Domino Shifting To DB2 Database

Lotus is talking about a major revamp of Domino's innards after Domino 6 ships in the third quarter.

The Notes Storage Facility (NSF) will eventually be replaced by a DB2-based relational model, Lotus confirmed last week.

That news, atop Lotus' announcement at Lotusphere in January that it would replace its own "Garnet" Java Server Pages engine in Domino 6 with WebSphere functionality, caused concern among partners.

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>>%A0Lotus plans a future migration path from existing Notes File System applications.
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Recent comments by IBM Software General Manager Steve Mills about replacing NSF with relational technology added fuel to the fire. But, the plan was no secret, Lotus said. Lotus broached the subject at Lotusphere, said Ed Brill, senior manager of enterprise messaging for IBM's Lotus Software Group.

"We said the next-generation effort would be built around J2EE and DB2," Brill noted. Lotus will provide a migration path to preserve investment in NSF-based applications, he added.

The Lotus decision mirrors Microsoft's move to replace the file system in future versions of Exchange Server with a SQL Server-based data store.

A relational database will ripple changes made in a contact book throughout the entire application, said Constantine Photopoulos, president and CEO of Eden Communications, a Saratoga, N.Y., partner.

"If Domino had a better data store, it might have moved to the Internet better and faster," said Denis Clark, vice president of marketing and business development for Stampede Technologies, Dayton, Ohio.