..or how to split Connections in two. Customer Success Story presented at engage.ug by Belsoft Collaboration and Heitkamp & Thumann

1. A Break Up Story
(or how to split Connections in two)
Sandra Bühler
Jörg Rafflenbeul
1#engageug

2. Agenda
• Team
• Challenges
• Concept
• Preparations
• Migration
• Clean
• Lessons Learned
2#engageug

3. A Break Up Story
Team
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4. 4#engageug
The Project Team

5. How we worked together
• 1 Email (formal offer) + invoices + Calendar invites
• 1 Connections Community
• 1 Zoom Group Channel
• 1 Post Project Lunch in Zürich
after Project
5#engageug

6. About the Speakers
• Sandra Bühler
• Co-owner and co-founder of Belsoft and
Belsoft Collaboration
• Domino, Sametime & Connections, project
manager, face to the customer
• Oh my, doing this more than 25 years now
• IBM Champion 2014 - 2019 / HCL Master 2019 - 2020
• Mother of three and spamming the yellow community with
mountain pictures from Switzerland
6#engageug

7. About the Speakers
• Jörg Rafflenbeul
• Born 1968, married, three children
• Hobbies: Photography, Gardening and a bit of IT
• Lotus / IBM / HCL Notes since March 1995
• Heitkamp & Thumann Group since May 2000:
• Group Coordinator IT
• General IT Strategy
• IT Security Systems
• Collaboration Systems
• IBM / HCL Connections since 2011
• Board Member of DNUG June 2015 – June 2019
• IBM Champion 2017 - 2019, HCL Master 2019 & 2020
7#engageug

8. Heitkamp & Thumann Group
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9. Heitkamp & Thumann Group
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OUR MISSION
• Customer Satisfaction Is Our
Highest Priority
• Suppliers Are Our Business
Partners
• People Working Together as a
Global Team
• Integrity Will Never Be
Compromized
• Continuous Improvement in
Everything We Do
• Innovation Will Create Our
Future
• Safety and Environmental
Sustainability Are Our Primary
Responsibility

10. Connections – Facts
10#engageug
• IBM Connections since 2011 – Release 3.0.1
• Domino as Application server for
• LDAP Server, Internal User Self Registration, Password Management
• Internal users: ~ 1000
• External Users: > 200
• Communities: ~5000: 8% Public, 20% Moderated, 72% Restricted
• Files: ~250.000
• Activities ~ 8000

11. A Break Up Story
Challenges
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12. Questions in 2016 and Later
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• How can we run Connections in case there is a spin-off?
• Copy out Data
e.g. using Connection Content Export (to HTML)
• Migrate into IBM Cloud (IC360)
• Setup own Connections – not the best option ;-)
• Which IT Services does H&T Group Provide?
• List of Services, Modules and Partners

13. Heitkamp & Thumann Group – Before Split
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14. Westfalia Metal Hose Sale Announced
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• Public Announcement May, 10 2020
• Internal
• Provide Collaboration Services after closing as on closing day
• Hand Over Security Service until closing day
• Closing of Transaction: Date is not fixed
• External: Consulting Partner for Connections dropped service
https://www.ht-group.com/en/news/heitkamp-thumann-group-and-hamaton-automotive-technology-agree-on-sale-of-westfalia-metal-hoses.html

15. Heitkamp & Thumann Group – After Split
15#engageug

16. The Challenge (May 2019)
• Separation of a Connections (and Domino) infrastructure
into 2 independent environments because of company
separation
• Only part of Connections content to be moved out
• Minimal downtime for the users (and the service)
• No change of login credentials for moved out users
• New environment with latest software product releases
• Same Functionality as before
16#engageug

17. Challenges IBM/HCL and Timing
• Not Supporting
• IBM product acquisition by HCL
• “HCL Technologies to Acquire Select IBM Software Products for $1.8B”
Source IBM – Date December 6th 2018
• “On 30 June 2019, IBM finalized the divestiture of select products to
HCL, including Connections Cloud. On July 16, 2019 HCL announced
End of Service for this offering.” Source IBM
• Timing
• July and August are main vacation periods
Closing of Transaction: Date is not fixed
17#engageug

18. This Made the Challenges Less Complicated
• H&T’s IT operates the system after the split
• Handover of data for migration into “own” system after 6-12
months
• IT and Key users have a high level of trust
• Best Business Partner in the World
• Others are on vacation too ;-)
18#engageug

19. Challenges – The Expected Closing Day
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JR
• Sale Announced at May 10th, 2019
• Closing Date “expected until end of October 31, 2019”
• Could be at August 30th

20. A Break Up Story
Concept
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21. Concept
• H&T has asked several Partners to quote for a concept
for Domino and Connections Migration (May 2019)
• Two Partners were asked to created Concepts (June)
• Workshops in Zoo(m) – Sure where else;-)
• Implementation Partner Selected (End of June)
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22. Concept of separation of Connections Data
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Version Date Comment
1 June 7th Document Created
2 June 14th Initial Release
3 June 17th Update Connections
4 June 21st Final
5 June 25th Extension after Kickoff

