Exam Lotus Exam #520: Maintaining Domino R5 Servers and Users Vendor Lotus Status Live Reviewer's Rating “A fair exam -- but no walk in the park. There's a lot here to master." Exam Basics 40 multiple-choice questions, 60 minute time limit. 70 percent needed to pass. Cost: $100 (U.S.) Available at CAT, IBM and Prometric testing centers worldwide. What Classes Prepare You? Maintaining a Domino Server Infrastructure, and Maintaining Domino Users. Test Objectives URL Click here. (PDF download)

Let's start with the good news about this exam. First, all of the questions are of the same type, where you select the single correct response from those listed. Those of you who have sat for certification exams from other vendors know that some of the more complex question types offered nowadays make it very hard to get a question correct! I also found the questions themselves to be pretty straightforward, so there's no need for that all-too-common fear that the exam will pepper you with questions about obscure product features.

Even so, this exam is no walk in the park -- I know of a couple Domino admins that took their preparation for their R5 exams too lightly and failed. To pass, you'll need a really solid background in Domino administration plus additional study time. The fact that the two corresponding Lotus courses for this exam are each five days long should give you an indication that there is a lot here to master.

The following is a quick overview of the major subject areas covered on this exam. While this guide isn't 100 percent comprehensive, it should help you focus your studies and make sure you hit all the major areas.

Application Management
Application databases are usually created from a template database. Once a database is created, replica copies (a replica copy of a database has the same replica ID) can be distributed to other servers. Then a replication schedule is built using Connection Documents within the Domino Directory. These documents schedule replication between servers at given times and/or a given repeat interval. If the Access Control Lists (ACLs) have been designed correctly, this replication schedule can be used to replicate both data changes in the application as well as application design changes. We can either schedule the DESIGN task on a server, or issue the console command LOAD DESIGN to update all databases on a server with their updated application templates.

The FIXUP task can be used to repair a corrupted Domino database. Not unexpectedly, Lotus expects you know how to run it both from the console (LOAD FIXUP) and graphically using the Domino Administrator tool. You'll also want to be familiar with the UPDALL task, which can rebuild database views and full-text indexes.

The COMPACT task is used to compress the database and optionally reclaim unused space. The three main types of compaction are:

• in-place compaction with space recovery (COMPACT -b). Users and servers have read and write access.
• in-place compaction with space recovery and file size reduction (COMPACT -B). Users and servers only have read access
• copy-style compaction (COMPACT -C). Users and servers have no access unless the -L option is used as well.

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  Tip: Be familiar with the main options available for these three commands.

  Tip: In R5, there is an option that allows users and servers to access the database while it is being compacted.

Access control is an important part of the setup and maintenance of Domino applications. You'll need to know exactly what each of the available ACL levels (Manager, Designer, Editor, Author, Reader, Depositor and None) means for users and servers. User access is usually pretty straightforward, but often you will problems with server access show up in seemingly unexpected ways -- for example, problems in replication can occur because the destination server isn't allowed access to even read the database on the other server. An extension of this can possibly be the user of Readers fields within the documents in the database. Readers fields only allow those listed in that field to read the document, regardless of the levels granted in the database ACL. As before, if these Readers fields are used within an application, servers that hold this database are going to need to be listed within them in order to be able to replicate successfully.

Working with Directories, Users and Groups
The Domino Directory (NAMES.NSF) is key configuration database within a Domino domain. (Note: In the context of this article, the word "domain" is a term used in Domino to define groups of servers and users that share the same Domino Directory).

Creating users and groups is probably second nature to many admins, so I won't go into much detail here. One thing to keep in mind, however, is when creating a new user, you need to have a copy of certifier for the hierarchical naming context that they will be created within. For example, if your new user is to be John Doe/SF/ACME, then the /ACME certifier can be safely stored away and you only need a copy of the /SF/ACME certifier.

One of the more powerful features for Domino administrators is AdminP, the Administration Process server task. This can be used to automate many time-consuming admin tasks. Each database has a property that lists the Administration server for that database, and only an AdminP task on that server can perform automated admin tasks on that database. This is particularly important for the Domino Directory, since it can be used to rename users, delete users and much more. However, a Certification Log database (CERTLOG.NSF) should be created first on the registration server used to create users and servers. If you don't have this created, then these AdminP functions won't work with these users and servers.

