Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 3

2013-05-03T09:42:14-04:00

Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2 ...

Well, this is really a continuation from part1 since part 2 went in a different direction than I planned :-)

To quickly refresh ... Part1 was the proposal I made to my boss and our Exec Pastor to A) go mobile and B) give OS platform choice. For this blog series I asked Tim and Kem to think back about the proposal, why they said yes, and any quick thoughts 2 years later...

From Tim Stevens (Executive Pastor at Granger Community Church):

I'm a huge proponent of technology. I consider myself a technology champion. Maybe it's because I was one of the volunteer audio engineers at GCC for 11 years. Or maybe it's because I got my first home computer before MS-DOS or Windows or Mac were household names (yeah, it actually ran on the CP/M operating system). I've always been somewhat of a geek. And that's why, in my role as Executive Pastor, it's really easy to get behind technology.

But even more than that, I'm a huge champion of finding and resourcing the right leaders. When I have an impassioned, skilled and aligned leader who loves Jesus, loves the church and is the best in their field—I want nothing more than to equip them to be successful. And that's why it was so frustrating in the recession era when we weren't able to replace ailing equipment or invest in new technology. Not only could I not see us implement the best technology to serve the church—I also couldn't equip Jason and his team to soar with the right tools. Every month was just hanging on and riding out the storm. And yet I never heard one complaint or negative comment. Rather, I heard comments like "We'll make it work" and "We will figure it out" and "We'll get creative".

I never questioned Jason when, after the recession, he came with the proposal to A) go mostly mobile and B) provide a path for supported Mac OS machines. I didn't question it because of his long track record of well reasoned and researched decisions. And it turned out to be a huge win for the church. Yes, a bit more costly on the front end, but the tangible and intangible wins with higher productivity, greater employee satisfaction, and reduced operational costs more than made up for the higher price tag.

It was exactly the right decision.

From Kem Meyer (my boss and Communications Director at Granger Community Church)

Here's the thing—the question isn't about whether or not we are on a mac or PC environment. It's about whether or not we are stewarding our resources well and helping staff do what they want to do. I appreciate how our tech ops team elevates people as the value over technology and keeps learning about the various options available to us. Instead of reacting to the increasing questions about people wanting MACs with a "that's not what we do" posture, they sincerely investigated options. They worked through and had answers to these questions before they came to us with a proposal.

How did we get here?
What has changed? What has stayed the same? (Both inside our environment as well as the overall technology industry.)
Can we afford it?
Can we support it?
Can we grow with it?
Is our environment secure with this solution?
What will we gain? What will we lose?
Will this make work harder or easier for our team?
What are the pros of this approach? What are the cons of this approach?

With the answers to these questions before us, it made the decision pretty easy. We were "eyes wide open", as they say, and knew what we were getting into. It made the change easy to communicate. We were able to set expectations and get everyone on the same page with a shared definition of the win.

For me personally, I was uber productive on my PC for years and I'm just as productive on my MAC in different ways. If you forced me to choose, I would choose a MAC because it's just more fun to use. Our tech ops team is smart enough to recognize that a work force that is having fun with their technology is a happy work force. A happy work force makes the support load a little easier to carry.

Hopefully that's helpful to those that were wondering why leadership agreed to move forward with the proposal. Naturally, there were clarifying discussions and I believe it went before our Board of Directors, each time being given a green light.

In Part 4, I'll share the process we went through and insight we gained from a small beta test team before annoucing to staff and starting the transition with our 1st batch of users.

There's been some great discussions about this blog series here. So I suggest reading/leaving comments there vs here on my blog.

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 2

2013-04-15T09:36:37-04:00

Continuing from Part 1 ...

