It's official, I'm an HCL Master !

During last hours I've received the welcome e-mail to the HCL Masters program : horray !!!

HCL Master it's a program launched after the closing of deal with IBM for the Collaboration software, and it's similar to the IBM Champion program.

I like the definition of the Master from the HCL Master page:
​
Masters are HCL ambassadors (not employees) and their commitment to sharing their expertise has a huge impact on the HCL community – whether they are blogging, writing books, speaking, running workshops, creating tutorials and classes, offering support in forums, or organizing and contributing to local events – they help make HCL’s mission of making technology play nice, possible. HCL Masters are eager to bring their technical expertise to new audiences both in person and online around the world.


HCL has also nominated HCL Granmaster the IBM Champion lifetime for ICS, congrats !


I like to thank HCL to have build the Masters program, and I'm very happy to be part of the first class of Masters, this gives me more fresh charge to continue my Advocate work !

Now it's time for holidays but I hope to see most of you next month in Munich for Social Connections 15 !

HCL software: 2 interesting webinar about the future of Connections and Domino

This is the holidays seasons for most of us but not for  HCL that has scheduled 2 interesting webinars about the future of Connections and Domino for the next week !


August 6, from 10 – 11 a.m. EST will be the turn for Connections , with the following abstract:

HCL Software’s AVP of Product Management, Danielle Baptiste, gives you a tour of the future for Connections, and what’s in store for helping enable your most valuable assets — your people —work more effectively with the content most relevant to them to get the job done. Learn how a strong network, powered by otherwise hidden insights and connections, brings out the best in your organization. Tune in to hear what’s planned for the next release, what we’ve prioritized from what we’ve heard from the Connections community, and how HCL will strengthen our ability to be more innovative and agile.

here the registration link   bit.ly/32ZidmY

August 7, 10 – 11 a.m. EDT will be the turn of Domino, with the following abstract :

HCL Software’s AVP of Product Management, Andrew Manby, welcomes you to the most up-to-date roadmap for our #dominoforever journey and what it means for developers, administrators, and business users. Even if you have attended jams, contributed to the ideas portal, have come to the recent HCL Factory Tour, and plan on joining us for the upcoming beta test, this welcome webinar is not to be missed. Come listen and ask questions, and hear how we are making v11 essential for organizations who use Domino to run their businesses.Less

here the registration link   bit.ly/2MqbAnN (link: http://bit.ly/2MqbAnN) bit.ly/2MqbAnN



I will not miss this webinars and you ?

Connections 6.0 CR5. pay attention to the path in case of manual upgrade of TinyMCE editor !

Since Connections 6.0 CR5 , was released there was also an update of the great optional editor formerly know as Ephox now named TinyMCE 5.

I love this editor ( and my customers love it too) because all the features available, so I usually add it to all my Connections setup.

In almost every cases the setup is very easy because to perform the setup it's needed only to run a script and install an EAR on the appserver but in some cases due particular SSH config, it could be required the manual setup.

During my last CR5 upgrade I wasn't able to use the script so I've followed the manual setup like it's written  on IBM Documentation  at this page..


After the setup , I've restarted Connections that become unusable with most of the widgets unable to be loaded and inside my logs I had something similar of what it's described by this technote . :

 uncaught exception: Missing config.js in customization directory
GET https://yourname.dev.acme.
com/connections/resources/web/lconn/profiles/bizCard/nls/en-us/ui.js
404 Not Found 817ms ?includ...ariant= (line 6525)
"NetworkError: 404 Not Found - https://yourname.dev.acme.
com/connections/resources/web/lconn/profiles/bizCard/nls/en-us/ui.js"
ui.js


This ponted me to another of my environments where I've upgraded the editor using the script where I've noted the setup directory was renamed by the installation scropt ... with the new name  !


CONNECTIONS_CUSTOMIZATION_PATH/javascript/tiny/editors/connections



unfortunately the IBM documentation , wasn't  upgraded totally because title talk about TiniMCE but the installation path mentioned is still the  old one


CONNECTIONS_CUSTOMIZATION_PATH/javascript/ephox/editors/connections


To fix the issue, rename ephox folder in tiny and restart again Connections (or common app)

Connections Cloud end of service, some facts and personal thougs about it

During last days HCL  has published this technote  where it's announced the  End Of Service of Connections Cloud for July 16, 2020 and Richard Jefts , has published this blogpost more details and clarifications also about this topic.

The destiny of Connections Cloud and Smartcloud Notes is is an important topic for our community so I like to write a recap about facts and some of my  hopes for the future.

What will happens

HCL has scheduled the end service  for Connections Cloud , Smartcloud Notes or for July 16, 2020.

HCL will no longer sell new subscriptions to Connections Cloud and Domino Apps on Cloud (DAC) services. Accordingly, the services will end on July 16, 2020.  Existing customers may purchase additional seats as needed to remain compliant with their license agreements for the remainder of the period of service

Technical support continues to be available during the subscription period in accordance with the applicable HCL agreement.IBM will continue to maintain the IBM Connections Cloud environment , there will be no further enhancements made during this period, with the exception of critical fixes and security updates.

