September 17, 2007
Next level of Notes Client administration: further development of ClientGenie
BCC announces the version 4.0
Client management, the day-to-day tasks associated with managing and administering IBM Lotus Notes Clients, is one of the most time-consuming operations in Notes environments. Desktop icons and bookmarks need to be added, changed, and removed, location and connection configurations need to be adjusted to each user. In the process, the group allocations and geographical location of the users have to be considered. Organizational changes and the need to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) pose a challenge, which need to be met in course of server migration and consolidation projects, because extensive modifications are required to the Lotus Notes Clients. More and more companies realise, that a Client Management solution is required to manage these tasks in addition to the native Domino / Notes instruments.
With the new ClientGenie version 4.0 BCC consistently realises the vision of the company „SECURE, SAVE AUTOMATE“ in the area of Lotus Notes Client Management. BCC intend to ease the management of Lotus Notes Clients substantially by enabling a comprehensive centralized administration.
ClientGenie is a technology-leading and well proven solution, which was originally developed by the Austrian Icodex Software AG (since June 2007 a subsidiary company of BCC). One year after releasing the current version 3.1, the development now progresses by the upcoming version 4.0. BCC's experts are skilled in this matter due to their long-time project experiences and the complementary functions of the own tool BCC_ClientConfigurator.
ClientGenie 4.0
In the course of the further development of ClientGenie, the advantages of both products will be combined to build a join product. The features of BCC_ClientConfigurator 5.0 will be successively integrated in the upcoming ClientGenie versions. The product name BCC_ClientConfigurator will be withdrawn in favour of ClientGenie due to its higher awareness level.
In the new version 4.0 ClientGenie will include configuration documents to manage users' workspace, connection documents, accounts and new cross certificates. Also, the notes.ini settings of the Clients will became much easier to handle in form of profiles. Above all, the "look & feel" of the application will be re-designed and enhanced by a reengineered user interface with a prospect of a noticeable easier Client administration. In future, ClientGenie's configuration parameters can be comfortably managed within configuration profiles, so the current praxis of complex management of the parameters within a local notes.ini will be eliminated.
BCC concentrates on testing the new version 4.0 of ClientGenie on Notes 8, and schedules to make the release available for this most recent IBM Lotus Notes version. As a result of several requests ClientGenie will be available as bi-lingual application and include a German user interface.
Roadmap for 2008
In order to implement an integrated Client and User Management, in future ClientGenie versions BCC will provide a extensive integration with the BCC_AdminTool. This will allow handling all the required actions at the Lotus Notes Client centrally and in a process oriented way. Some integration examples are:
The upgrade to the version 4.0 will be available to all ICODEX customers with an active maintenance contract. Users of BCC_ClientConfigurator version 5.0 with an active maintenance contract will also became ClientGenie 4.0 available.
BCC is going to offer it's customers in Q4 2007 the version 4.0 in within a scope of a „ClientGenie bundle“ at a special rate. BCC's customers will receive detailed information about the ClientGenie bundle programm within the next weeks.
Background information about Client Genie
Client Genie offers central, buttonless administration of desktops, bookmarks, replicas and replicator pages, notes.ini files, location and connection documents. Reliable monitoring and reports of client information allows a proactive client administration. ClientGenie prove its worth in a daily use by more than 400,000 users in more than 40 countries.
Background information about BCC
BCC offers a wide range of products for secure and cost-effective management of IBM Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructures. The maxim is SECURE – SAVE – AUTOMATE: for 11 years BCC has helped its customers to increase the security of their infrastructure and communication, to automate the administration, and to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership. BCC has more than 500 customers with more than 2.5 million users who trust in the products of BCC, including several reputable companies such as DaimlerChrysler AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Degussa AG and Deutsche Rentenversicherung.
BCC's product portfolio:
SYSTEM: user, group and data base management, server security
CLIENT: attachment and client management
COMM: e-mail security, fax & SMS messaging
Client management, the day-to-day tasks associated with managing and administering IBM Lotus Notes Clients, is one of the most time-consuming operations in Notes environments. Desktop icons and bookmarks need to be added, changed, and removed, location and connection configurations need to be adjusted to each user. In the process, the group allocations and geographical location of the users have to be considered. Organizational changes and the need to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) pose a challenge, which need to be met in course of server migration and consolidation projects, because extensive modifications are required to the Lotus Notes Clients. More and more companies realise, that a Client Management solution is required to manage these tasks in addition to the native Domino / Notes instruments. With the new ClientGenie version 4.0 BCC consistently realises the vision of the company „SECURE, SAVE AUTOMATE“ in the area of Lotus Notes Client Management. BCC intend to ease the management of Lotus Notes Clients substantially by enabling a comprehensive centralized administration.
