Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

sticky post: Church IT Info and Links...

Are you involved in IT for your church/ministry? If so you really need to check out our active Church IT community at http://churchITnetwork.com. Here you'll find other like minded IT peers from across the globe sharing tools and best practices in efforts to push the Kingdom forward.  ALSO MAKE SURE you're subscribed to the Church IT enewsletter. Here are a few select quick links as well:
- Listen/join the Church IT Podcast
- Join the 24/7 Church IT Chat Room

Join The New Church IT Community Platform!

If you missed the news, we unveiled our new Church IT community platform at the recent Church IT Roundtable in Dallas. This is now THE online hub for connecting with your church IT peers. Ask questions, join in discussions, post job openings, list gear you're selling, stay on top of the lastest Church IT Network news and more! 

Go signup, add a headshot pic so people can put a face with a name, then you'll need to subscribe to the IT Discussions and Web/Dev Discussions groups .. oh and the marketplace too! Select the Daily Digest email option if you like to keep your inbox tidy and you'll get 1 email each day listing all the activity in the groups you're subscribed to. What are you waiting for? There's already great discussions going on that you should be a part of :-)

Apple Quietly Introduces Accidental Damage Coverage: AppleCare+

Like most geeks I was eager to see what the "real" final price of "The New iPad" announced yesterday would be after you added all the various options and such. As I clicked through said options in the apple store something caught my eye. There was an option for something called AppleCare+ … hmmm, never seen that before.  

I did a double take when reading through the description it talked about accidental damage coverage. Wha?? That's new!! … and something many of us have wished for!

Description reads:  

Every iPad comes with one year of hardware repair coverage and 90 days of telephone technical support. AppleCare+ for iPad gives you two years of repair coverage and technical support from the original purchase date of your iPad. And it adds coverage for up to two incidents of accidental damage due to handling of your iPad, each subject to a $49 service fee. With AppleCare+ for iPad, Apple experts can help troubleshoot issues over the phone, at an Apple Retail Store, or at other Apple Authorized Service Providers. They'll answer questions on a wide range of topics, including iOS, iCloud, wireless network connections, FaceTime, iBooks, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, and other Apple-branded iPad apps. And if your iPad needs service under the plan, Apple technical support representatives can even set up a repair during the same call.

How to get AppleCare+

• Pre-order the new iPad and add AppleCare+ to your cart during the checkout process.
• Buy it within 30 days of your iPad purchase (available March 16):
  • At an Apple Retail Store (requires a Genius Bar appointment, inspection of the iPad, and proof of purchase).
  • By calling 1-800-275-2273 (requires proof of purchase)

So essentially it's $100 for 2yrs of coverage and $50/incident. That's pretty good insurance in my opinion.
A little more digging and I noticed a similar option now available for the iPhone as well [apparently this was introduced with the iPhone 4s, but it's news to me]. Cool! This is a GREAT option for the iPhone especially. I know in my family alone we've had 3 busted screens … 2 of which went to the genius bar for $199 replacements … ouch! That's several years back before I knew how to replace iPhone screens cheap and easy (iPhone 4/4s are not in the cheap/easy fix category BTW).

I asked our local Apple Business Team today about any accidental damage coverage being rumored for laptops. They said nothing yet, but this is likely a first step towards that.

If Apple were to offer accidental coverage for laptops that would be HUGE! As we've been transitioning more and more staff to mac laptops this has been a point of concern. With Dell we could get Complete Care and not worry if someone accidentally busted a screen, not so with our macbooks. We've already seen one busted 13" Air screen. Luckily apple replaced it at no charge, but the bill would have been $800.

Still not sure why Apple has made a big deal about this … it's pretty big news!

So what about you? If you're buying a new iPad or iPhone will you likely purchase this new AppleCare+??

Surprise IT Volunteer Award for Tom Templin

Every 2 years or so Granger Community Church takes a weekend to celebrate and recognize some of our outstanding volunteers. Men and women who get the mission, vision, and values of GCC and over the years have made a ginormous impact for the Kingdom through their efforts. We call them "Giant Killers" and surprise them Smooth Stone Awards … 5 Smooth Stone awards are presented at each service so this year that means 30 people across both campuses got an awesome surprise during the service :-)

The fun part is that this is all done in secrecy. We don't make any announcements that the Smooth Stone award weekend is coming and the folks getting the awards are clueless … muhwahahaha.

Couple years ago we (IT) got to recognize Dustin Hannifin for his contributions. Click that link for the old blog post on it. When I was asked this year if we had any IT volunteers that should be considered I immediately nominated Tom Templin. Tom started volunteering at GCC shortly after I came on staff in 2003. Hard to believe it's been that long & I can't imagine doing IT at GCC without him!

Here's a short blurb I wrote about Tom of which some made it into the actual weekend service:

________________

This person started volunteering on the IT team in the Fall of 2003. Back then we had no automated systems so we needed many dedicated volunteers to physically run around to computers and install updates, run checks, and troubleshoot issues. It soon became apparent that this individual was not only dependable and willing to handle small tasks, but had immense capacity and knowledge to tackle large complex projects.  For Example:

 

In early 2004 he was tasked to lead the research, design and implementation of a cutting edge campus wide private and public wireless system for GCC.  Allowing any wireless user to pull up granger notes on their portable device and take electronic notes.  News about this got out and received mention in the Saturday Evening Post and Network World Magazine.  Then again in 2010 he again lead the charge to replace our by then antiquated wifi solution with the secure, robust, high density solution over 400 of you (our weekend guests) use each weekend! He is now using the knowledge he gained from our implementation to install the same, albeit considerably larger, wifi solution for the entire PHM School district during his day job.

 

Starting in 2005 this person became our goto guy for IT projects at MC3. He worked alongside program instructors to implement and maintain the network, wifi, and computer lab the students and teachers use daily.