One of the questions that arose from the Part 1 post was how we arrived at the $2100 figure. It actually ended up being $2300. This amount would cover the purchase of a 15" macbook pro with 4GB ram, 7200rpm 750GB drive, 3yr applecare, and extra power adapter (for home), which at the time totalled $2300. While we would actually recommend the 13" air to end users, we knew some would want/need a larger screen so we made sure to accomodate a need for a 15" mac laptop. Our 13" air config included 4GB ram, 256GB SSD, 3yr applecare, extra power adapter, external super drive (if needed) and rounded up to $1800...another reason we pushed the air over mbp :-) Again, anything beyond $2300 and another dept would have to pick up the overage. We had a few staff that went a little over due to job role needing the highest proc and additional ram (which we buy from OWC and install ourselves) or opting for the 17" macbookpro, but the majority of staff have went with the 13" air.

Today we still recommend and default to the 13" air for our staff. We've bumped the ram up to 8GB on the standard i5 model which is still under $1800 ($1720) with our config. AND today we'd also recommend the 13" retina macbook pro ... with our config it comes to $1904. I used a macbook air for about 2 years and even ran some Fusion win7 vm's on it. With 4GB ram it was tight running VM's on it, the 8GB air I tested handled VM's much better. I figured if an air worked great for me, it should work well for the majority of our staff :-)

I switched to a 13" retina macbookpro in Feburary for testing and have REALLY liked the increased screen real estate over the air. It's a tad heavier and gets warmer, but I'll take that for the extra pixels. I should also note that while at work I jack into a 27" apple display. So yes, the air and 13" macbookpro can drive a 27" display with no problems.

Another thing we've discovered over the past 2 years ... spinning hard drives and macbooks don't do well together...even 7200rpm drives give way more spinning beach balls than they should and don't even bother with the 5400rpm drives. We have had good success by upgrading 15" macbookpros with 750GB hybrid drives, but we strongly recommend going SSD on new mac purchases.

We usually buy our macs/apple gear from our local apple store where they match WCA's discounted Apple pricing which is roughly 10% on most items. Having their store 1 mile from GCC is a VERY nice plus! It took some work to create a good relationship with the local store business team, but today they really seem to go to bat for us. We've also had success getting even better pricing on large volume purchases from ITSavvy, mostly due to their ability to heavily discount applecare. Another option is buying refurb gear from Apple. We've gotten several refurb 13" airs for $900-1200 and had no problems with them. I know some churches get their Apple gear from CDW as well.

What do we do when a user wants a windows laptop? So far it's been rare, but it has happened. For instance one of our graphics arts designers is a windows power user and she had no interest in switching to a mac. No problem! Except we did have a problem ... what to recommend to her. The Dell Latitude lineup at that time was franky quite ugly. True, being ugly shouldn't dismiss a technology decision, but that goofy orange on the Latitudes was bleh! After much looking around and stalling our recommendation, Dell introduced their "air" competitor in the XPS13. It was sexy looking and had very similar specs to our 13" air config...except for a lamer rez screen. Probably the biggest disappointment was that this Dell was MORE than our air config coming out to $1967+shipping! Here's the invoice :-) But, as you can see, we did purchase it and she's been very happy with the XPS13 and that's a win.

We've still not landed on what I'd call the perfect PC version of the air. We thought the nicely priced $800 14" Vizio ultrabook would be a win, but the keyboard on it stinks. We had a couple staff test it and all of them turned it back in saying the keyboard was a deal breaker. Rats! We still have a couple more ultrabook options we'd like to try ... and we need hurry up as we have a couple users on the refresh list this year that have already requested to stay PC vs switch to mac. We've also had a couple staff test windows8...so far nobody liked it, and my personal experience with it was pretty frustrating as well. This stinks since many of the newest ultrabooks have no option for coming with win7 vs win8 installed.
[edit 4/16/13: Just ordered a refurb Dell 6430u. Hope it works well in testing]

I didn't mean this next blog post to be all about the hardware costs, but that's how it turned out. Hope it was helpful :-)

I'll get back to the transition process in Part 3 ...

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 1

2013-04-12T10:59:33-04:00

Hard to believe it's been 2 years since the below email was written which put into motion perhaps the most significant IT transition at GCC to date. Up to this point, TechOps didn't officially support macs. Sure we'd help the few mac users on staff as best we could, but it was best effort only and you were not assigned a mac unless your job/software required it.

