Well, assuming you're being serious about what you say, and there are a lot of unreasonable "Notes Bashers" our there who don't like to have an actual discussion... But assuming you're not in that group then something seems really really off..
You're averaging 150 users per mail server... That's just crazy. A typical domino server, even on "obsolete" hardware can support many more users then that.
I don't know why you'd run out of space if your enforcing quota's on your mail file. That doesn't make sense. Quota's should have prevented any space problems by itself.
I don't know anything about WebSphere and hope I never have to. I've got no interest in that product. I'm not sure what you mean by Exchange having better portability. I don't think anything is better then Notes. Domino (server) and Notes (client) both run on many different platforms. You can replicate a database to any server or client on any platform. So you can always have your data available. I don't know how you get more portable then that.
Regarding r8 the eclipse based version used Java with Notes as a plug in more or less, but there's still the standard version that is not based on Java. It's the same as it ever was with just a few less features then the "enhanced" version.
Notes should be more reliable then what you're experiencing. I don't know what IBM support you have but it might benefit you to bring someone else in. There's a number of top consultants in Notes, many of them are in Orlando this week. I know some of them administer larger environments then yours.
Good Luck
No, not all our Notes servers are used to host mail files.
We have a lot of them being used strictly as Notes based application servers.
SR systems, project tracking and such.
Our actual mail servers host roughly 1000 +/- mail boxes each.
The mail file size limits were only recently introduced because they were getting out of hand.
The Exchange portability was in reference to the integration with AD and the lack of the need for an ID file to retrieve your email. Log into any systems with an Exchange client and you can check your email.
We now enforce local replicas, which make putting your ID file on a USB thumb drive and hitting your email from another systems all but impossible.
That is unless you like dragging a copy of your mail file. notes.ini file(only needed if you have specific servers you need to use) and desktop file along with you on your thumb drive. I've had to do it before... it sucks.
As for Web Sphere, if you're ever presented with it as an option, choose something else.
Very bloated and tons of overhead required to make it work properly.
We've been using it since the early days and we have finally had enough and are dropping it. We could never get it to handle the kind of capacity we needed to run our web based programs.
I'm not against the use of JAVA, however IBM's decision to use it heavily in the newer version of Notes was not a smart choice. Great if you use *nix based desktops, but we live in the real world and have Windows based desktops of one flavor or another that use AD for authenticating to all of our systems. We all know how Windows systems just love JAVA.
🙄
We're however going to Sun and lightweight JAVA as our Web Sphere replacement. Those are all Sun systems anyway, so it makes perfect sense.
Again, I cannot say who I work for publicly as I will get in a load of trouble.
Yes, they do monitor our activity on the web and know that I'm posting here. As long as I don't get specific, they are cool with it.
Understanding the nature of my business would make you go "ah I get it".
