Virtual, Faster, Better! How to Virtualize IBM Notes V10

Make Your Data Work For You
Virtual, Faster, Better!
How to Virtualize IBM NotesV10
Christoph Adler
13th November 2018

Speakers
Daniel Klas
@panagenda
Inbound Marketing Coordinator
panagenda
Christoph Adler
@cadler80
Senior Consultant
panagenda
Join the conversation using #IBMNotes & @panagenda

Introduction

What are virtual environments (in this case)
Examples
• VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
– VMWare Horizon View OR Citrix XenDesktop
• TS – Terminal Services/Server
– Citrix XenApp

What I typically see at customers
Aged IBM Notes installations in virtual environments that are working “somehow”
– mostly Notes data directories on network drives which cause
• long startup times of IBM Notes (up to 60 sec)
• hangs and wait times due to interruptions and poor network latency
• high network traffic as IBM Notes is constantly reading / writing data
• frequently corrupted local applications
• permanently occupied disk space on file servers / SAN / NAS
– at least 120MB per user
– often because of old and outdated files, even templates

What I typically do at customers
• Sparking their enthusiasm for IBM Notes
– especially in virtual environments, IBM Notes can be optimized to start up fast, run
smooth and contribute to a positive end user IT experience by
• switching to local Multi-user installations
• frequently maintaining contents of IBM Notes data folders
• relieving network, file servers and/or SAN/NAS systems
• Encouraging administrators to spend a little more time on troubleshooting and
analyzing IBM Notes
– Solve root causes, not symptoms!

To roam or not to roam: that is the question
• Given the previous reasons why IBM Notes in virtual environments should
not have any files in the network, the following logical questions arise
– How can personal IBM Notes data folders of end users be maintained locally on the
virtual environment servers?
• Think of having N servers in the farm where personal end user data potentially needs
to be on every single server
• How do end users get their most recent IBM Notes configuration no matter
on which server in the farm they log on?
• How to ensure that disk space used by IBM Notes data folders is cleared
after log off?

To roam or not to roam: that is the question (cont.)
• How to avoid transfers of large IBM Notes data folders per user during log on and
log off which increase wait times and cause network traffic?
• The answer is: Roaming!
– To provide end users with their latest IBM Notes configuration, their data needs to be
roamed onto the server they log on to start their session
– Roaming can be achieved through own procedures (e. g. logon script),
Domino Roaming or third-party solutions

To roam or not to roam: that is the question (cont.)
Log on to virtual
session
Roam data
Start
IBM Notes
Log on to
IBM Notes
(happens here:
logon script,
3rd-party
solutions)
Roam data
(or here: 3rd-party)
In this session
„MarvelClient Roaming“
Work with
IBM Notes
Roam data
(or here: IBM Roaming)
Shutdown
IBM Notes
Log off from
virtual session
Backup
data
Backup
data
(happens here)
In this session
„MarvelClient Roaming“
(or here)
Clear data

IBM Notes 10.0.0 Installation

Basic stuff
• Use default paths
– Program directory
C:Program Files(x86)IBMNotes
– Shared data directory
C:ProgramDataIBMNotesDatashared
– Data directory
C:Users<USERNAME>AppDataLocalIBMNotesData
• MultiUser install only  please!
• Use Install parameter “CITRIX=1” (if TS involved)
• No need to make changes to MSI package (scripts can help here)

Command line(s)
• Uninstall & cleanup first
– IBM NICE (Notes Install Cleanup Executable):
https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21459714
– "C:InstallInstallnice.exe" -rp -wipe -qn
– rd /S /Q "C:Program Files (x86)IBMNotes"
– rd /S /Q "C:Program Files (x86)IBMLotus"
– rd /S /Q "C:ProgramDataLotus"
– rd /S /Q "C:ProgramDataIBMNotes"
• Install
"c:tempInstallNOTES_V10.0_FOR_WINDOWS_EN_CNW1SEN.exe“
-s -a /s /v"SETMULTIUSER=1 CITRIX=1 /qn /lime "c:tempInstall msiinst_NotesV10.log"