Fast forward two years later and we've watched the number of staff using the mac platform increase to almost 70% and our overall computer ratio shift to 52% macs (out of 150ish machines). And we've not started any computer refreshes yet in 2013, so the above stats will shift soon to reflect even higher ratios of fruit :-)

As people have heard about our transition, I often get asked what started the wheel rolling? Well, it's a culmination of many variables and discussions around how to address the consumerization of IT for our organization...which lead to the email you'll find below. This email is thus the actual catalyst that got us to where we are today.

Keep in mind this is now a hair over 2 years old and what works in our environment may not work in yours...

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

Date: Friday, March 25, 2011 2:54 PM
To: Tim Stevens, Kem Meyer
Subject: GCC laptop proposal draft

Tim/Kem [For those that don't know. Tim Stevens is our Executive Pastor, Kem Meyer is my boss...both of them were long time windows power users with zero mac experience]

Here's my working draft for upcoming computer refreshes at GCC … it's a work in progress. Kem suggested I get what I've got so far in front of you both to help field any questions that may pop up as new test computers get rolled out.
Also note I'm leaving out whatever macs that have been bought buy Arts, GSM, etc since those were not TechOps purchases.

As you probably are aware, we have not purchased any new desktop computers in 5+ years nor any new laptops in 3+ years. This means everything is now outside of warranty support. If there's a hardware issue, we have limited options for repair, which usually includes buying parts of ebay and doing surgery to attempt extended life for the device. It works, but is not optimal :)

So taking the above into account, along with an emphasis on anywhere/anytime access from The New Normal project and our own CommWebTechOps 2011 vision and of course other variables, here's what I'm proposing over the next 2 years…

Transitioning to an all-mobile hardware platform for end users. No more desktops unless it makes sense for a specific job role/function.

PROS:

Laptops require far less power than desktops plus they'll be traveling home with users instead of being left on in the office overnight. This saves GCC not only electrical costs, but also cooling.
Staff office moves will be no biggie if TechOps doesn't have to move everyone's computers around! w00t!
Studies show increased worker productivity for mobile workers. You guys already get this since I bet you'd rather die than give up your laptops for a desktop ;-)
The lines between work and personal continue to blur. Staff keep buying personal laptops and bringing them to us asking to make them able to do basic office/email functions. Might as well provide them with something that can serve their needs for work and personal while allowing TechOps to keep things standardized which helps everyone in the long run.

CONS:

Laptops are more much more expensive to purchase than desktops
Laptops require battery replacements over time
Laptops are more prone to accidents
Laptops see significantly more wear-n-tear

In my mind there's no doubt moving to laptops makes sense for the staff culture at GCC and the Pros far outweigh the cons.

I've been thinking about moving this direction for more than a year. Just haven't had any $ to do so until this year. I've also talked with other churches that have made the transition toward all mobile…most notably my pals over at LifeChurch.tv so this isn't really a new idea for me. It's been simmering for a long while :)

Perhaps the more radical shift is giving users the option of mac or windows. We're finally in a place where we have necessary tools and know-how to adequately support mac users, helped in huge part by the latest mac Outlook2011 client. It's still not as good as Outlook2010 for windows, but it's finally a viable solution. We also now have software (CrashplanProE), which will allow enterprise class backups for macs – another huge stumbling block for us supporting macs in the past, as timemachine is NOT an enterprise solution.

PROS:

In talking with other churches supporting dual platform most indicate a far lower % of support needs from their mac users. For sure many variables are hidden in that data as to why, but data still shows that macs typically require less load on IT staff. Of course we don't see a lot of support needs from our windows users either.
Over 40 of our staff have iPhones and thus use iTunes and apps. iTunes works much better on the mac OS (I'm sure by design). Keeping all devices under one 'ecosystem' simplifies life for the end user as well as IT.
Apple is 'sexy' and I think our younger staff gravitates toward that. Plus I guess it could be seen as lending some credibility to our staff being in tune with the culture?
More freedom/flexibility with OSX operation system fueled further by the recent addition of the app store for macs.
So far mac OS isn't a big enough target for virus/malware writers.

