Notes / Domino upgrade cheat sheet

Over time I've written a number of entries related to Domino upgrades, Domino administration and helped many customers to succeed in implementing the latest versions. This entry summarizes what works and provides links to the relevant articles and information serving as a convenient entry point. It is linked in the sidebar and I will keep it current.

1. Make sure you know how the ideal Domino upgrade looks like
2. You need a plan, a project plan. Head over to MindPlan and get your version of a mindmapping cum project planning Notes composite application
3. First make yourself knowledgeable by browsing the IBM Fixlist. It is always a good idea to know what is coming
4. If you plan to jump versions, you should be on the latest patch level of your current version. IBM Fix Central provides the latest patches to get you there
5. Visit Upgrade Central to get the latest recommendation
6. Make sure you build a high performance Domino server for best user experience
7. If that server is a new one, you can minimise your downtime when upgrading
8. Revisit you Replication and Routing Architecture. It might be just fine, it might need some TLC
9. If your Domino server runs on Windows you need to take care of disk fragmentation. Use OpenNTF's DominoDefrag or the commercially supported DefragNSF. If you run Notes clients on Windows, fragmentation is an issue there too. DefragNSF has a client module to take care of that
10. When rolling out your client upgrades you need to rethink your installation location and installation type (I strongly advocate shared install), especially when you want to be Windows7 compliant. Smart Upgrade can't change location or type, so you want to invest into the Panagenda Marvel Client or the BCC Client genie for upgrade, roaming and management
11. Disk fragmentation is an issue on your clients too. The minimum you can do about it is to incorporate a defragmentation run while installing using the free MyDiskDefrag. Better you look for continous defragmentation. Both DefragNSF and the Panagenda Marvel Client support continuous client defrag. You can also consider to use MyDefragGUI which provides a screen saver that defrags whenever your machine is idle (Added March 09, 2011)
12. Revisit your eMail retention policies. Once you understand the difference between Backup and Archival, you might consider an eMail life cycle solution like the iQ.Suite
13. If you would like to optimise your infrastructure and benchmark it against thousands of other installations, give TrustFactory a call and schedule a Health Check
14. To improve the quality of web mail (both your use of webmail and the Internet eMail going in and out) consider Geniisoft's iFidelity plug-in for your Domino server
15. While cleaning out your installation you might want to bring some order to your group names. It saves a lot of administrative time. To switch your user administration into auto-pilot mode consider HASDL FiRM, the Federated identity and Resource Management
16. Give your users the opportunity to share ideas and deploy IdeJam by Elguji
17. Last not least. Make your users more productive! Adopt GTD (after you read the book) and deploy the eProductivity template

And never forget why you are on Domino and what happens when others try to move you away (even Accenture struggles - andd the Internet never forgets).
Just to be clear: this post mentions several commercial offerings from IBM Business Partners. You need to evaluate for yourself how an investment into these offerings makes sense for you.
As usual YMMV