ClientGenie is a technology-leading and well proven solution, which was originally developed by the Austrian Icodex Software AG (since June 2007 a subsidiary company of BCC). One year after releasing the current version 3.1, the development now progresses by the upcoming version 4.0. BCC's experts are skilled in this matter due to their long-time project experiences and the complementary functions of the own tool BCC_ClientConfigurator.
ClientGenie 4.0
In the course of the further development of ClientGenie, the advantages of both products will be combined to build a join product. The features of BCC_ClientConfigurator 5.0 will be successively integrated in the upcoming ClientGenie versions. The product name BCC_ClientConfigurator will be withdrawn in favour of ClientGenie due to its higher awareness level.
In the new version 4.0 ClientGenie will include configuration documents to manage users' workspace, connection documents, accounts and new cross certificates. Also, the notes.ini settings of the Clients will became much easier to handle in form of profiles. Above all, the "look & feel" of the application will be re-designed and enhanced by a reengineered user interface with a prospect of a noticeable easier Client administration. In future, ClientGenie's configuration parameters can be comfortably managed within configuration profiles, so the current praxis of complex management of the parameters within a local notes.ini will be eliminated.
BCC concentrates on testing the new version 4.0 of ClientGenie on Notes 8, and schedules to make the release available for this most recent IBM Lotus Notes version. As a result of several requests ClientGenie will be available as bi-lingual application and include a German user interface.
Roadmap for 2008
In order to implement an integrated Client and User Management, in future ClientGenie versions BCC will provide a extensive integration with the BCC_AdminTool. This will allow handling all the required actions at the Lotus Notes Client centrally and in a process oriented way. Some integration examples are:
- With an initial registration of a new Lotus Notes user, a completely configured Lotus Notes Client with an individual desktop with required icons can be provided fully automated, including local replicas for notebook users if required.
- After a roll-out of a Lotus Notes database using the BCC_DBTool, the according configuration documents within ClientGenie will be created, which than can add the required icons and / or replicas to the desktop of the concerned users.
- In case of home-server relocation BCC_AdminTool processes "MoveMail-Server" requests in the background, and after the completion it can initiate the required changes to be processed on the client.
- Complete support of server consolidation projects at the mail server as well as at the Lotus Notes clients including exchanging the desktop icons, bookmarks and replica pages. This way, renaming servers can be processed very easy.
- Trusted collection of ID files and passwords and automated import in the BCC_AdminTool will enable the initial import as well as the update of these sensitive data
- Using ClientGenie functionality a local extension will be added to the BCC_AdminTool function "Delete User". Processing the "Delete User" request will initiate a ClientGenie request, which enables to process several actions while the last log-in respectively log-off, e.g. deleting the local databases, collecting of current ID files etc.
- lack of technologies / tools for centralized management of Lotus Notes Clients
- time-consuming manuel management of Lotus Notes Clients (required user interaction, help-desk requests)
- missing integration of Client Management with usually implemented user , data base and help-desk management processes
The upgrade to the version 4.0 will be available to all ICODEX customers with an active maintenance contract. Users of BCC_ClientConfigurator version 5.0 with an active maintenance contract will also became ClientGenie 4.0 available.
BCC is going to offer it's customers in Q4 2007 the version 4.0 in within a scope of a „ClientGenie bundle“ at a special rate. BCC's customers will receive detailed information about the ClientGenie bundle programm within the next weeks.
Background information about Client Genie
Client Genie offers central, buttonless administration of desktops, bookmarks, replicas and replicator pages, notes.ini files, location and connection documents. Reliable monitoring and reports of client information allows a proactive client administration. ClientGenie prove its worth in a daily use by more than 400,000 users in more than 40 countries.
Background information about BCC
BCC offers a wide range of products for secure and cost-effective management of IBM Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructures. The maxim is SECURE – SAVE – AUTOMATE: for 11 years BCC has helped its customers to increase the security of their infrastructure and communication, to automate the administration, and to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership. BCC has more than 500 customers with more than 2.5 million users who trust in the products of BCC, including several reputable companies such as DaimlerChrysler AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Degussa AG and Deutsche Rentenversicherung.
BCC's product portfolio:
SYSTEM: user, group and data base management, server security
CLIENT: attachment and client management
COMM: e-mail security, fax & SMS messaging