Customers future

Customers could remains on the services until the EOS,  with this possible options for the future:

• HCL Cloud   ( only for Connections )
• Private Cloud
• Partner-led Cloud

 

HCL has no plans to provide replacement for Smart Cloud Notes or Verse on Cloud so the replacement options will be limited to :

• Private Cloud
• Partner-led Cloud

My thoughts and my hopes

HCL has taken this decisions due to a lot of reasons, and one of the most important for customers cold is probably the intention to unifying the code of cloud and on-prem versions.
Current cloud environments is working with customized version of the on-prem software , difficult to be managed , upgraded compared to the on-prem version.

From what I currently know and what I could aspect , the next generation of Connections Cloud on HCL Cloud that will be offered as SAAS will be more flexible and more manageable with shorter release cycle than the actual.

One of the future plan I like most it's the Partner-led cloud with multi tenant options.
Unfortunately according to the info currently available , this could not be offered to the customers for the EOS date because will be available with Connections 7 scheduled for Q4 2020.

Right now we do no know the migration path offered ad proposed for Connections Cloud customers but I'm sure HCL will provides all the details during next weeks.

At Social Connections 15 it's currently scheduled a session with Andre Hagemeier about the furure of Connecitons Cloud so I'm sure they have plan to unveil about this topic.

I like to use a Danielle Baptiste quote that I totally agree, "the future of Connections is bright"  , we will have something to do (like migrations out of Connections Cloud ) but I'm confident about the future of the platform.

Regarding Smartcloud Notes part things could be a little bit different because there will not be any SAAS offering , so some customers could be attracted from different SAAS vendors.

I think the future of Domino/Notes it's bright too because  development is going fast with new features and functionality , release by release, but I hope HCL will provides facilitation for Partner-led cloud to become this options realistic and attractive for customers.


I like to close this post with the interview made during Factory tour 3 recorded by my Social Connectiosn team mate , Wannes Rams with  Richard Jefts where they talk about interesting topics including Connections cloud, arount minute 7.  Great work Wannes ;-) !

Social Connections 15 will be a great event !

As you may be heard I'm part of Social Connections Team from several  months and during last days we have published on our site the agenda for the upcoming Social Connections 15 .

Like previous events the agenda will be very interesting with the following session tracks:

• use case from customers
• adoption
• administrations
• devs
• new technologies

Speakers will comes from all over the world  , we will have big names from HC and a lot of HCL Masters .
Social Connections 15 will be the first user group event after the deal so HCL could be able to unveil details and future plan about Connections 6.5,  Portal 9.5 that are scheduled for the end of 2019 and Connections 7 and Portal 10 currently scheduled for 2020.

If you needs any other detail about Social Connections 15 please visit  socialconnections.info ,if you will not be able to attend the event please follow  soccnx , LetsConnect  . or  our tweet account.

Deal Done !The deal between IBM and HCL will became effective during next hours

As you know , last December 2018, IBM and HCL has announced a definitive agreement under which HCL will acquire the following IBM software products;

• Appscan for secure application development,
• BigFix for secure device management,
• Unica (on-premise) for marketing automation,
• Commerce (on-premise) for omni-channel eCommerce,
• Portal (on-premise) for digital experience,
• Notes & Domino for email and low-code rapid application development, and
• Connections for workstream collaboration.

This kind of agreement needs a lot of bureaucracy because government and antitrust office involved  are required to approve  this operation.

Finally after 6 month , today a lot of IBMr on social like Twitter or LinkedIn has announced today was his last IBM working day ,  the twitter account IBM Social Business (@IBMSocialBiz) was upgraded as  HCL Digital Solutions ( @HCLDigital )  and some customers has received an email with this key sentence :

IBM and HCL have reached a definitive agreement to finalize the transaction on June 30, 2019.

First of all, as IBM Champion I like to thanks IBM for all the good things happened during last years and I have to say it was a real pleasure for me collaborate and grow together .

This will not be an end because during next years I will continue to work for sure with IBM regarding IBM Cloud  and RedHat software but right now the focus and core of my daily work will move to HCL Digital Solutions.

I'm totally exited to work with HCL and I cannot wait to be able to hear the first announcements regarding Connections or Portal .

A nice occasion to see slides and demo will be for sure Social Connections 15 , I strongly suggest you to join the conference next September in Munich.

Have a great weekend , next Monday will be the first day of a new era !

How fix the error "Windows cannot find the Microsoft Software license terms" while creating a new Windows VM using Hyper-V

Last day I was getting a blocking error while I was creating a new Windows10 VM using Hyper-V.

The error was the following:

After some research I've found the solution and because apparently could happens also creating VM with Windows Server 2016 I decided to blog about it..


the issue is generated by Dynamic memory option in VM options that is selected by default.

To be able to create the VM I've shud down the VM and deselected  the setting. After this I was able to complete the setup.

Once you have completed the setup, you could re-enable the virtual memory option.