 

We also leverage this person as our purchasing agent for all things IT. He loves to go to bat for GCC and find THE rock bottom price for our technology needs. We estimate he’s saved GCC in excess of $100,000 over the past years!

 

This person plays a key role in our decision making process throughout all levels of IT from switching infrastructure, to servers, to applications. We leverage his knowledge and skills for all our strategic planning and initiatives.

 

AND just last Sunday he spent over 8 hours helping GCC IT staff move all our production servers and storage from GCC to our new colocation space at Union Station in downtown South Bend.

 

Honestly, I can’t imagine what we’d do without Tom … his value to our team is impossible to measure … not only is he a volunteer superhero but I also count him as a close friend and brother in Christ.
-----------------------------

Here's the video of the 7pm service where Tom was given his Smooth Stone award. Tom's part starts around the 12 minute mark.

Smooth Stones 2012 | 7 p.m. from Granger Community Church on Vimeo.

Not only has Tom helped GCC, his impact on Church IT has continued to expand as a more and more of our Church IT peers contact Tom to get quotes on IT gear.

It's so fun to recognize and surprise people like Tom. They are truly Giant Slayers.

Jan 28th - Mark Beeson (Founding Pastor) and Tom Templin

Justin Moore - Tom Templin - Jason Powell

Church Techies Biggest Loser #7 Signup!

Hard to believe it's been over a year since our last contest.  Regardless, it’s time for installment #7 of our Church Techies Biggest Loser contest!  Here are our guidelines/rules based off our prior BL1 , BL2 , BL3 , BL4, BL5, and BL6 contests.

Would you believe to date participants have lost a combined weight of over 2000 pounds!  Wow!

Eligibility

Any church IT, Web, AV, Tech/Production Arts staff (full, part-time, or volunteer role).  Church ChMS peeps and other Church tech consultants are encouraged to join as well.

Don't fit the above roles, but want to join too? Shoot me an email and we can discuss.

Price is $15 to register ... no refunds … period!

Dates

• Starts Friday Feb 17 ... but you can join ANY TIME after too. Just means you have less time to burn off the flab.
• Ends June 1st (3months and 17 days) just in time to hit the beach ;-)
  
• Winners get a split of the total registration pot less paypal transaction fees (~2.5%) ... breakdown of 75%, 20%, 5% ... if any sponsors/vendors want to kick in prizes too then those well be in the mix to choose from as well.

Weigh Ins

• Weigh ins should occur each Friday at the same time of day. It's OK if you have to weigh in a day or so late due to occasion travel or whatnot.  Just make sure you get your weight recorded each week.  You can only miss a weigh in or 2 before you'll start getting nasty emails from me!
  • Missing 2 weeks in a row IS BAD!! and will most likely get you booted from the contest (no refund). It's not fair to others who are keeping their stats updated, especially once the contest is getting down the wire.
• Participants will record their weekly weight each Friday in our online Google Spreadsheet (you'll get an email after you register).
• Participants may also be required to send a pic of your weight shown on your scales to our private facebook group.
• The same scale must be used for each weigh in.
• The same clothes or lack thereof must be worn at each weigh in.
• Weigh ins will be recorded in whole pounds. If your scale reports partial pounds just drop the fraction...no rounding up or down
• In the final 2 weeks there will be a cap on how much weight you can drop in a given week period ... to keep away from crazy dehydration techniques ;-)

Winning

It's not very fancy, but whoever has the largest weight loss % wins. (max weight - min weight) / max weight

Honor System

The contest assumes that all participants will follow the teachings of the Bible ... you know ... don't lie, don't cheat! If you are dishonest God will deal with you justly.

If you're in ... hit the paypal button to register. OR send a personal paypal transfer (eliminates fees) to gccjason at gmail.  And if you prefer to send $ another way just shoot me an email (gccjason at gmail) and we'll discuss.

Check out the prior Church Techie Biggest Losers: BL1 results and BL2 results and BL3 results and BL4 results and BL5 results

OpenDNS CEO Responds About Free Basic Service Being Axed

This is a continuation from my prior blog post Farewell Free OpenDNS For Businesses (and Churches)

Turns out only SOME businesses/orgs have received the same email we did saying the free OpenDNS Basic service is going away March 15th. Apparently OpenDNS is starting this change with their "top users" and then will roll it out later to everyone else. I find it VERY interesting that GCC is among their "top users" ... I mean our staff is only about 80 full and part-timers.  Wonder what the criteria is to make the top list??

Dean Cooper over on the SpiceWorks community did some digging and here's what he was told:

• Not everyone received notice about the March 15th date. Only the top users of the Basic product.
• This is the beginning of an OpenDNS transition to be a paid only service for business customers. If you did not receive the notice then you can continue to use the Basic product until you do receive notice or they publish it on the website. He would not tell me the timeline for complete transition to being paid only.
• I ask why there is nothing on the website about this and was told that it is because at this time it only effects the top users of the free service and will effect renewals of the Deluxe service plans as they come due this year.
• businesses can continue to use the service for DNS only (no filtering) for free.

Then David Ulevitch, CEO of OpenDNS, commented in thread:

Hey guys -- David from OpenDNS here. We're trying to find the best path forwards that doesn't leave small businesses feeling left out in the cold. We started with our top users as a way of testing the waters with customers who we imagined would be most understanding of the changes, and to gauge the response and feedback.

None of your feedback is wrong, and we care deeply about all the years of support and you've given us. We want to find a way to continue to offer you great security and content filtering services without breaking your bank accounts. Deluxe was EOL'd some time ago, but we have so many existing Deluxe and Basic users who are very large businesses. Our goal is to migrate them to enterprise, and we haven't found the right set of criteria to do that without impacting all of you.

