HCL has now published a video of Domino V12 to show you the features. What say you about one touch installation, automatic web certificate renewals and a simplified licensing model? Read on!
Domino V12 features
We’ve already blogged about Domino V12 and gave you a summary of some of its features:
HCL have now published the demo video we based the aforementioned blog posting on. We urge you to see it, as it shows you the new features of Domino, Notes and Nomad Web, which makes it possible to run a Notes client inside your web browser, as if it was a normal web page:
New licensing model
Another great thing is that HCL have simplified the licensing model for Domino. Let’s face it: IBM’s licensing model was so complex that even the business partners selling licenses didn’t have a full grasp on it. So HCL have now made a much easier one.
It basically can be summarised like this: You may install as many Domino servers as you want. The licensing model now is that you pay pr user pr month. That’s it! No processor counting or whatever IBM demanded.
– But what about external users and web sites, I hear you cry. Let me summarise:
- CCB users (Complete Collaboration Business Edition): These are your employees and regular Notes users who use Notes and Domino in their day job. It doesn’t matter if they use Notes, Nomad or a web browser to access the Domino application. They also get to use Notes as an email application. To run a Domino server, you need at least one CCB user license
- CCX users: This is an add-on to the CCB license, but it’s intended for external users. This means people outside of your organisation. They can use Notes, Nomad or a web browser to access the Domino applications, but they can’t use Notes mail.
- Guest Users: If you are running a regular web site on a Domino server, anyone can access it. There is no longer a need for a utility server license for this. As long as you have Guest user licensing you can set up web sites without having to worry about the licensing at all. This goes for both unregistered and registered users (people who have logon access to the web site).
Easy, eh?
Here is an illustration giving all of this to you in detail:
One Touch Setup
Let us just quote from the Domino V12 documentation:
“In previous versions of HCL Domino®, setting up a Domino server involved multiple steps. Starting with Domino 12, you can use one-touch Domino setup to set up a server in a single step. You invoke one-touch Domino setup by referring to a JSON file or a set of environment variables that contain the setup configuration information.”
This means that from Domino V12, you can just set up a JSON file with all settings, and then click on Start Installation, and that’s it. Roberto has more details in his blog.
Automatic SSL certificate renewal
Web certificates and Domino can be a nightmare. From V12 on you no longer have to think about that. The server will support Let’s Encrypt, and will automatically renew your certificates. Oval Business Solutions have a great blog posting about this.
Domino V12 looks more and more exciting, people!
For “Guest HTTP Log-in” under “Domino Restrictions” the table says “Limited functions”.
Do we know what these limitations are?
And does “Guest tagged directory” mean that those users must be stored in a separate directory for which we use Directory Assistance for authentication?
Let us check that and get back to you
Authenticated / HTTP logged-in Guest users are permitted a predefined maximum level of Domino application access (ACL) as “Reader.”
“Guest tagged directory” means that you must be able to clearly identify these guest users and distinguish them from CCB users who have a CCB license. Maintaining these guest users in a separate directory makes that a lot easier. If for whatever reason you “insist” on keeping them in the primary directory, you should tag them there as “Guest” so that you can identify and count them. In Domino doing that is easy: Just use a custom attribute in the person document. There’s an officialls supported way to include custom fields in your Domino directory.
If you manage your users in an external LDAP instead of Domino, it’s the same story. Just make sure you can identify and distinguish them from regular CCB or CCX users. You can use a custom LDAP attribute, and / or keep them in a separate LDAP branch or in a different LDAP directory.
The same applies if you have external CCX users. Make sure you clearly mark these CCX users in your directories as “External” using the methods described above.
More details here: https://blog.hcltechsw.com/domino/licensing-update-introducing-ccx-external-user-entitlements/
Thank you, Erik!
Thanks for the explanation
Can we still renew our old licensing?
Existing Non-Expiring (“perpetual”) Licenses can be renewed AS IS!
If you’re not on the CCB/CCX licensing model already, consider upgrading – in particular, if you desire to change your entitlement volume!
You cannot increase the footprint of Utility Server, Utility Server Express or xWork which are obsolete license models for modern multi-cloud containerized deployment, but you can renew existing entitlements as for all other licenses.
Thanks to @Erik.Schwalb for explanation above … U
Thank you, Uffe. Much appreciated.