IBM SmartCloud for Social Business News: Details on the new accelerated network. 

IBM SmartCloud for Social Business is pleased to announce that we will be introducing improved Acceleration Network technology as part of our services. Acceleration Networks optimize the route between the user's workstation and the service.

Our current Acceleration Network has been based upon using 6 “edge servers” in various regions that act as entry points to an optimized network path to our solution. Our improved acceleration network technology will take advantage of an acceleration network with more than 75,000 edge servers.

The key benefits will be more consistent and reliable application performance and routing. The numerous edge servers offer access points closer to the various locations from which our users access the services, meaning they will have a consistent user experience from almost any location. Additionally, this highly available network infrastructure protects systems from single server/service failure while providing a more reliable performance experience.


Change Schedule
The improved Acceleration Network technology will be rolled out in phases. The first URLs to be moved to the improved Acceleration Network technology will be for SmartCloud iNotes. The URLs for SmartCloud iNotes will be accelerated on Saturday 16 April 2011.
The remaining services will move to the improved accelerated network in the coming weeks.


Special notice for customers controlling access to the SmartCloud for Social Business services with a firewall:
As with any major change, there are items that may need your attention. We have heard from some customers that they have used firewall rules to control access to the internet and allow access to the services. A firewall rule that relies on IP address, rather than domain name, to control access to the servers may no longer work.
With our prior acceleration network of just 6 edge servers, the IP addresses could be placed in a customers firewall rules. With our new acceleration network with over 75,000 edge servers, IP ranges for firewall rules are not available.
For Customers controlling access to the services with a firewall please control access by domain name rather than by IP address. Please see the table of URLs below.

Table of URL's and the dates they will be enabled on the new accelerated network:

SmartCloud Application	Hostname	Port/Protocol	*Date
iNotes	img-usw.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw01.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw02.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw03.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw04.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw05.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw06.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw07.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	img-usw08.mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	mail.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	mail-usw.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	4/16/2011
iNotes	pop-usw.mail.lotuslive.com	995,POP3 over SSL	4/28/2011
iNotes	smtp-usw.mail.lotuslive.com	465, SMTP over SSL	4/28/2011
iNotes	imap-usw.mail.lotuslive.com	993, IMAP over SSL	4/28/2011

Engage/Meetings	ash-cs6.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	ash-cs7.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	ash-ds6.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	ash-ds7.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	cs.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	ds.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Events	events.webdialogs.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	ms.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	ms39.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS	4/29/2011
Engage/Meetings	www.conferenceservers.com	443/HTTPS, 80	4/29/2011
Engage/IM	im.lotuslive.com	80;1533	Coming Soon
Engage/IM	webchat.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	5/25/2011
Engage	apps.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	Coming Soon
Engage	www.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	7/14/2011
Notes2	admin.notes.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	TBD
Notes2	mail.notes.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	TBD
Notes2	mobileadmin.notes.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	TBD
Notes2	notes.lotuslive.com	80;443;1352	TBD
Notes2	traveler.notes.lotuslive.com	443/HTTPS	TBD

* Dates are subject to change, based on US EST and provided for guidance only.

Note: Support is publishing this information about the Acceleration Network Change so that our Customers' can work with their IT and security staff to make any necessary changes to their firewall settings. The support team is not able to provide detailed instructions or guidance to any individual clients or partners on their specific security infrastructure and firewall settings.