23. Concept of separation of Connections Data
• Duplicate content on migration day
(-> no other possibility because of timeline of the project
and also because of confidentiality)
The Pro’s
• Less or no cleanup before migration
• Less effort on migration day
• Consistent Content
The Con’s
• More disk space needed initially
• Cleanup needed after migration -> Now we know, that’s a huge Pro
23#engageug

24. Migration Path
Workflow
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25. A Break Up Story
Preparations
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26. Preparation and Setup Destination Environment
• Setup of Second Hosting with VPN Access (H&T)
• Installation of all Connections Components
• Connections 6.0, CR5
• Docs 2.0, CR3
• Elastic Search (for type ahead)
• CAT & Domain Patrol Social
• OnTime and Kudos Badges integration
• Configure DNS, LDAP and TDI
• Test functionality of all components
• Enable external access via Reverse Proxy
26#engageug

27. Test Migration
• Scripts used for
• Copy files from Connections shared data to destination, Export active
Connections DB2 databases (< 5’), Import Connections database to
new DB2
• Upgrade DB2 schema CR4 -> CR5
• Change URLs used within Connections
• ICXT, HCL Connections Link Exchanger
• Scripts for Rich Text Content
• Reset all Connections scheduled tasks
27#engageug

28. Migration– The Real Closing Date / Day One
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• Could be at August 30th
• Could be at September 30th

29. Test Migration
• Clear User Profiles from not migrated users
• Disable profiles (CAT)
• Remove all profile content but name
• Clean / Split external users on both sites
• Check TDI sync for profiles
• Is UNID correct
• Check and adopt widgets if needed (i.e. Kudos Badges)
and register all widgets
29#engageug

30. Migration -> Preparation– Test with Team
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JR
Source:
https://www.google.com/search
?client=firefox-b-
d&q=dallas+characters

31. Migration -> Preparation is King!
• Communication
• to all users
• to helpdesk
• FAQ to resolve minor issues
• Be sure there are no more test issues open
• they’ll bite you
• Have all admins on standby (Server, Network, OS …)
• Establish Independent open channels with all parties
(i.e. Sametime/Zoom)
• Have a plan and check list and all parties have the same
version (yes a print out is ok in this case)
31#engageug
JR

32. A Break Up Story
Migration
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33. Migration: Live
• Delete Connections databases in destination
• Do the steps in plan which were verified and adopted
during test
• Less time for file sync because most of files were
already transferred during test
• Results:
• Shutdown time source environment < 30 minutes
• Steps needed on new environment < 6 hours
33#engageug

34. Migration -> Full Test with Team 1.5 hours
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JR

35. Migration: Live / One Issue (New System)
• Search Index was not built in time and did not run
through in full
• Now we know:
• On the new servers the old admin password was still stored in
the database (DB2)
• On new servers all scheduled tasks needed to be deleted and
after the restart of the servers all search indexes are built up
from start
35#engageug

36. A Break Up Story
Clean
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37. Clean = Identify, Fix, Hide, Delete
• Important: To be done on both sides
• “Nobody has different access / visibility as before”
• Communities First - Content Second
• We are currently engaged with First ;-)
• Different Tools are your friend
• TimeToAct CAT and Domain Patrol Social – Lists and manual Changes
• Lotus / IBM / HCL (just) Notes – User Selection of “I want to become an owner)
• Community Tool Belsoft – run community changes based on Lists
• TDI – (content) - clean orphan content
• Key Users ;-) – Support with user communication and tests
37#engageug

38. Clean = Identify, Fix, Hide, Delete
Heitkamp & Thumann Group
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Westfalia Metal Hoses
Expected Orphan Content

39. Clean = Identify, Fix, Hide, Delete
• Identify Orphan Communities
• Orphan = Has no Active Owner and active Member(s)
• Provide List to Users to claim ownership
• Provide List to Authorized person to verify
• Challenges
• Access and Ownership of sub communities
39#engageug

40. Clean = Identify, Fix, Hide, Delete
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41. Clean = Identify, Fix, Hide, Delete
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42. Clean = Identify, Fix, Hide, Delete
• Delete The Real Orphan Communities
• Files Identification is Complicated
• Community Files – No problem
• Personal Files – Not easy
• Shared with Communities – (Real Orphan have been deleted ;-) !)
• Shared with Users
• Shared via Folders
• Direct Links – No we not will support these!
• Delete Remaining Content of inactive Users
• Activities, Communities, Bookmarks, Wikis, Blogs, Forums
• Again: Important: All to be done on both sides
42#engageug

43. A Break Up Story
Lessons
Learned
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44. Lessons Learned
• Overall a very successful project
• We were in time and budget
• Customers are happy
• No link changer tool for Richtext URL's. We needed to
develop a script
• Search Index (delete first, then rebuild) and be patient!
• Deletion Needs efforts to identify active Contents
• Fix Communities First!
44#engageug

45. Q & A
45#engageug