Sun buys Domino theory

Sun Microsystems (SUNW) and IBM subsidiary Lotus Development will integrate key elements of their product lines to enhance Domino 4.5's enterprise capabilities.

Today at the Lotusphere '97 user conference in Orlando, Florida, the companies announced that Lotus's Domino groupware server platform will be tightly integrated with the Sun Solaris operating environment on Sun's own UltraSparc platform and Intel's Pentium-based hardware.

Through these enhancements, administrators will be able to track events using one tool for both Domino and Solaris and automatically recover a Domino server after a fault.

Sun will also port its Solstice HA 1.2 software to the Lotus Domino platform, enabling a Domino server to fail over to a second server in a cluster if there is a system failure. Solstice HA is a similar product to the much-discussed Wolfpack clustering extensions for Microsoft Windows NT server.

The announcements signify an increasing interest by Sun in the Lotus platform. "We see a very significant business and [it is] growing rapidly," said Brian Kirschner, director of marketing development for Sun. Growth is pegged at more than 30 percent for the year, according to Kirschner.