CONS:

All the fanatic apple users making cracks about "oh, you finally seen the light?" and other such fanboi comments that make me wanna hurl then PUNCH them with my fist.
Macs are more expensive than similar equipped Dell…it's gotten closer over the past few years, but still there's a gap.
Apple has no "real" enterprise class support nor accidental damage coverage. I am looking at 3rd party options for accidental coverage.
Troubleshooting issues on mac is much harder.
When it becomes financially beneficial, virus writers will go after macs. When that happens we'll have to find ways to best protect macs.

Transition plan of attack
Current laptop users would be first in line to get replacements. Then their current hardware would be trickled down to staff currently w/o laptops with hopefully enough spares to take care of break-fix needs until next year when they'd get option of something new.

I have $X earmarked in my budget for laptops. Currently proposing each staff be "earmarked" up to $2100 for purchase of a new Dell Latitude E series or Macbook when their time for refresh comes due. Anything additional they'd like (higher rez screen, faster/bigger hard drive, accessories, etc) above $2100 would be charged to their dept. The plan is also that this will be their laptop for at least 3 years and more likely 5 depending on role.

Staff interested in switching to a mac would need their supervisor to sign off that their job role doesn't require windows specific software. We will not allow nor support the loading of bootcamp, parallels, or vmware on a mac so user can run a virtual windows session. If you need windows to do your job then you need a Dell. Again, thanks to my friends at other churches I have copies of the paperwork they have staff/supervisors sign that spells all this out :)

My guess is that, given the choice, most staff will opt for a mac and that in 2 years GCC will be mostly mac laptops. Windows servers and such will still be at the core of the server infrastructure, but clients will be predominately mac.

I've spent a lot of brain cycles over the past year trying to navigate this "consumerization of IT" trend that continues to grow and I strongly feel the above proposal will help our staff be more productive and happy in the long run. Because this is such a radical shift for us I'm planning to do a big blog post to point people to that have questions.

And Tim, although your laptop isn't super old, I'd be more than happy to put you in our coming mac Guinea Pig testing group if that would help you. I think you're very much like me in that I very much dislike being labeled as a "mac user" just because of all the baggage/crap it carries.

So there ya have draft proposal version 1.
Look forward to your feedback and questions.
Jason
=======================================

Stay tuned for Part 2 ... Guinea Pig testing begins

I've also started a discussion thread for this blog series here over on the Church IT Network forum

Church IT Network 2013 Schedule = 2 National Events in Feb and Oct

2012-11-16T10:47:09-05:00

2013 SCHEDULE Unveiled!

In efforts to move our big National event from Spring to Fall (get away from Easter and Spring break and unpleasant weather in Northern States) we’re having 2 National events next year!

National Spring 2013 event >> 2/27-3/1 in Phoenix, AZ at Christ’s Church of the Valley http://www.ccvonline.com/Arena/default.aspx Schedule will be a mix of training, workshops, presentations and peer roundtable discussion spread over 3 full days. And like we started last Spring in Dallas, we’ll have a separate Web/Dev track again so be sure to invite your web/dev peeps!

National Fall 2013 event >> 10/21-10/23 in Kansas City, KS at Church of the Resurrection http://cor.org/ This event will also be a 3 full days of a mix of training, workshops, presentations and peer roundtable discussion. This event will also kick our web/dev track through the roof by hosting Refresh Cache along side our Church IT Rountable event! RefreshCache mirrors the DNA of our community so it was a no-brainer to host our 2 events together in 2013.

From the RefreshCache website …
The RefreshCache community is a group of connected web developers and designers from churches, businesses, and non-profits that leverage the power of Church Management Systems. Our purpose is to create an environment driven by innovation, collaboration, sharing, and openness. We seek to empower each other; to share ideas and code, and to shatter the traditional business dependencies on silos and secrecy that plague many ministry organizations today.