Improvements

On Disk Structure (ODS)
ODS 16 = Notes 2
ODS 17 = Notes 3
ODS 20 = Notes 4 (or templates)
ODS 41 = Notes 5
ODS 43 = Notes 6 & 7
ODS 48 = Notes 8.0
ODS 51 = Notes 8.5 / 9.0
ODS 52 = Notes 9.0.1
ODS 53 = Notes 10
The difference between ODS 43 and 53 = up to 80% LESS FILE I/O (50% less on average)

ODS53 (cont.)
To upgrade the ODS of all shared templates in a virtual IBM Notes Multi-user
installation you can follow these steps (includes ODS 53 for new databases created by
the user)
• Add the following line to the shared notes.ini in %ProgramData%IBMNotesData
– CREATE_R10_DATABASES=1
• Make sure that the Administrator account used to log on to the virtual server does
not have a personal IBM Notes Data directory yet (in %LocalAppData%)
• From a command prompt type the following commands
– cd “%ProgramData%IBMNotesDataShared”
– “%ProgramFiles(x86)%IBMNotesncompact.exe” -C -ODS -* -Client -UpdateIndexes

Notes.ini
• A properly configured shared notes.ini can be essential for smooth running virtual
IBM Notes environments
• The shared notes.ini is used by every IBM Notes client session for which there’s no
personal IBM Notes data folder yet
• It is located in %ProgramData%IBMNotesData
• It is used as a template notes.ini out of which all parameters are transferred into a
users personal notes.ini upon the very first IBM Notes start
• Find some useful shared notes.ini parameters on the next slide
(additionally to the standard entries)

Notes.ini (cont.)
• Ports=TCPIP
• TCPIP=TCP,0,15,0,,12288,
– Note that this sets port compression to OFF, which is appropriate in virtual environments; Port
compression adds 5% CPU overhead and with 60 concurrent sessions this would result in needing
3 dedicated CPUs for just port compression
• DISABLE_CLIENTRECORD=1
– This disables logging of client information back into the public address book as all virtual
environment users share the same servers in the farm anyway

Notes.ini (cont.)
• CREATE_R10_DATABASES=1
– Enables IBM Notes 10 to use the latest ODS version for newly created local applications. Make
sure to not use CREATE_R85_DATABASES (IBM Lotus Notes 8.5) or CREATE_R9_DATABASES (IBM
Notes 9.0.1) to avoid the use of an older ODS in IBM Notes 10
• Log=,1,0,7,40000
– This disables logging, which is optional but gains a slight performance improvement
– This could cause issues when applications needs a existing log.nsf (please check before)
• ConfigFile=C:ProgramDataIBMNotesDataconfig.txt
– For ConfigFile details see next topic

Notes.ini (cont.)
All parameters for copy & paste
Ports=TCPIP
TCPIP=TCP,0,15,0,,12288,
DISABLE_CLIENTRECORD=1
CREATE_R10_DATABASES=1
Log=,1,0,7,40000
ConfigFile=C:ProgramDataIBMNotesDataconfig.txt
[always keep a blank line at the bottom!]

Config File
• IBM Notes can be set up unattended by using a so called ConfigFile – often referred
to as config.txt or setup.txt
• The ConfigFile needs to be referenced in the shared notes.ini using the parameter
ConfigFile=Drive: or UNCfolderfilename.txt (see previous topic)
• For more details the following IBM KnowledgeBase entry provides some very good
examples on how to create a ConfigFile as generic as possible
– https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/bs/SSKTMJ_9.0.1/admin/inst_settingupnoteswit
hascriptablesetup_c.html

Config File (cont.)
Example ConfigFile for copy & paste
Username=%USERNAME%
Domino.Name=Hubserver/Acme
Domino.Address=servername.acme.com
Domino.Port=TCPIP
Domino.Server=1
AdditionalServices=-1

