Working with Local Applications

Each major release of Domino has included significant modifications to the Notes and Domino architecture and database structure. The Domino 6 Server and Notes 6 client use a different On Disk Structure (ODS) than R5 (and all previous releases). The current ODS of Notes and Domino 6 is version 43.

The ODS of a database does not replicate and has no effect on which client version can access a server version. The ODS only determines how the server or client writes data to the physical drive. Therefore, even if the Notes clients are using releases prior to Notes 6 and Domino 6, they can still access the databases on the Domino 6 server (which is using an updated ODS). The user can safely replicate the local database to the database on the server. Even though design elements do replicate, the ODS does not. However, new design elements are still not supported on the older client.

To upgrade the ODS of the local database, simply compact the database.

To revert an upgraded copy back to an earlier design (for example, to revert a Notes 6 database back to a Notes 5 database), you can make a copy of the database, using an .ns5 extension, use the compact tool on the administrator client, and select the feature to Keep or Revert Database Back to R5 Format, or use the server console command load compact path/database –r.

Simply changing the extension of the Domino database to .ns5 does not modify the ODS of the database. You must use one of the methods previously described, such as compacting the database or making a new copy.