We believe that through our God-given talents in design and software engineering, we are in control of our own destinies. With innovation and collaboration, we can give birth to far greater things than a single church IT staff can alone.

More details to follow, but we wanted you all to get this on your calendars NOW! You’ll want to be at BOTH events if at all possible, so get it in the budget and start convincing your boss now. We had almost 300 in attendance at our Spring event in Dallas! Wonder what will happen in 2013? :-)

Starting 2014 our schedule will be a Spring Regional Event (date will change each year based on Easter) followed by a big National Fall Event (late October timeframe).

We’re EXTREMELY pumped to have 2 events next year AND have the location and dates ready for peeps to put on calendars :-)

Fall 2013 info here http://citrt.onthecity.org/plaza/events/31f191abbdc5a211e5bef29603ecec996f06ace2

Microsoft's Open License Charity / Non-Profit Retail Price List

2012-11-16T10:42:05-05:00

[edit 11/17/12 - removed https and link seems to work more reliably]

Microsoft has moved their charity / non-profit price list from it's prior location. Took me a little digging, but here's the new URL for those intereted: http://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/us/Pages/Licensing/Downloads/open-license-charity-estimated-retail-price-list.aspx

As always, use the above link for budgeting then hit up your preferred vendor (Dell, CDW, Zones, CCB, etc) and make sure you get pricing BETTER than what you see above. Never pay retail :-)

If the above link is having trouble here's the complete pricing lineup. http://mspartner.microsoft.com/en/us/pages/licensing/price-lists.aspx This link also has a link to a doc on: Finding answers to common questions about the Microsoft Open License for Charities that enables nonprofit organizations to purchase multiple software licenses at reduced prices.

Other posts on charity pricing = http://jpowell.blogs.com/.services/blog/6a00d8345325d569e200d8345325d769e2/search?pager.sort=relevance&filter.q=charity

Registration OPEN for Fall 2012 Church IT Roundtables!

2012-09-19T12:42:05-04:00

Unlike our National Spring events where everyone meets in one location, in the fall we do regional events at multiple locations across the country to keep travel costs low as possible. Regional event registration is just $35.00!

Where are the regionals this year? See below or check out this map of regional locations http://goo.gl/maps/u1azY

What to expect? This is hard to answer, but each year more and more people attend these events! This video clip is 2 years old, but Mark did a nice job explaining why he feels these are must attend events for anyone in Church IT https://vimeo.com/18744075

Who should attend …
Anyone responsible for Information Technology in a ministry setting … Business Admins, IT Directors, Network Admins, Helpdesk, staff or volunteers … regardless of church/organization size

A roundtable is a peer-learning event where the participants are both teachers and learners. A roundtable is:

Led by a facilitator and peer
Includes participants who have an affinity for each other
Does not include a strong agenda beyond sharing knowledge

Purpose …
To meet other IT staff and volunteers

Encouragement – “I am not alone.” “Here I am understood.”
Confidence – “I’m not so crazy after all.”
Relationship – Develop on-going friendships

To advance the diffusion of innovation in a given topic

Sharing knowledge, lessons learned, and experiences
Sorting out the big picture. How does it all fit? Where are we going?
Synergy of new ideas, new perspectives, and new dreams

To facilitate collaboration

Explore opportunities for teaming up to accomplish common goals
“Network” – Learn who knows what and who is doing what

QUICK OVERVIEW OF LOCATIONS AND DATES:

