Re: Counting emails in an inbox (and R8 upgrade comments)

"Have you tried dbcache flush first? Or even drop all?"

Chris: I didn't try either those simply because I don't want to
'interrupt' the users and force them all to have to re-authenticate. I
just did the compact last night after I ended the server.

"A technique I find helpful when instructing users in the use of the Lotus
Notes client is to point out that "CTRL+A" isn't just a Lotus Notes
shortcut, but a shortcut that is used by almost all apps."

Timothy: That is a great idea!

"If they are really packrats in their Inbox, it can actually impact the
performance of the entire server. As it was explained to me, this is
because everytime they receive a new mail message, the index for the Inbox
has to be updated, causing the server to work harder than necessary to
deliver to that one user. Of course, this was explained to me because I
had a user with an Inbox large enough that I could see in the processor
stats every time he got a new message."

Patrick: Yep - I'm painfully aware of that. And I found a user last week
with 13,000 emails in her inbox dating back to 2002. R8 Server based inbox
management is coming as soon as I get all users up to R8 (which I'm
currently doing via Smart Upgrade). Then after I get all the inboxes under
control we will begin server based archiving. I'm performing these tasks
in this order because I want all the inboxes cleaned up before starting to
archive so that the archive inboxes will always be empty. Inbox management
will remove everything older than 90 days and (weekly) archiving will
start with everything older than three years.

"I am sure he has his mail file open on his PC. From your computer (or a
domain admin account) enter "shutdown -i" on the run line and enter his
computer name. Choose Shutdown or Restart :-)"

Tom: Yes, he always leaves all his apps open when he leaves. Unfortunately
I'm not the network admin so I don't have access to that option.

"Time for server based archiving. No exceptions. x number of days old
and the email goes into archive - All Folders, no such thing as a
DoNotArchive folder."

Rob: EXACTLY! See my comments to Patrick.

"... Some users were either too stupid to read, or, it wasn't pertinent to
something they were working on "right now" so they ignored it."

That's how I get users with 13k emails in their inbox :) (And
unfortunately some of the biggest abusers are 'the powers that be'.)

Overall the R 8.0.1 upgrade has been stable. (I did the upgrade on 4/25.)
I still have a few funky (harmless) error messages in the misc log. I did
have to install a hotfix ptf to remedy a problem with domidx crashing the
server every hour due to a corrupted FT index on the domino directory.

We decided to only utilize the 'basic' R8 client since most of our
hardware doesn't have the horsepower for the eclipse client. I have 1.5GB
of ram and it's slow on my pc and talking to an IBM support person in
Rochester who has 2gb, he said the same thing - that he uses the basic
mode and rarely uses the eclipse client (unless he absolutely has to).
Hopefully by 8.5 they will have slimmed it down enough to make the
performance acceptable. Also the basic config is designed for pc's with as
little as 128mb of ram so most users will experience a faster notes
application.

I've also been converting users to ODS48 after I get their Smart Upgrade
completion email, and then doing a copy style compact on their mail file
to take advantage of design and data compression. My own mail file went
from 256mb to 175 and my client archive went from 107mb to 67. Another
mail file went from 230mb to 152. Hopefully I'll free up a few gigs when
I've converted all 400+ mail files.

Scanmail R3 has had no problems either.

Thanks again for all the input!

Regards, Jerry

Gerald Kern - MIS Project Leader
Lotus Notes/Domino Administrator
IBM Certified RPG IV Developer
The Toledo Clinic, Inc.
4235 Secor Road
Toledo, OH 43623-4299
Phone 419-479-5535
gkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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