I know it's not your job to negotiate, but I will say that if you are truly a small business, our pricing is much more aggressive than $2,000 per year. That said, I'd love to find a self-serve model for our website that caters to your needs. You're a huge group of customers that I'd love to find a great way to serve. :-)

So, I guess, in short, we're working on it and I'll update when I have more concrete plans of what we want to do.

So there ya have it straight from the CEO.  If you've not gotten an email yet, you will eventually.  You can view the entire forum post here

Farewell Free OpenDNS For Businesses (and Churches)

Well, it's been a good run, but we recently got an email from OpenDNS that they are shutting down their free content filtering solution for businesses. They will still offer a free home solution, but a business (or church) will have to pay starting March 15. Here's a snipet from the email:

...OpenDNS Basic has been redesigned as a product for home use solely, to focus on delivering the best possible experience for individuals and families.  OpenDNS Enterprise, which launched two years ago and now has over 2,500 customers, is our product geared toward professional and commercial use of our Web content filtering and security services.  Though not free like the OpenDNS Basic service you use today, it includes significant additional functionality -- in particular, malware and botnet protection services vetted and chosen by Fortune 100 organizations who rely on OpenDNS Enterprise today.  And don't let the name fool you, while we are proud to have some of the largest companies in the world using OpenDNS, our business offering is competitively priced for businesses of all sizes.

If you choose not to migrate, you will continue to receive the same, best-in-class recursive DNS services for free without any usage limits, however all filtering functionality will be disabled on March 15th...

Here's the full announcement

WE started using OpenDNS at GCC on 7/30/08. Prior to that we were using the content filters on our Sonicwall firewall, but we had enough problems with it we went searching for a better solution … and thus started testing OpenDNS.

So I contacted OpenDNS to see if they offered a non-profit discount and to get pricing. Pricing is based on number of users you support … which is confusing if you're a church. If we include weekend attendees that's over 5000 people while our staff is about 80 full and part-timers. The quote I got back for 100 users was $2000 - $500 (non-profit discount) = $1500. While that's a descent discount, it's still way to much for my budget when our Sonicwall firewalls already have content filter licensing. We just haven't used the Sonicwall filters in forever! I'm told by other IT peers that the Sonicwall filters are far better than in years past … guess we'll soon find out ourselves :-)

I'm still a big fan of the free OpenDNS Family Shield solution for homes. Quick, easy, free and works very well.

[edit 2/8/12 12:58pm] After telling our OpenDNS rep we'll pass, he says he can get us down to $1000/yr.  Also had another church IT peer suggest we check out the free DynDNS filtering solution that sounds VERY similar to what OpenDNS has done for us. 

[edit 2/9/12] More info about the coming change in this forum

GCC's Servers & Storage have a new offsite home! Part 2

(Psst, hey you. You may want to go read Part 1 first)

After months and months of planning and prep work GCC's main IT production gear moved offsite to a real datacenter just a few weeks ago on Sunday Jan 22nd! w00t! We've always wished we could have our gear in sweet colocation (colo) space, but I never would have guessed we'd be there in early 2012 or even 2020 due to costs. How this came to be is a fun story, but it's not short … so that will be another blog post or 2 down the road :-)

Until then, here's a few details and pictures. Oh and monster props to Justin who did all the heavy lifting to plan, prep and execute the myriad of complexities of this move as there were a number of huge network changes and upgrades that proceeded the actual move. Thanks also to IT volunteers Ed Buford, Tom Templin, and Aaron Nush for their help Sunday to relocate the gear. Additional thanks to Ed Buford and Pinnacle for Exchange changes the week prior to the move to minimize email downtown.

Where is the gear now?
We're part of a non-profit co-op sharing a micro suite at Global Access Point (GAP) in downtown South Bend, IN. We share a 42U rack with our long time friend Josh from Center For Hospice Care for the price of … FREE! We're currently fully utilizing 20U of space (see below) and Josh says we can have a few of his U's if needed … right Josh? ;-)
The going rate for space at GAP is $50-70/U/month so we're getting $1000-$1400/mo of space at no cost. Booyah!

We have dedicated redundant 20A power feeds into our PDU in the rack so if one 20A feed goes down the other takes over without a power drop. The power feeds are also on UPS and generator backups … it's sweet to no longer worry when thunderstorms roll into the area wondering if power will go out at GCC. The downside? It's a salty $350/mo for said power. Wonder if any of the top dogs at GAP go to GCC? Would love to find a way to lower that cost.

How does the data get between GCC and the colo?
This is part of the long story mentioned above, but we have a sweet Metronet dark fiber link between GCC and our router at the colo at whatever speed we can light it. For now we're lighting it a 1Gig since 10Gig lasers aren't cheap. We'll monitor the link for a while to see how congested it gets. We're using Cogent as our ISP as they have a presence at GAP and were priced very well. We pay for 100Mbps up/down burstable to 400Mbps, but we've seen it hit as high as 500Mbps! The kicker? The cost is LESS than what we were paying for our ATT fiber at 10Mbps! Booyah! What's fun is when staff publicly cheer about how fast our internet speeds are like this tweet from Dustin :-)
Honestly, it's a bit strange to think about all our gear being downtown and accessed over a small optical fiber pair the size of a human hair. According to the Metronet folks, our optical path to the colo is 11.4 miles while the driving distance is only 7 miles. So, while it takes 20mins to get to the colo by car, it's a mere 90 microseconds for data traveling down the fiber :-)

And yes, we do have a cheap comcast business connection into GCC as our backup ISP. Should the fiber go down for some reason we can reroute most things over the comcast connection and limp along.

Guess I'll need a part 3 to go over a few more details like what gear is still at GCC, but until then here are some pics from the move.