Hendersonville, TN – First Baptist Church of Hendersonville – Monday Oct 29
Lincoln, NE – Lincoln Berean Church – Monday Oct 29
Marietta, GA – Johnson Ferry Baptist Church – Monday Oct 29
West Lawn, PA – Glad Tidings – Monday Oct 29 – More info
Middleton (Madison), WI – Blackhawk Evangelical Free Church – Tuesday Oct 30
Lynchburg, VA – Thomas Road Baptist Church – Tuesday Oct 30
Oklahoma City, OK – LifeChurch.tv – Tuesday Oct 30 – More Info
Normal, IL – Eastview Christian Church – Tuesday Oct 30
League City, TX – Clear Creek Community Church – Tuesday Oct 30
Sunnyvale, CA – Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church – Tuesday Oct 30
Greenfield, IN – Park Chapel Christian Church – Tuesday Oct 30
Toronto, ON – Catch The Fire Toronto – Weds Oct 31
Melbourne, FL – Calvary Chapel Melbourne – Thursday Nov 1

DETAILED INFORMATION >>>>

Monday, Oct. 29th
First Baptist Church of Hendersonville
www.firstbaptisthendersonville.com
106 Bluegrass Commons Blvd.
Hendersonville, TN 37075 [MAP]
615-447-1371
Ben Swaby: bswaby@fbchtn.org
More Information: http://citrt.onthecity.org/groups/86252/events/1517425
Mon, October 29: Registration at 8:15am, Roundtable from 9:00am-4:30pm. Optional dinner & gathering after 5pm (not included in registration cost)

Monday October 29, 2012
Lincoln Berean Church
6400 S. 70th St
Lincoln, NE 68516
402-483-6512
Contact: Mark Rock — mrock@lincolnberean.org
Sun, Oct 28th: Optional Meet & Greet gathering (TBD based on interest and those coming in on Sunday night).
Mon, Oct 29th: Registration at 8:00am, Roundtable from 8:30am-4:30pm. Optional dinner & gathering after 4:30pm (TBD whether dinner cost is included in registration).

Monday October 29, 2012
Glad Tidings Assembly of God (GT Church)
1110 Snyder Road
West Lawn, PA 19609
610-603-5659 Direct contact
Contact: Bill Sheeler — billsheeler@gtaog.org
Mon, Oct 29th: Registration at 8:30am, Roundtable from 9:00am – 5:00pm. Continental breakfast and lunch served as well as drinks & snacks through out the day. Vendors and door prizes too

Tuesday October 30, 2012
Blackhawk Evangelical Free Church
9620 Brader Way
Middleton, WI 53562
608 828 4200
Contact: Fredric Gluck — fgluck [at] blackhawkchurch.org

Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Thomas Road Baptist Church
1 Mountain View Road
Lynchburg, VA 24502
434-239-9281
Contact: Cindi Pritchett crfahle@gmail.com or @cpritchett17

Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church
728 W. Fremont Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA, 94087
408-739-1892
Contact: Suzanne Ungson
Facilitator: Jeff Caldwell (Director, Software Engineering at Dell SonicWall)
Monday, October 29: Option Meet & Greet gathering in the evening, details TBA.
Tuesday, October 30: Registration at 8:30 a.m. RoundTable from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. includes morning goodies & lunch. Optional dinner afterwards (TBD whether dinner cost is included in registration).

Tuesday, Oct. 30th
LifeChurch.tv
4600 E 2nd St
Edmond, OK 73034 [MAP]
405-396-6578 (OKRT)
Twitter Contact: http://twitter.com/mburleson
More Information: http://www.citrtok.org
Mon, October 29: Optional evening gathering, details TBA.
Tues, October 30: Registration at 8:15am, Roundtable from 9:00am-5:00pm. Optional dinner & gathering after 5pm (not included in registration cost).

Tuesday, Oct. 30th
Clear Creek Community Church
999 N Egret Bay Blvd
League City, TX 77573
(281) 338-5433 x702
Angela Creason – acreason@clearcreek.org; @acreason
Optional Meet & Greet Monday, Oct. 29 and tour of facility.

Tuesday, Oct. 30th
Eastview Christian Church
1500 North Airport Road
Normal, IL 61761
309-451-5022
Dustin Cassady – dcassady@eastviewcc.org
Mon, Oct 29th: Optional Meet & Greet gathering (cost of dinner included in registration), location Biaggi’s, additional details TBA
Tues, Oct 30th: Registration at 8:15am, Roundtable from 9:00am-5:00pm. Optional dinner & gathering after 5pm (TBD whether dinner cost is included in registration).

