One of the first things to do is to upgrade the design of the Domino Directory to Notes/Domino 8.5. This can be done in advance of the server code upgrade or at the same time as you upgrade your administration server. The Domino 8.5 Directory design is supported on 7.x servers. There are Domino 8.5 features that may not function on pre-Domino 8.5 servers. These features are mostly found in the server and configuration documents.

If you have applications that rely on custom views in your Domino Directory, we recommend that you test your applications with the new Domino Directory design. If possible, before upgrading from a previous release, clean up any unneeded views and agents in the existing Domino Directory. After the design of the Domino Directory has been upgraded, the next phase is to upgrade the server code.

In Domino 8.5 the default ODS is the same as in Notes/Domino 7 - ODS 48. There is a new optional ODS in Domino 8.5, ODS 51. This new ODS is optional, and should be applied if you need to utilize these new features. In particular, you will need ODS 51 in order to use DAOS.

After you upgrade your server, the Administration Requests database (admin4.nsf) and events database (events4.nsf) will automatically be upgraded. There should be no issues due to having the design of these upgraded databases replicate to the other servers.

The Rooms and Resource Reservations database has not changed from Notes/Domino 7. If you are upgrading from Domino 7, then you will not need to make any changes. If you are upgrading from the Domino 6.x code stream, some changes will be necessary. Resource Reservation databases with a design of 6.x or earlier are not supported on the Domino 8.5 server. In releases prior to Notes/Domino 7, the router was the task that processed reservations in the Resource Reservation database.

Starting in Notes/Domino 7, there is a new task that performs this duty: the Rooms and Resource Manager task (RnRMgr). This new task was added to prevent some of the issues that were seen when the router task was used, such as double booking

Domino Domain Monitoring (DDM) was first introduced in Domino 7. Most DDM probes do not function on a pre-Domino 7 server. There are also some new probes that are specific to new features and functions in Domino 8.5. For the new features in DDM in Domino 8.5, refer to the Domino 8.5 administrator help.

There are several new policies that have been introduced in Domino 8.5. New policies that were introduced in Domino 7 or 8 will not be recognized by Notes 6.5.x or earlier clients. Newer policies will not adversely affect the earlier client; they will not be recognized or enforced until the client is upgraded to Notes 8.5.

While in a mixed environment, if message recall functionality is enabled, users will not be able to recall a message to a user on a pre-Domino 8.5 server. Message recall is enabled by default.

A new feature in Domino 8.5 is streaming replication. In a mixed cluster, this feature will not work. Both servers attempting to replicate in the cluster need to be at the Domino 8.5 (or at least 8.x) code stream in order for streaming replication to occur. In a mixed cluster, the Domino 8.5 server will attempt to initiate streaming replication. When it cannot do so, it will fail and revert back to regular replication. Cluster replication will function as it did before the upgrade and mixed cluster state. Once two or more of the servers in the cluster have been upgraded to Domino 8.5, streaming replication will automatically occur between them.

In Domino 8.5, there have been some minor changes to the cluster database directory or cldbdir.nsf. These changes are all backward compatible with pre-Domino 8.5 servers. You can have mixed releases in a cluster. However, we suggest you upgrade the cluster mates in quick succession.

There have been changes to the "Out-of-Office" functionality. Now there is the option of having the "Out-of-Office" feature as a service rather than as an agent. If one of the servers in the cluster is running pre-Domino 8.5 code, the "Out-of-Office" feature must be run as an agent.

Domino Web Access requires two things to work properly. The first is the mail file template. In Notes/Domino 8.5, the mail template is built into Domino Web Access. There is no longer a separate mail file template for all Domino Web Access. The second thing that is needed is the Forms database. This database is release-based - new features are added to it with each release. In Notes/Domino 8.5, the Forms database is called Forms8.nsf. So if you upgrade the template to Domino 8.5, make sure that there is such a file on the server. To be backward compatible, a Domino 8.5 server will include a Forms6.nsf file and a Forms7.nsf file. This allows you to keep mail files in an earlier template version and still have Domino Web Access on the Domino 8.5 server.

In each past release, there have been changes to the encryption key length so as to provide enhanced security. Older keys can be used on new clients, but they are not forward compatible. This means that newer keys cannot be used on older clients. It is advisable to upgrade your ID files after you have completed your entire upgrade to Notes/Domino 8.5. This will provide you with the enhanced security offered by the longer key length. Also, be sure to check out the new ID vault feature, new with ND8.5.

The table below shows each release's compatibility level if you are using a specific server with a specific Notes client using a Domino 8.5 Mail Template (mail85.ntf).

The table below shows each release compatibility level if you are using a specific server with a specific Notes client using a Domino 8 Mail Template (mail8.ntf):

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