Tom, Justin, Ed, Aaron ripping gear from the rack

Loading gear into cars. Thankfully the weather wasn't too bad considering the time of year.
All our junk in the Suite hallway. Tom is looking into our micro-suite. Yes, we brought a table and 2 chairs along with the gear since there's no place to sit or sit stuff :)
Justin and Ed hoist one of our Dell R710 ESXi hosts onto it's rails

Justin and Ed starting to wire up gear at the rear of the rack

Tom is working on the rails for our 2nd and oldest PS100E EqualLogic array

Tom and Ed working(?) at the rear of the rack. Yes, it's a bit cramped back there.

Front view of the rack with all gear in place. It's a bummer that the top R510 bezel is black and thus doesn't match the R710's and EqualLogic PS6000E :-(
Oh, we also need to take out the sliding shelf above the KVM at some point.

Rear rack view. Cables mainly nice and tidy and correctly color coded based on function. Also note our rear door can actually close unlike our neighbors. Maybe they'll be inspired to clean up their cabling after seeing ours? #doubtful

If you have question about any of this leave a comment and I'll try to address with a comment or include in the part 3 post.

Google Apps For Nonprofits AGAIN Open to Churches/Ministries

As many of you probably know, in March 2011, Google decided to no longer allow Churches/Ministry/Places of Worship access into their FREE Google For Nonprofits program (see article in Christianity Today). The result was churches/ministries would be required to pay $60/yr per user just like any other business. Yes, a number of Churches applying to the program were NOT happy and the fear was that churches already accepted and using Google For Nonprofits could be dropped from the free program without warning. Google never did give a reason why they decided to exclude Churches from the free program. Obviously, they can do whatever they want and given their history of not recognizing Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas this seemed like yet another jab at Christianity. So whatev's…

Then last week my buddy Derek Berg posted on twitter and his blog that he received an email from Google stating they were again changing their stance. He's the short and sweet "borrowed" from his blog:

"Organizations under the following categories may now be eligible for the Google for Nonprofits Program:

• Places or institutions of worship
• Programs requiring membership and/or providing benefit solely to members
• Websites with a primary focus on selling goods, products or services
• Car, boat, and real estate donation websites
• Consumer credit counseling

I went and checked Google's eligibility requirements and indeed it no longer excludes nor even mentions places or institutions of worship. They do have an FAQ that mentions a recent change in the eligibility guidelines, but doesn't list the changes. Link to the changes made

So, if you've been previously denied access to the Google For Nonprofits program because you're a church or ministry … go apply again :-)

And in case anyone is wondering … at GCC we have both Microsoft Exchange2010 and Google Apps, but have done very little with GApps thus far.

[edit 2/9/12] A Church IT peer just tweeted that their church has just been approved under the new eligibility change

[edit 2/20/12] Found a link where Google lists the eligibility changes https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/googlefornonprofits-discuss/8Gz64ixASWc

Registration Open for 2012 National Church IT Roundtable!

It's finally time to open registration for the 2012 National Church IT Roundtable April 18-20 in Dallas, TX! w00t w00t and a yeeeehawwww (Texas style)!

I'm soooooo pumped about this event … I can hardly stand it! This year we've added an optional 3rd day of training opportunities and other activities that we feel most won't want to miss. AND … get this, the 3rd day is no extra charge! All 3 days for only $75…thanks to our awesome sponsors/partners!

How about some tasty VMware and Network infrastructure design and best practices? Or Exchange2010 setup/migration/tuning? Or VoIP and Unified Communications? That's just a tease of what we're working on :-)

ALSO new this year, we're making a focused effort to involve Church Web/ChMS developers! In the past our events have focused more on the Network Admin/Help Desk side of IT … now we want our web/dev peeps to benefit from an event like this as much as we do. They'll have their own breakout sessions to geek out about code, APIs, ChMS integrations, tools and best practices as it pertains to their job roles. These breakouts will be lead by web/dev heads David Drinnon (Second Baptist Houston) and Chris Kehayias (Calvary Chapel Melbourne). So go now and invite your web/dev peeps on staff (assuming that's not your role too) to join you this spring.

SERIOUSLY - this is THE MUST ATTEND EVENT of 2012 for all church IT staff and volunteers! If you can only afford one event this year - this is THE ONE! I've been to every National CITRT event since 2006, helps that I started the 1st one heehee, and each year I continue to be amazed at how God uses this event to bring church IT folks together to sharpen one another and push the Kingdom forward. I guarantee if you come your brain will be filled to max capacity, you'll be throughly encouraged, and your spirit will be lifted towards almighty God. Tell me what other IT conference does all that! They don't :-)

Last year we had over 180 in attendance, this year we expect to surpass that easily! Training slots on Wednesday will be limited so register early! AND don't forget to spread the word. Reach out to churches near you and invite them too … oh, and don't forget your web/dev peeps as well!

Get details and register at http://churchITnetwork.com/spring2012/

GCC's Servers & Storage have a new offsite home! Part 1

This is part 1 of a multi-part series of blog posts about the COLO move we made last Sunday. Part 1 is just the all staff email I sent to our staff about the change. Normally my all staff emails are pretty brief and to the point, but I decided to be more verbose about this change since it was so monumental. Parts 2 and beyond will have more juicy details and specifics about the project. Happy reading!

