSave, enhanced Java support, and the new Formula language and LotusScript commands. Where the book really shines is in its coverage of the new administration features. A large percentage of the book goes into moderate detail on new items like Domino Domain Monitoring as well as some of the new enhancements to policies. The book is not at the level of a reference manual, but there's enough detail to help you to understand what's going on. There's even a nice case study on how IBM upgraded the developerWorks site to the Notes/Domino 7 platform. There is some good information in there that you can use to structure your own upgrades.

So why recommend an "admin" book to Notes developers? Good question! It's because I think you need to be able to step back and "sell" the value of your technology. Just wanting to use shared columns or profile your agents isn't going to cause the CIO to budget your upgrade. Being able to speak to the value to the users as well as the value for the infrastructure is important. Rather than venturing into the Domino help files to find administration stuff that you may not understand, you can get everything you'll need to understand right here, at the right level to be able to discuss the issues coherently with management and the administration side of your team.

So, expand your view of Notes/Domino 7 outside of your "developer or administrator" role, and understand the overall value-proposition that upgrading to Notes/Domino 7 brings. Pick up a copy of this book and convince management that upgrading sooner rather than later is a good thing...

Other Reviews

• Good book for Lotus Notes administrators
• Not worth the money!
• Misleading title for this book
• Not an upgrade book
• Upgrading sooner than later is a good thing...