I know this may be a very unpopular idea (both with the hardened domino people and the client) but I would consider proposing an alternative solution using a relational database backend and writing the middleware in java.
This would give you the scaleability and manageability of the data while allowing complete control over the way that database searches are performed. The memory and cpu overheads inherent in maintaining so many b-tree indexes is also something you don't have to worry about which would greatly assist the applications performance. And getting the last n blog entries is simplicity itself.
You can still leverage Dominos NAB for authentication but you may even want to swap out the HTTP stack to Apache which could also act as a proxy and pass *.nsf requests to the Domino server. Authorisation would come from the relational database - as per the end users blog entry level specification.
I have been developing on and extending domino for a long time now - and please don't get me wrong, it's a great product - but sometimes its better to use the most suitable tool(s) to address a problem, and that's not always domino. It may not be what your client wants to hear either but it's better than not giving them the option and getting stuck in a potentially bad position. I hope this helps.
I know this may be a very unpopular idea (both with the hardened domino people and the client) but I would consider proposing an alternative solution using a relational database backend and writing the middleware in java.
This would give you the scaleability and manageability of the data while allowing complete control over the way that database searches are performed. The memory and cpu overheads inherent in maintaining so many b-tree indexes is also something you don't have to worry about which would greatly assist the applications performance. And getting the last n blog entries is simplicity itself.
You can still leverage Dominos NAB for authentication but you may even want to swap out the HTTP stack to Apache which could also act as a proxy and pass *.nsf requests to the Domino server. Authorisation would come from the relational database - as per the end users blog entry level specification.
I have been developing on and extending domino for a long time now - and please don't get me wrong, it's a great product - but sometimes its better to use the most suitable tool(s) to address a problem, and that's not always domino. It may not be what your client wants to hear either but it's better than not giving them the option and getting stuck in a potentially bad position. I hope this helps.