IBM Notes Traveler FAQ

Traveler ist one of the best features added to the Domino servers in the last years. Although is not only feature rich, but also very reliable and easy to configure, there are some important questions to answer to implement traveler correctly. Many of this questions were answered by Corey Quinn |(Notes Traveler L3 Support Lead) in an OpenMic call in the end of April. You can find a recording and a transcipt of this Q/A session at http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27041522.

The topics in the Q/A session were:

• Feature Requests, Roadmaps, Known Limitation
• Setup & Upgrade
• Server Pools, High Availability, Load Balancing
• DMZ
• General Administration & Troubleshooting

Interesting introduction of Windows 2012 R2

Windows 2012 R2 is a big step forward for Microsoft Server technology. I especially like the much improved Hyper V in Windows 2012 R2. For details watch the following presentation from Teched:

URL changed to www.EverythingaboutIT.eu

When i started my blog two years ago my main focus was on IBM Notes and Java and this is still a very important part of my work and i am sure that i will blog about this topic in the future. But in the last year i blogged about many other topics like IBM i, DB/2, Windows Server and network technology topics. So  i have changed the name of my blog to "Everything about IT" to make it clear that this blog is no longer only a blog about Notes and Java, but every topic in the live of an IT expert.

Please change  your bookmarks to my new Domain "www.EverythingaboutIT.eu"

Print Screen Key freezes Windows

Today i had a strange problem on my windows machine that every time i press the "Print Screen" key to capture a screenshot windows will freeze immediately. I thought that this is only a temporary problem,  but after a hard reset i got the same problem again after retrying to create a screenshot.

It took me some time to figure out that the problem is not bug, but a feature. Last week i have used the Windows Kernel Debugger on my machine and one of the feature of the Debugger is that when you press the "Print Screen" key the kernel stops and try to connect to a WinDbg session. When there is no Debugger attached it will wait infinitely. So if you have the problem that your windows freezes on print screen check if the kernel debugger is enabled.

To check/deactivate the debugger start "msconfig.exe" with admin privileges and disable the debugger in the extended options on the start tab.

IBM thinks that MCH3601 and the creation of dumps is normal behavior during a restore operation

The readers of my blog know, that i am a big fan of the "IBM i" operating system, because it is the most stable and reliable system ever built. We have been using "IBM i" and its predecessor "OS/400" since 1993 and we had only one crash (V3R0M5) of the operating system since then. One other big advantage of the system is that backup and restore is an integrated part of the base operating system so that backup and restore is rock solid too. 

Omit directories from a *LINK BRMS Backup

BRMS (Backup Recovery and Media Service) makes it very easy to backup the complete IFS (Integrated File System) of an IBM i machine, with the "*LINK" entry in your backup control group.

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server

The whole Internet is full of more or less useful tips for performance tuning on windows server. Many tips to change some mystery registry settings are not only not useful, but the can cause serious problems on your servers. Some popular performance tricks in the Internet make only sense in older releases and are obsolete in newer versions of Windows Server. You should really carefully evaluate every tip before you implement it on your production servers.

But why trust on tips from the Internet when there are very good performance tuning guidelines from the creators of Windows Server like the

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server (Windows 2008, 2008 R2, 2012)
Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 R2

This guides are packed with useful tips&tricks and detailed explanations how Windows server work and which settings should be applied in different scenarios like File, Application or Web servers. My recommendation is to not change any settings on your windows server before you have read and understood the above documents!

Domino Policies FAQ

One of the most powerful tool for the admin in Domino are policies.  Policies in Domino are not only very powerful, but also sometimes difficult to understand and hard to implement. So many admins think that policies in Domino are buggy, because the do not understand how policies work in Domino.

Fortunately IBM has held an "Ask the Experts Q&A" session this month which answers all questions about the following topics.

• Dynamic Client Configuration & Timing
• Mail & Custom policies
• Groups
• Passwords
• General Administration

The FAQ's in this "Ask the Experts Q&A" are a must read for every Domino Admin.

Have a look at my other postings relating policies