End of IBM SmartCloud Notes, Connections Cloud, and Domino Apps on Cloud
In July, HCL released a very important statement regarding the future of the IBM-hosted cloud offerings.
In summary, as of July 16, 2020, IBM’s SmartCloud Notes, Connections Cloud, and Domino Apps on Cloud platforms will cease to exist. Customers using these services will have until that time to migrate their Notes & Verse Email, Domino Applications, Connections, Sametime, Docs, and Engagement Center either to their own private cloud or to a partner cloud.
Community Asks Questions
Since the day of the announcement, Prominic has been flooded with questions from our customers, the Domino community, and organizations currently running on the affected IBM cloud services.
The inquiries we’ve been receiving revolve around common themes, which we wanted to address in this post.
SmartCloud Notes, Connections Cloud, and Domino Apps on Cloud are Going Away – Now What?
HCL’s announcement came as a surprise to many, and initial reactions have been largely confusion and some mild panic in a few cases. Since then, HCL has offered some clarification during the Domino v11 roadmap webinar.
HCL has offered customers 4 options for customers who need need to migrate off the platform:
- HCL Cloud – but this doesn’t exist
- Public Cloud – risk going it alone on services like AWS or Azure
- Private Cloud – basically the same as hosting it on premises, but instead in a professional, enterprise datacenter (THIS IS PROMINIC!)
- Partner-led Cloud – host with an a professional HCL business partner (THIS IS ALSO PROMINIC!)
What is Prominic Doing About This?
We’re going to continue doing exactly what we’ve already being doing for over 20 years: provide enterprise-grade cloud hosting for Domino apps and Notes mail, at data centers owned and controlled by Prominic. And we will continue to do it in a way that respects and honors our customers’ data ownership and need for confidentiality. Unlike some other big cloud providers, we’re not mining your data to serve you ads or sell to third parties.
We host your dedicated Domino environments in your own private Domino cloud. Your mail isn’t on a shared, multi-tenant service like SmartCloud Notes. Your apps are under your full control, with no restrictions on what you can run, what you create, and what external systems and programs you need to integrate with.
We understand intimately what hardware resources are needed to deliver smooth and fast performance for your Domino mail and apps
We know how to secure your Domino environment properly, how to protect it from loss of data, what configuration and administration best practices to implement, and how to troubleshoot when something goes bump.
We’ve been actively involved in the Domino community since our beginning in 1998. We’ve long served on board of OpenNTF, provide hosting for several Domino user groups conferences (CollabSphere, Engage) and open-source associations, we’re HCL Masters (former IBM Champions) and more.
How Does This Shutdown Announcement Affect existing Prominic Customers?
It doesn’t, in any way. We are not powered by IBM Softlayer, and we were never a SmartCloud Notes / Connections Cloud / Domino Apps on Cloud reseller. We operate on our own virtualization platform in our own data centers. All of our customers’ (and their customers’) data is hosted by us directly but controlled by them.
This means first and foremost that your data is in a stable and secure environment, with a provider that only does thing: high-quality cloud hosting and server management. We don’t snoop on your data and we don’t mine your code; we respect you and the privacy of your data.
Moreover, we have a dedicated compliance officer who trains our staff on best compliance practices, and we undergo an annual SSAE-18 SOC 2 Type 2 audit.
This also means total flexibility and responsiveness in handling the changes in technical needs of our customers. We don’t have to deal with Softlayer or AWS or anyone else if we need to fix something or take a look at a piece of hardware. We also know exactly where your data is located in any of our data centers.
What About Connections?
We’re working on options for Connections with a small group of select business partner experts around the world to hopefully provide global options for migrating and hosting Connections. More information on this will be coming.
Some things are still a work in progress in regards to the IBM / HCL transition, and don’t any have more specific information with regards to HCL’s planned strategy than what’s already out there in press releases and public statement from HCL.
What we CAN speak to is our own company, what we do and how we do it, and how we can help you.
Call us at +1-217-356-2888 or email us at firstname.lastname@example.org with any questions you may have about our Notes Domino private cloud hosting and migrating off the IBM cloud, and we’ll be happy to talk to you about it.