Lotus Notes Features

When Lotus Notes was initially released, the name "Notes" (taken from PLATO Notes, the mainframe-based software that preceded it) referred to both the client and server components. In 1996, Lotus released an add-on for the Notes 4 server called "Domino". This add-on allowed Notes documents to be rendered as web pages in real time. With the release of Notes 4.5, later that year, the Domino web server was integrated into the core Notes server, which was itself renamed to "Domino". The client is still called "Notes", while the server component is now known as "Domino". One may frequently see the terms used interchangeably.

The server runs on several platforms, including Windows NT, Windows 2000, Linux, HP-UX, Sun Solaris, IBM iSeries, pSeries, and zSeries. The native client runs on all versions of Windows and Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. Various versions of the client have been run under WINE on Linux, but with varying degrees of success and no official support. Domino servers can also translate most databases into HTML for browser based users.

The Notes client can be used as a IMAP and POP email client with non-domino mail servers, recipient addresses can be retrieved from any LDAP server, including Active Directory. The client also does web browsing although most people configure it to launch their default browser instead.

In the past Notes had been criticized for being 'clunky'—at one time, the now defunct Interface Hall of Shame web site had an entire section devoted to the Notes 4 client's perceived user interface shortcomings. However, most, if not all, of those problems were addressed in subsequent releases. Notes 6.5, in particular, paid some long needed attention to the email client, which has traditionally been regarded as the product's Achilles heel. Features such as unread counts on folders, drag and drop of folders, follow-up flags, reply and forward indicators and the ability to edit an attachment and save the changes back to an email were all things that product's competitors had enjoyed for years. In terms of usability, this release went a good way towards redressing the balance with arch-rival, the Microsoft Outlook/Microsoft Exchange combination.

A design client is available to allow rapid development of databases consisting of forms, which allow users to create documents; and views, which display selected document fields in columns.

Features include group calendaring and scheduling, SMTP-based email (HTML based email is available to Java developers), NNTP-based news support, and automatic HTML conversion of all documents by the Domino HTTP task. In its latest incarnation (Notes7) it provides a web services interface. Domino can be a web server for HTML files too; authentication of access to Domino databases or HTML files uses Domino's own user direcory and external systems such as Microsoft's Active Directory.

Security is built into the product. Notes was the first widely adopted software product to use public key cryptography for client-server and server-server authentication and for encryption of data, and it remains the product with the largest installed base of PKI users. Until US laws regulating encryption were changed in 2000, Lotus was prohibited from exporting versions of Notes that supported symmetric encryption keys that were longer than 40 bits. At one point, Lotus negotiated an agreement with the NSA that allowed export of a version that supported stronger keys with 64 bits, but 24 of the bits were encrypted with a special key and included in the message to provide a "workload reduction factor" for the NSA. The net effect of this was that users of Notes outside of the US had stronger protection against private sector industrial espionage, but no additional protection against spying by the US government. This implementation was not a secret - in fact it was widely announced - but with some justification many people do consider it to be a backdoor. Some governments objected to being put at a disadvantage to the NSA, and as a result Lotus continued to support the 40 bit version for export to those countries. Under current US export laws, Lotus supports only one version of the Notes PKI with even stronger keys and no workload reduction factor. The Domino server's security tools also include S/MIME, SSL 3.0 support with industry standard key sizes for HTTP and other Internet protocols, X.509 client certificates, and an integrated certificate authority.

A particular strength of Notes and Domino is its replication facilities. Servers and clients can replicate database designs and data seamlessly, across all sorts of networks (including modems). This enables users to take full advantage of Notes databases while being off-line—with the client synchronizing any changes when client and server next connect. Even while off-line full security can be preserved, but only by encrypting each database to a specified Notes ID file. Prior to Notes 6, new local replicas were created without this encryption, which led some security Web sites to claim a major security back door in Notes. With Notes 6, however, new replicas are, by default, encrypted to the Notes ID that is used to create them. Replication can happen: client to client, client to server, server to server.

In addition to being a "groupware" system (e-mail, calendaring, shared documents and discussions), Notes/Domino is a platform for developing customized client-server and web applications. Particular strengths of this platform include its security and a wealth of capabilities (design constructs and code) that facilitate the construction of "workflow" type of applications (which may typically have complex approval processes and routing of data).