---------------------------------------------

Beloved staff friends,
Just a heads up that tomorrow/Sunday afternoon we're making one of THE largest IT transitions in GCC's history … and hopefully you'll hardly notice it at all :-) What cha doin'? Well, we're moving the bulk of all our servers and storage gear to a state of the art Data Center/Colocation Center (aka the COLO) at Union Station in downtown South Bend! (yes, across the street from The Cove)
Uh, dude? Wha??? It's a long story that started last Spring and has some fun God stories :-) The short of it is we now have space in … get this … the same facility that houses the Notre Dame Supercomputer Cluster, some of the Amazon.com servers, and many other large companies local and US. We also have a dark fiber connection from Union Station to GCC (think of it as a really flippin' long network cable) which will make accessing GCC servers no different really than if they're housed at GCC. Cool eh? You've actually already been using the dark fiber and some of our gear already at the COLO. Our uber fast internet connection originates at Union Station and our email server was moved over there last Weds night. Booyah!
Why do this? We don't really have the type of space we'd like at GCC to house our critical gear. From security access, to backup power needs, to AC, to fire suppression (sprinklers and servers don't mix), etc. Union Station gives us all that and more … and we got a killer deal on it. Basically, we'll sleep better at night when storms roll through and tornado warnings go off knowing our gear and YOUR DATA is in a secure hardened building with lots of redundancies.
So after months of planning, late night work at GCC and Union Station (aka the COLO) we're finally ready to move most of our gear…and yes we are excited!!!
What stays at GCC? A few things will stay at GCC like the bookstore/café server, print server, and filezilla (aka the media drive). These, along with internet access, will remain available while we're moving stuff downtown.
So after the last expo is over (1pm-ish) we'll start powering down all the servers that are moving. You still get email access during this time.We then CAREFULLY unrack, box and load the gear for drive over to Union Station. Installing the gear at the COLO will be the longest part as we have to cable things compactly and neatly due to space constraints. During this time we'll have to drop email access periodically.Then we'll power things back up and start testing systems. Begin the office pool now on what time we actually leave the COLO and head home :-)
We'll be live streaming much of the activity (because we're geeky that way) here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jpowellcam

Follow @gcctechops on twitter with notifications turned ON if you want up to date info on when we're making changes, stuff that's broken, and when it's fixed :-) DON'T USE TWITTER? No problem! You can get TXT notifications without using twitter:

Just text FOLLOW GCCTECHOPS to 40404

If you have any questions about this don't hesitate to contact me directly. And we'd certainly covet your prayers tomorrow. We've tried to plan this process well and not disrupt activities Sunday afternoon, but there are so many complex moving pieces and we all know technology can be finicky at times.

Thanks,

Jason … No, COLO does NOT mean Colorado! … Powell

Help Desk Stats For 2011 Part 1

I enjoy stats. So when each year ends it's fun to see how our help desk stats have changed vs the prior year. Did we have more or less support requests? What were the variables driving the overall activity each month and the entire year? Were any IT initiatives or improvements reflected in the stats?

All things considered equal, we're hoping to see fewer overall requests each year. If that's the case, one could assume that our systems and equipment are performing well and thus staff are busy getting ministry done instead of needing IT support. However, things are often changing from year to year so it's important to factor in all variables. Opening a new multisite campus, replacing a phone system, upgrading everyone to a new version of X software - all these types of changes usually bring an uptick in support requests.

So how did we make out in 2011? Although I was VERY pleased to see that our overall requests were down from last year, I wasn't very surprised. Why? Our team, which includes several awesome volunteers, has labored hard over the past years to build a very solid IT foundation. And when you build a very solid foundation it will be reflected in things like server/service uptime and accessibility. Last year was an extremely quiet year from a "problem" standpoint … servers and their services did their thing and plugged along without intervention. This was a huge blessing since 2011 was the busiest year we've seen in a long time for other reasons. 2011 was our first year going from a 3 man IT team down to 2. Add to that several LARGE projects like: planning for building expansion that broke ground late 2011, planning to open a new pre-school in 2012, moving our multisite location to a permanent location with staff offices, relocating our main fiber connection into the building, started transition to predominately Mac platform for end users, and prepping to move the bulk of our production IT gear to a new datacenter downtown. There's prob other stuff, but those were some of the big one's that came to mind. So 2011 was crazy busy, but not from helpdesk requests thankfully! If we'd had stuff breaking left and right on top of all the big projects … well, I'm not sure the outcome ;-)

Stay tuned for part 2 where I'll go over more thoughts on our help desk stats and the tools we've used over the years.

Other 'help desk' posts you might like: http://jpowell.blogs.com/.services/blog/6a00d8345325d569e200d8345325d769e2/search?filter.q=help+desk

My 2012 One Blog Post A Week Goal

Well hello there blog! Long time no see.

After severe neglect over the past 2 years, I've decided (after much building guilt and prompting from friends/peers) to revive you again from the ashes of despair. My goal is simple: One blog post for you each week.

I've even asked a few select friends to keep me accountable to you this year :-)

So stay tuned my friend! I look forward to getting to know you again!!!

REGISTRATION OPEN for our Fall 2011 Regional Roundtables

REGISTRATION OPEN for our Fall 2011 Regional Roundtables:  
Below are the sites confirmed with possibly 1 more still TBA.  You'll not want to miss this opportunity of learning from your fellow Church IT peers!
Cost is $35.  Go to http://citrt.org for registration and more details.  Registration closes Oct 15 so signup ASAP.

Austin, Texas - Hill Country Bible Church - October 25th
Albuquerque, NM - Calvary Chapel Albuquerque - October 26th
Ft Lauderdale, FL - Calvary Chapel Ft. Lauderdale - October 26th
Indianapolis, IN - Northview Church - October 20th
Minneapolis, MN - Bethlehem Baptist - October 28th
McLean, VA - McLean Bible Church - October 24th
Nashville, TN - Brentwood Baptist - October 20th
Riverside, CA - Harvest - October 26th
Rockford, IL - Heartland Community Church - October 25th
St. Louis, MO - The Crossing - October 25th
Savannah, GA - Savannah Christian Church - October 25th

I'll be at the IL location ... looking forward to seeing and learning from my Church IT peers. Geeks for Jesus!!!