Messaging and Replication
Here you'll need to be aware of one of Domino's coolest features -- the DNN, the Domino Named Network. A DNN is a group of servers within the same Domino domain that are in constant network connection running the same network protocol that have the same network name. So what's so cool about the DNN? Well, mail routing between Domino servers is automatic and doesn't require prior administrator configuration within a DNN. Otherwise, you'll need a Connection document to configure mail routing between servers. You will always need to explicitly create Connection documents for database replication between servers. Earlier I defined the concept of replica copies, and this is important here since replication only occurs between databases with the same replica ID.

Lotus expects you be able to use the ROUTE console command to force mail routing to a given server. You can force replication with the PUSH, PULL and REPLICATE commands. As before, there are graphical alternatives within Domino Administrator to launch these server tasks; be familiar with these as well.

A new feature of R5 is Mail Tracking. Here, a new task known as MTC is launched on the Domino server, and this regularly monitors the work of the mail router task, periodically writing the results to a database (MTSTORE.NSF). This database can be queried to check for specific mail items or to better understand the mail usage trends (top senders and top receivers, for example). The configuration for mail tracking is done within a Configuration Document in the Domino Directory.

Tip: By default, no users or administrators have access to track mail, so anyone authorized to track mail needs to be explicitly added to the Configuration Document..

A common problem with Domino is replication conflicts. This happens in a distributed environment when two different copies of a document are edited from different servers. As the changes are replicated around the Domino server environment, Domino can't determine how to process the two updates -- this is shown in views as a replication or save conflict. In this case, an administrator needs to manually handle how the updates should be applied. One important way that this can be avoided is using a setting by the application designer on the form used to create documents called Merge replication conflicts. Once this setting is applied, replication conflicts can usually be merged into a single document, unless it's the same field that has been updated by multiple users.

Managing Domino Servers
If you read the competencies closely for this area, you could be excused for thinking that this section covers more than the rest of the exam combined. Fortunately, in the areas of Web serving, partitioning and clustering, you'll only need a conceptual knowledge of what is involved.

A Domino cluster is a group of up to six servers that replicate data changes to each other in real time, rather than relying on scheduled replication. This provides support for failover and load-balancing. The servers must be using the same network protocol and within the same Domino domain. An Internet Cluster Manager (ICM), then regularly polls Domino clustered Web servers and redirects Web traffic to the most appropriate lighter loaded Domino server.

Similarly for partitioned Domino servers (multiple virtual Domino servers running on the same machine), you should know that the code executables are shared between each virtual server, but the NOTES.INI and data directories are unique. You should also understand the two different ways to configure each of the partitioned servers -- to use different IP address for each, or to use port mapping, which uses the same IP address for each and then uses a different TCP port for each server.

Loading the HTTP task on a Domino server is -- in theory! -- all that is needed to turn Domino into a Web server. Be aware of the contents of the HTTP tab within the Server Document in the Domino Directory. Two important fields here are Default Home Page and Home URL (if entered, the Home URL field overrides the contents of the other). An important console command to know about is TELL HTTP RESTART, which is used to activate any Web server configuration changes without having to stop and restart the HTTP task.

Domino Systems
This last subject area is a grab bag of topics that don't fit within any of the other objectives. Here, be sure you understand how Notes clients are configured to access Domino servers-the purpose of Location documents, Connection documents and optionally Account documents within a users' Personal Name and Address Book. You'll also need to be familiar with the Log database (LOG.NSF) and running a server log analysis (this is the Lotus-way of saying that you are searching through the Log database for text string(s)).

Final Tips
During your study preparation for this and any other Lotus exam, make sure you follow the exam competencies closely to ensure you are ready in all areas covered. Also, make sure you review the sample questions offered (included in the exam guide) -- not only will these give you a feel for the types of questions asked and the depth of understanding you will need for the exam, sometimes these questions are very close to actual exam questions. If you take the time to work through and understand these sample questions, this can be a real gift to you in the exam!

Although the next version of Domino, R6, is scheduled to be released later in the year, you needn't feel that being certified in R5 now will be a waste of time. The implementation rate of R5 was very slow and I would expect the implementation of Rnext would be even slower, since there appears to be fewer compelling features this time around to justify the upgrade. Plus, if you complete your R5 CLP certification, there will be a single upgrade exam to update your CLP certification for R6.

Have you taken this exam? How hard was it? Rate it below!

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