Though many Domino products will be supported on V6R1 in the future, the only Domino servers that work currently are releases 7.0.3 and 8.0.1, which is still under wraps.

Most System i administrators know that V6R1 is on its way and that in order to upgrade to the new version of the operating system they will have to first convert their existing programs before they can run on V6R1. What you may not know, however, is that there are special procedures for Domino servers, and not all Lotus Domino products will run on V6R1.

Programs will have a new format on V6R1 in order to take advantage of the improvements to i5/OS. Most programs can be converted without special tweaking (key word: most). The problem for Domino users, however, is that only two releases will work on V6R1, so users of older releases will have to first upgrade their Domino server before proceeding with the conversion. Although additional Domino products are planned to run on V6R1 eventually, only Lotus Domino 7.0.3 and 8.0.1 (which incidentally hasn't shipped yet but will in February) are supported on i5/OS V6R1 at the present time.

Here is the rundown on how to proceed with the V6R1 upgrade if you are running Lotus Domino. The first thing to do, of course, is find out which version of Domino you have on your machine. And while you are at it, you will need to check what versions you are running of all other Lotus products. You will need two commands in order to determine this: the Display Software Resource (DSPSFWRSC) and the Work Domino Server (WRKDOMSVR) commands. The former produces a list of software installed on your system, and the latter shows you all Domino servers that are configured there. Just hit the F11 key (Display library) to show the Domino releases.

Assuming that you are running an older release of Domino prior to 7.0.3, you will have to upgrade to at least 7.0.3 before beginning the V6R1 upgrade. Of course, it helps to shut down, or end, the unsupported servers. Then, install Domino 7.0.3 along with hotfix LD01159. Or, if release 8.0.1 is available by then, the extra functionality in the latest release would probably make it worth waiting for since it's due out within a matter of weeks of this writing. Another CL command on the System i is used to upgrade Domino. Not surprisingly, it's called the Update Domino Server (UPDDOMSVR) command. Who would have guessed?

Next, it's time to clean out all the Domino server and unsupported product code that is not supported on V6R1. Failing to do that means you will be converting unsupported Domino libraries, and this is a no-no. You will use the Configure Domino Server OPTION (*REMOVE) to remove the unwanted servers. You will use the Delete Licensed Program (DLTLICPGM) command to remove other unsupported Domino programs. Because of the size of the Domino programs, converting them will almost certainly take longer than it will to convert your other programs. However, you can estimate the conversion times of the product libraries with another CL command, Analyze Object Conversion (ANZOBJCVN). The product library for 7.0.3 is QDOMINO703, and for 8.0.1 it's QDOMINO801. The ANZOBJCVN command has a few intricacies that you can overcome by reading up on it in i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting Ready for i5/OS V6R1, Chapter 2, "Preparing for conversions."

Now you're ready to upgrade i5/OS to V6R1 and will have no trouble with support of the Domino server and other Domino products that you have on there. But wait! Before you start the Domino servers, you must first convert the product libraries. If you start the Domino servers before converting the product libraries...tilt! The Domino servers may not start.

Convert the Domino product libraries with the Start Object Conversion (STROBJCVN) command with the *CONVERT option to convert the aforementioned program libraries.

If you have Domino products that are not current and you need to use them, but it appears there is no upgrade path, you may wish to postpone the upgrade to V6R1 until Lotus has released a supported version of your product.

Check the IBM Lotus Domino for i5/OS Support Web site before proceeding in order to get the latest information on Domino product compatibility with V6R1. This would include compatibility with Lotus Sametime, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Domino Document Manager, Lotus Enterprise Integrator, and IBM Integrated Domino Fax, among others.

Chris Smith was the Senior News Editor at MC Press Online from 2007 to 2012 and was responsible for the news content on the company's Web site. Chris has been writing about the IBM midrange industry since 1992 when he signed on with Duke Communications as West Coast Editor of News 3X/400. With a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and minored in Journalism, and a master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Chris later studied computer programming and AS/400 operations at Long Beach City College. An award-winning writer with two Maggie Awards, four business books, and a collection of poetry to his credit, Chris began his newspaper career as a reporter in northern California, later worked as night city editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and went on to edit a national cable television trade magazine. He was Communications Manager for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., before it merged with Boeing, and oversaw implementation of the company's first IBM desktop publishing system there. An editor for MC Press Online since 2007, Chris has authored some 300 articles on a broad range of topics surrounding the IBM midrange platform that have appeared in the company's eight industry-leading newsletters. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..