Dell Technology Symposium for Non-Profits in partnership with Joyce Meyer Ministries and the Church IT Roundtable

If you're not signed up for the CITRT enewsletter you missed seeing the below info ... and shame on you for not being signed up already!  Since this Dell deal is short notice I'm posting the enewsletter here for your viewing pleasure :)

UPDATE 7/7/11 ... if you filled out the survey you should have gotten this email from Dell..
As we draw closer to the Tech Summit, the excitement within Dell is growing!  We are making final preparation for your arrival and have a great agenda we will be finalizing this morning.  I wanted to take this opportunity to send out Dell’s preferred hotels.  We have negotiated rates for our colleagues and guests so please take advantage.  If you have any questions, please let me know.
 
Dell will be providing transportation so for logistical purposes, we recommend the following hotels (Price sheet below):

Candlewood Suites Austin-Round Rock
Springhill Suites Austin-Round Rock
Homewood Suites Austin-Round Rock
Marriott Austin North
 
Note: You will be receiving a formal invite in the next couple of days for this event.  This will be critical to fill out and return as it will capture your flight and hotel information so that we can provide transportation.

FWIW - I know a number of CITRT peeps, including myself, are going to be staying at Springhill Suites.

=======================

Hurry!  Limited time/space left for Dell's Free Technology Symposium for Christian Non-profits July 20-21!
This is a fun long story, but here's the short version - CITRT leadership recently learned of an upcoming meeting at Dell's HQ to foster peer learning among Christian non-proft orgs being spearheaded by Andrea Turek, Executive Director of IT at Joyce Meyer Ministries.  Since this sounded very similiar to CITRT, we reached out to see if collaborating might make sense.  Andrea hadn't heard of CITRT, but was very open to talk with us.  Several emails and conf calls later, we're excited to annouce our partnership with Andrea and Dell and to invite CITRT folks to Dell's campus for this free 2 day event.  Dell will be bringing in their engineering staff to talk with us about various topics many of us are wrestling with.  So while this is sorta last minute, it's an incredible opportunity to network with IT peers and learn about technology solutions to further ministry.  The event is free!  You just need to get yourself to Round Rock and find a hotel :-)

Here's the official invite from Dell:
You are invited to attend an exciting 2 day FREE event July 20-21 at the Dell Round Rock Executive Briefing Center focused on Christian non-profit organizations.  This event will provide content and best practices around the following topics:
Security – How to “plan” and create the best security roadmap solution
Storage -  Object Based Storage
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure – Save your budget by deploying VDI
Systems Management/Automation via KACE
Mobile Management-Apple, Android, Windows
DR and Backup – We all want it, very few have it
Digital Asset Management – Create, deploy reuse
Database /Application Integration- flow data back without hardcoding with Boomi
We hope you will be able join your peers for some exciting learning and fun.  If you would like to participate, please add your information the survey below so that we may send you a formal invite.  We currently have 17 registrations and will only have room for 30 total.  Registration closes July 11th.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/R8XHGF9 - to begin registration process (note: survey was created before we talked to Andrea & Dell so don't fret that there's no mention of CITRT)

OTHER NEWS...

Fall 2011 Regional Church IT RoundTables last week of October: 
The last week of October is our timeslot for all the regional sites to host their events with the exact day of the week up to the host site.  We have 2 sites confirmed but need many many more.  If you're interested in learning about becoming a regional site this fall check out this FAQ http://citrt.pbworks.com/w/page/7717466/hosting-a-regional-event-FAQ
You can also view the list of last year's host sites here http://citrt.pbworks.com/w/page/34816125/Past-CITRT-Events
If you're interested in being a host site this fall please send an email to info@citrt.org .. thanks!
Cost is $35 and once we firm up all the sites we'll send out registration info.

Spring 2012 National Church IT RoundTable:
It NOT too early to start planning for next spring's event!  Based on the attendance this past spring, we anticipate 200 IT peeps will be converging on Dallas next spring :-)
Put this on your calendar NOW and get it in your budget ASAP! 
Spring 2012 National Church IT RoundTable
April 18-20
$75 includes lunch/dinner both days
Watermark Community Church
Dallas, TX

As always, we welcome any suggestions/input you have on making CITRT better. What's working? What's not? How do we grow it? This is YOUR community.

Thanks,
CITRT Leadership Team
Geeks for Jesus!

Server Rack moving ... again!?

I just sent this email to All Staff ... which is pretty funny considering it was almost exactly 6yrs ago that we moved our server rack up to it's current location :-)

==================================

Howdy fellow STAFF-mates!

Tuesday July 12th starting at 6pm we're shutting the entire GCC computer network down … assume nothing will work … internet, printing, file access, nada.  Why???  Cause we're moving our server rack (seen below) from it's home up in the Tech Office space down to the lower level to the communications room … it's down the back hallway behind the farm and garden patch rooms.  Yes, that's 2 levels and NO we don't have an elevator to move a large heavy welded together rack and several hundreds pounds of expensive server gear from our area to the main level :-)

On the plus side we've made this move before, but in the opposite direction back on June 21, 2005 … read about it http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/2005/06/a_lift_and_a_wi.html

Why move??  Several years ago we needed easy access to our servers so having them in close proximity to our workspace was necessary.  In the past year or 2 we almost never look at them anymore … gotta love the advances in server virtualization and no longer doing tape backups!  Now, the bulk of our switching gear is down in the lower level comm room so moving the rack down there will make things easier from a cabling/networking perspective, we also believe the equipment down in it's new home won't require special cooling like it does today thus saving electrical costs.  Plus, having the gear on the lower level makes us feel better when there's a tornado warning for our area :)

So there ya have it!  We're moving servers around next Tuesday so expect nothing to work :-)

If you have any questions or concerns please let me know ASAP.

