Del Webb has decided to replace GroupWise with Exchange 2000, starting this spring. Mail, a legacy program GroupWise doesn't support well. Despite assurances from Microsoft that Exchange won't add to the management burden, Ellsworth and Glass are skeptical. The company's Lotus Notes system consists of 250 servers running Domino 5.06 and Notes 5.04a clients on the desktops of 65,000 mostly U.S.-based employees. Four thousand Notes databases hold mission-critical policy documents and workflow applications.
Prudential employees tend to keep all of their messages because of regulatory requirements.
All of the other Notes companies that we talk to tend to face this problem. The practice strains storage systems and puts a premium on efficient backup, which is done with CA's ArcServe software and managed by another Prudential department. The company struggles to satisfy requests to restore backed-up messages that often come from users who have accidentally deleted them. Restoring the Notes databases with ArcServe isn't always smooth. Creating and managing large Notes distribution lists is another challenge.