Tuesday, Oct. 30th
Park Chapel Christian Church
1176 E McKenzie Rd
Greenfield, IN 46140
317-462-4513
Matt McConnell – mmcconnell@parkchapel.org
Mon, Oct 29th: Optional Meet & Greet gathering (cost of dinner included in registration), details TBA
Tues, Oct 30th: Registration at 8:15am, Roundtable from 9:00am-5:00pm. Optional dinner & gathering after 5pm (TBD whether dinner cost is included in registration).

Thursday November 1st
Calvary Chapel Melbourne
2955 Minton Road
West Melbourne, FL 32904
321-952-9673
Chris Kehayias – ck@calvaryccm.com
Twitter: ckehayias
Thur, Nov 1st: Registration at 8:30 with Coffee / Hang Time. Roundtable from 9-4:30. Lunch will be at 12 noon, followed by more RoundTable Goodness! Tour of facilities and overview of live service operations. Optional Dinner. (Dinner will not be covered in registration cost

He-Man and an IT All Staff Email

2012-08-03T12:52:40-04:00

Do most staff simply delete the IT emails you send out? Certainly your emails are important or you'd not be sending them out right? Perhaps you just need to make them a little more entertaining...something people look forward to because there's always something fun inside to find. If you can just get them to open your email the battle is almost won. I started long ago making funny/goofy sign offs in my all staff emails...usually tying it somehow into the main content of the email. Staff continue to tell me they look forward to them. Some even say they skip to the bottom of the email first then go back and read the content! :-)

Now, keep your emailz short and to the point. Be clear, be honest, make it fun, make it understandable and make it conversational. And of course send as few all staff emails as possible. Don't spam your co-workers 'cause your important emails will stop being important!

Here's the email I sent out this morning ... I think this is the 1st time I've used a He-Man reference in an all staff email LOL! Already getting lots of postive replies back ;-)

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

TODAY at 2pm - possible network outage

Electrician's are doing nifty electricity stuff to a main building feed today starting around 2pm.

Their work will kill power to our key network gear (along with large chunks of the building) in the lower level which is THE CORE of the network here at The Granger Commons*. While we do have battery backup for our gear it is limited to approx 30mins.
The electricians hope to be done with our circuits before our batteries deplete, but if they encounter a snag we will have to manually power down our gear (IT gear does NOT like to be shut down cold!) before the batts die.
If we have to power our key network gear down it will kill all network traffic > internet, shared drives, printing, the full monty!

How will you know if we have to power down? Stay up to date with late breaking GCC TechOps updates by following @gcctechops on twitter … don't use twitter? No problem! Just text FOLLOW GCCTECHOPS to 40404. Now, you’ll start receiving our very infrequent twitter updates via text message. Nifty!
Don't have text messaging? Uh, really??! You need help! Your option is to goto our twitter webpage at http://twitter.com/gcctechops … and seriously, it's 2012 … get a text messaging plan already!!!

Jason … by the power of Grayskull! … Powell

* http://www.leadingsmart.com/2012/07/what-kind-of-church-would-change-the-name-of-its-property.html

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

Here's an old blog post with some other sign-offs I've used over the years :-) http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/2007/03/king_of_tagline.html

Join The New Church IT Community Platform!

2012-05-11T07:09:00-04:00

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+

2012-03-08T20:10:44-05:00

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

2012-03-01T20:37:16-05:00

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!

2012-02-15T07:00:00-05:00

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

2012-02-10T09:26:00-05:00

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)

2012-02-08T08:00:00-05:00

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

2012-02-07T07:41:00-05:00

(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

2012-02-06T07:30:00-05:00

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!

2012-02-01T07:45:00-05:00

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

2012-01-28T16:40:23-05:00

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

2012-01-18T07:00:00-05:00

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

2012-01-16T20:27:50-05:00

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

2011-09-19T11:31:58-04:00

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!!!