Thanks,
Jason … lift with your legs, not with your back … Powell

REMINDER: LIVE Interactive Church IT Podcast each month!

Being engaged on twitter so much I forget about my blog as a vehicle for sharing info ... note to self to do a better job with that :-)

Anyways, just a reminder to make sure you're scheduling time to join the LIVE Church IT Podcast each month!  So go now, open your calendar, and schedule in the 1st Friday of each month at 11am Eastern to join the phone conference bridge and chatroom.  Info on how to connect is on CITRT.org or quick link is http://citrt.pbworks.com/w/page/34565071/Podcast-Episodes

This Friday one topic of discussion is Google's recent stance on no longer allowing Churches access to the free EDU version of Google Apps. Other topics TBA and of course we'll have some open Q&A time so bring you questions/topics you'd like to discuss.

 

IT-focused missions projects for IT people?

While there’s great value in mission projects that build homes and such, many IT folks would rather use their IT skills in the mission field. For a few years, several of us in the Church IT Roundtable community have discussed how cool it would be to have IT-focused missions projects for IT people. Well, my buddy Clif Guy is turning this into a reality.

Next Friday (April 29th) I’ll be joining Clif and 2 other IT peers to head to Petit Goave, Haiti for 10 days to continue an IT project Clif’s been working on over there for the past year.

The Methodist Church of Haiti (Église Méthodiste d'Haïti or EMH) has a number of facilities in the town of Petit Goave (“petty gwahve”) within 1.5 miles of each other that include a church, school, offices, a medical clinic, a guest house, residences, conference facilities, etc.  Our project is to light up 5 buildings with Wi-Fi via building-to-building wireless Ethernet bridges (Ubiquity Nanostation Loco M900 and Ubiquity AirRouter) and connecting the network to two Internet circuits with failover capability.  One of these buildings is a school where we are also installing a computer lab as part of another IT project.  Here's a Google Earth view of the target buildings with red lines indicating building to building links to be established.

We're also hoping to have installed and working 2 new sattelite ISP links as the local ISP is very unreliable and has massive packet loss. On his third trip to Haiti in March, Clif took a small IT team to start this wifi project and got perhaps 25-30% done.  After our upcoming trip, He expects one more trip will be required in late July to complete this particular project.  When finished, more IT teams will be needed in the coming years to assist the EMH with IT needs in the disaster area and throughout Haiti.  Clif is also in the process of procuring grants to fund these future projects.

Why am I going?

1-    Clif sweet talked me into going. He has a very sultry seductive voice! ;-)’
2-    Gain in the field 1^st hand knowledge and experience setting up reliable building to building wLAN connectivity in about the worst possible conditions for success. Power issues, ISP issues, satellite issues, environmental issues, lack of IT equipment local (you can’t just run to Best Buy and purchase something you need), etc.
3-    Recon to see if this IT-focused missions work is something we could piggy back/reproduce for Granger’s mission efforts in India and elsewhere.

Cool eh? There are over 600 people that are in some way directly connected to our Church IT Roundtable community. Imagine what could be accomplished if small teams took on various IT projects across the globe to further God’s Kingdom!! 

Interested in being part of a future IT Project?  Next trip to Haiti is tentatively planned for July 22-31 and no you don’t have to be affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Leave a comment below or email Clif for more info.

Haiti tidbits I didn’t realize: Port Au Prince, Haiti is only a 2hr flight from Miami, FL. Haiti stays on Eastern Standard Time year ‘round just like Indiana used to :)

I’m very curious (and I know Clif is too) to hear your thoughts pro/con about these IT-Focused mission projects. Why would or wouldn’t you want to join a future IT project?  Are there other IT-focused mission opportunities that you know of?

** Also, wanna help support my upcoming trip?  I'm trying to raise another $500 by next Thursday. Just 50 peeps at $10 would do it so any support would be appreciated. Hit this paypal link. [$345 raised as of 4/24 6pm EDT]

[edit: We spent a huge chunk of Episode60 of the Church IT Podcast talking about IT Missions opportunities. Check it out http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=6983&cmd=tc CHOOSE Episode 60]

[edit: Here are a bunch of pics I took on my Haiti Trip http://www.flickr.com/photos/99228274@N00/sets/72157626668565029/ and here are Clif's pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/11029892@N08/sets/72157626691818798/ ]

2011 National Spring Church IT Roundtable Feb 24-25 - Near Orlando, FL - Be there!

If you haven't already seen the news on the CITRT twitter or facebook page >>> 

Spring 2011 National Church IT Roundtable - w00t! Spread the news! We're Florida bound for spring 2011!

Dates: Feb 24-25, 2011. There will also be pre and post event activities...most notably Wednesday. Calvary Chapel Melbourne is also not far from the Kennedy Space Center so add that to your possible extra things to do before/after the roundtable. More details and registration to follow shortly.  Huge thanks to Chris Kehayias for being our site host.  
Location: Calvary Chapel Melbourne 

Calvary Chapel of Melbourne
2955 Minton Road
West Melbourne, Florida 32904

Follow announcements at http://twitter.com/citrt and http://facebook.com/citrt

Our roundtables are for staff, volunteers and vendors who support the Church in the area of Information Technology without discrimination to the maturity of the technology they use or the size of the congregation they support.  Often we find ourselves with the skills and aptitudes to be successful but lacking in a critical piece of knowledge that may be found in a colleague within the Church IT community.  This is certainly true for those who are part-time staff or volunteers working in church IT.  We need information.  We need inspiration.  Above all, we need a community of like-minded peers.

I strongly encourage anyone and everyone involved in Church IT to make this a priority in 2011.  I've been to every roundtable since 2006 and I've found them to be absolutely invaluable.

Hope to see many of you in Florida this Feb!!

