Why choose Domino as your Web Application Server?

This is a blog that I have been wanting to write for a long time and it is very important to me as an developer and Evangelist of Lotus products. Many companies that I know have moved off Notes and Domino. Also I have heard many have come on board also. How the numbers stack up only IBM knows. But that does not matter if I am doing well in providing consulting services and training.

The thing that I have been struggling with and have not heard from IBM is a compelling story on why a company would what to use Domino as their Web application server versus Microsoft and Google solutions and more importantly open source solutions. First, if your company is a Lotus shop that makes sense. However, majority of the world is not when it comes to Web application servers. If Domino is going to turn the corner and grow as a Web application server which is the direction that IBM is pushing, we need to easily provide this compelling story. I see open source-based frameworks like Drupal and Joomla more and more prevalent.

For me there is a number of reasons I would use Domino including:

- Single Integrated Package with Application Server and Database
- Security Model
- Integration
- Flexibility
- NoSQL architecture

Comments

Palmi said…
Let me add to this list :
Easy deployment
Great community support
Xpages. With http://maqetta.org/ coming , we will have a Killer Application environment.
April 19, 2011 at 9:44 AM
Domino Interface said…
Palmi,

I thought about what you said. The easy deployment I would add in. Great community support applies to all the competitive platforms so that would not be a factor. Xpages though it is great from the Lotus community perspective, it just brings Domino closer to the level that other platforms already have. It is more of a "me too" and would not distinguish Domino over the other platforms.

Maqetta is interesting. Let's see how it can be incorporated into the Domino develop environment.
April 19, 2011 at 12:57 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The iPhora Journey - Part I - Reimagining Domino

Domino, which is currently owned by HCL Technologies, is one of the most enduring application platforms ever built. It owes its existence to Ray Ozzie, who was heavily influenced by his use of the PLATO system, a pioneering interactive/educational network at the University of Illinois. The first version of Domino (then called Lotus Notes) was released in 1989, and Domino applications from 1989 can still run on the newest version (12.01). You can build Domino applications for deployment on the Notes clients, mobile devices, or Web browsers, and for programming and customization, you can use Nodejs, Java, LotusScript, and Formula language, or any combination of them. Regardless of which programming languages are used, a typical application is usually represented by a single Domino database. However, the IT landscape has changed significantly since Domino was a dominant player in the market. The migration to web and mobile applications using cloud-based solutions has led to the steep decl
Read more

Creating Composite Applications for Classic Lotus Notes Clients – Part 2

Image
This is part 2 of my creating composite application for classic Lotus Notes clients. In part 2, I will cover how a new event in Lotus Notes 8 can used to simplify the process of creating a composite application. You can download the demo code from the sidebar or download it from here. This new event is "onSelect" and is found in Notes View. This event works not only for regular views but also for embedded views and even embedded views within a dialog box. This event is triggered whenever a document is selected in a view. It hold true even when the view is display for the first time. As a Notes developer, I feel this one single event is more than enough reason to upgrade to at least the Lotus Notes 8 Basic client. It makes a number of UI issues simply go away. Just like in the previous Lotus Notes clients we need to create a launch document in our composite application that will be used to trigger the population of the frames in the composite application. However, rather t
Read more

The iPhora Journey - Part 5 - Dammit Jim, I'm a LotusScripter not a JavaScripter

Image
As often said by Dr. McCoy in the original Star Trek series, he is a doctor, not a ____________ .  However, just like Dr. McCoy, you may sometimes need to work on things that seem very alien to your experience.  One of those things, might be JSON. LotusScript, which was derived from Visual Basic, was written long before JSON existed, and therefore, LotusScript had no built-in capabilities for handling JSON objects. As we mentioned in Part 4, JSON plays a critical role in iPhora.  All data are stored as JSON, and JSON serves as the primary data and communication format between modules, functions and services.  All core components operate using JSON-based configurations.  Therefore, it was extremely important that we are able to fluidity create, read and process JSON.   Creating a JSON string is relatively easy in any programming language. You can create it even using Commodore 64 Basic, and if built sequentially, one line at a time, it is possible to create JSON representations of ve
Read more