ShareClasses Improvement
• In IBM Notes the jvm.shareclasses file (*xpdplat_.jvm_G35) is stored in each users
Dataworkspace.configorg.eclipse.osgi folder and has a fixed size of 64MB
• To optimize file I/O, speed up the IBM Notes Client start and save storage (960MB per server
== 15users), this file can be shared across all users of the virtual environment server
1. Create the following folder “%ProgramData%IBMNotesDataShareClasses“
and set folder rights for “everyone” to read / write access
2. Change the value of this parameter “jvm.shareclasses.loc=“ in
%ProgramFiles(x86)%IBMNotesframeworkrcpdeployjvm.properties
• from “${rcp.data}/.config/org.eclipse.osgi“
• to “C:/ProgramData/IBM/Notes/Data/ShareClasses“ it’s important to use “/” instead of “”

JVM memory allocation
To speed up the IBM Notes JVM it’s useful to optimize memory settings
• Open %ProgramFiles(x86)%IBMNotesframeworkrcpdeployjvm.properties
– Modify vmarg.Xmx from “-Xmx256m” to “-Xmx1024m”
– Modify vmarg.Xms from “-Xms64m” to “-Xms256m”
– Change vmarg.Xmca=-Xmca512k
– Remove “SingleJVM” from vmarg.Dshare
• The implicit rules
– Do not change vmarg.Xmx to more than -Xmx1024m regardless of how much memory
you have
– vmarg.Xms should always be ¼ of what you changed Xmx to
Note: The above defaults have been changed by IBM over the last couple of Notes
releases. You might find other values than Xmx256m and Xms64m in your setups.

Workspace Improvement
• Every IBM Notes Client start in a virtual environment is a first (setup) start and takes at least
23 sec on average
• ~65% - 70% of time during first starts is used to build the workspace folder (at least 15 sec)
• A typical new workspace folder (IBM Notes 10)
consists of
– >400 files
– >180 folders
– >85 MB (including 64MB *xpdplat_.jvm_G35 file)
• Building the workspace folder causes lots of file I/O

Workspace Improvement (cont.)
Accelerate the IBM Notes Client start to be >50% faster (with less file I/O)
• With a non-admin user (Windows + IBM Notes) run an initial setup of IBM Notes
• Start IBM Notes and wait for 1,5 minutes
• Exit IBM Notes
• Start IBM Notes again and wait for another 1,5 minutes
• Exit IBM Notes
• Create the following folder %ProgramData%IBMNotesDataCommon
• Copy the workspace folder from %LocalAppData%IBMNotesData to
%ProgramData%IBMNotesDataCommon

8. Delete the following files / folders in
%ProgramData%IBMNotesDataCommonworkspace
a) UDM
b) Logs  all but .prov2install
c) .metadata.pluginscom.ibm.collaboration.*
d) .metadata.pluginscom.ibm.rcp.personality.framework
e) .metadata.pluginscom.ibm.rcp.security.auth
f) .metadata.pluginscom.ibm.rcp.managedsettings

Important:
• You have to recreate the workspace folder when you Installation changes (another Notes
version, Sametime embedded, etc.)
• If you want to include the workspace folder to your installation package, you also have to
include “C:Program Files (x86)IBMNotesframeworkrcprcplauncher.properties”
– rcp.install.id=
– provisioning.manifest.version=

Windows Registry
If you change the Data Directory –
let’s say from “H:NotesData” to “%LocalAppData%IBMNotesData”
• Please ensure that the following Registry-Entry will be deleted during Windows-Logon (always)
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareLotusNotesNotesIniPath

Antivirus Solutions
• Exclude
– C:Program Files (x86)IBMNotes
– C:ProgramDataIBMNotesData
– C:Users*AppDataLocalIBMNotesData

DEP - Data Execution Prevention
• Exclude
– C:Program Files (x86)IBMNotesnotes.exe
– C:Program Files (x86)IBMNotesnlnotes.exe
– C:Program Files (x86)IBMNotesnsd.exe
– C:Program Files
(x86)IBMNotesframeworkrcpeclipsepluginscom.ibm.rcp.base_10.0.0.2018
0705-1111win32x86notes2.exe

Questions and Answers
Daniel Klas
@panagenda
Inbound Marketing Coordinator
panagenda
Christoph Adler
@cadler80
Senior Consultant
panagenda
Join the conversation using #IBMNotes & @panagenda

Thank you!

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Virtual, Faster, Better! How to Virtualize IBM Notes V10

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