Prayers Appreciated For Ed Buford As One Chapter Ends and Another Begins

Heads up to my friends and church IT peers ... below is a copy of the GCC allstaff communication that went out yesterday about a big change in our TechOps department ...

=============================================

Subject: A note from Jason and Ed

Jason here—I’ll go first.

On October 7th 2003, only 2 months after I started working at GCC, I had my first meeting with a fella named Ed Buford.  Ed had his own IT consulting gig and soon after our initial meeting he started volunteering, which lead to contract work here and there, then in June 2004 he joined our staff team as Network Admin.

Back in the day, our technology infrastructure had not kept pace with our growth and Ed walked in to help with a network as stable as a house of toothpicks. Many of you remember. You felt the pain of almost daily email outages. Crashed hard drives with no back-up. Print jobs that mysteriously vanished. Network speeds that made you want to scream. Ahh, the good ole days.

Things have been stable and secure for quite some time now, and much of that is due to Ed’s contribution. He was one of the hands-on gurus who took an extremely overextended, unstable network infrastructure and rebuilt it from scratch. He has brought countless DOA computers back to life and saved us all from impending lost data doom more times than I can count. The projects he has personally influenced over the past seven years has not only gained GCC a reputation of innovative technology leader with churches across the country, but also with marketplace companies. Ed is known personally for his expertise and integrity not only with the people of Granger, but with anyone who has interacted with the ministry here. Today, our network is more stable, secure and efficient than many organizations ever see in the lifetime of operations. We have Ed to thank for a network foundation that is not only serving us well now, but has us well-prepared for the future.

Which brings us to the purpose of this email. Partly due to Ed’s handiwork and partly due to a change in technology strategy, we have come to the difficult realization that our network administrator no longer requires a full-time staff position. This has been tough for all of us—Ed is a loved family member of GCC with a tremendous history. None of us ever pictured an end to Ed’s season on the staff team, yet in many ways, he has worked himself out of a job.

His last day will be this Wednesday, December 8.  If you don’t get a chance to wish him well Wednesday, don’t fret.  You’ll be able to offer a proper farewell and hug Ed yourself at the staff Christmas Party. He and Laura will both be there.

Please join me in praying for Ed, Laura and the boys as they take steps towards a new normal. The first few days and weeks will be the hardest—but the God story has already begun. Through this entire process, they both have exhibited trust in God and love for their church family that is both inspiring and humbling. This is not an easy goodbye, but then again—it’s not goodbye.

Jason

And here’s a note to everyone from Ed …

Friends,

Change is a difficult thing to witness and often it’s more difficult to be a part of.  When I look back to the past seven years, change has been my constant companion at GCC. Even the past year great changes have been a part of my life as I walked my daughter down the aisle and as I walked both of my sons down into the water to be baptized.  In the midst of all this change there has been a constant and that constant is the love that I’ve felt from each of you; it is palpable and it has touched me in so many ways. It is because of so many of you that my family and I are who we are today. Your influence and love are imprinted on the character of each member of my family and for that I cannot express my gratitude.

The changes at hand bring a mixture of sadness and joy, and I would not lie to you and tell you that these changes will be easy. Instead I will tell you that I’m looking at these past seven years with celebration in my heart for these years have been filled with much joy. I have great anticipation for what God has in store for my family. The sadness I speak of has nothing to do with leaving GCC, simply because I’m not leaving GCC. Although I’ll no longer be employed by GCC, my church is GCC and I’m still a part of this church as are my family and we will be here. No, my sadness is because I’ll miss serving each of you in the great adventure facing the staff in the upcoming months.

Please join me in prayer for my family as we embrace the changes God has placed on our horizon and know that I’m praying for each of you as you embrace the changes facing you. Let me also ask that you lift up Jason and Justin as they try to figure out how to move forward and best serve you.

-Ed

=============================================

Please join me in praying for this next chapter in Ed's life.  He's a great man and great friend.  If you'd like to ping him personally you can find him at ebuford@gmail, http://twitter.com/ebuford, and http://www.facebook.com/ebuford 

Revamping IT Volunteerism At GCC Part II - Building Community

Continuing from Part I ...

Building Community

Another focus point of our revamp was finding ways to build better community with our volunteers.
Not too many things speak louder than when we invest in our volunteers with time.
So we decided to hit the pause button on Tech Ops tasks the 1st Monday evening of each month and dedicate that time to just hang with our volunteers.

What's that look like?  For starters we're inviting all current and potential volunteers to dinner at an offsite location each month.  Usually it will be "pay your own way", but we'll occasionally hope to make it a free dinner.  The purpose is simply to create space for getting to know each other better ... and what better way to do that with a bunch of geeks than with food!  Occasionally we may use this dinner meeting to share big picture info with the team, but typically the agenda will be ... eat and talk.

We're initially calling this the GCC Geeks Gathering and our 1st event is already scheduled - see http://gcctechops.eventbrite.com
One challenge will be finding places to eat that can easily accomodate our group as we predict it will grow...hence the use of eventbrite and RSVP's to gauge needs.

Other future community time could be tackling a community service project as group, helping each other with home projects, etc.  And of course there's the spirtual aspects of building community.  Praying for each other when times are rough, celebrating when things are rockin', challenging each other to take our next steps towards Christ.

Ripple effects... What if this grew beyond just being an "GCC" IT volunteer thing.  What if our volunteers started inviting their geek friends and co-workers to these Monday nights?  What would it look like to have a community of geeks that gather together to do life together?  What amazing stories could come out of the collision between geeks for Jesus and geeks that don't yet know they need Him?  Oh baby, that makes my heart beat fast and my brain short circuit! :-)

What our you doing to build community in your volunteer teams?

Here's a snippet from our recent Tech Ops Volunteer Info night where I go over some of our new 'community' initiative (audio is weak so crank up the volume) 

 

More to follow in Part III...