Michael Foster: Church.IT

MacCrossings

2008-07-24T14:06:00.001-05:00

At various roundtables and the MinistryTech conferences we discussed Macs heavily. When talking about supporting Macs in a MS environment we never discussed if we would allow Macs on the network, it was always a what are you doing. Well my internal answer to that was, "If they leave me alone, I'll leave them alone." I'm realizing that may not be. Jason Lee has documented the integration of Mac hardware into an Active Directory domain. It is my starting point and we are moving to a more Mac-friendly environment.

Despite what the commercials depict, PC's and Macs generally do the same thing. If we can allow people to to the same work on a platform they are comfortable and knowledgeable with, why not?

Management tools are getting better and the line between the two worlds is becoming less and less prominent. Lately, I've been using a couple of Macs (MacBook, and MacMini). I've come to the conclusion they really are cool. Don't tell anyone I said this, I'll emphatically deny it. I don't see myself using one anytime in the distant future but for commodity computers their UI is sleek and simple, it's easy to learn, the OS is stable, and the hardware is designed specifically to work together.

Am I being blinded by pretty hardware and marketing hype?

The Shack

2008-07-22T12:33:00.002-05:00

This is an interview of the author of The Shack on the Today Show today. He as some real bold things to say about religion and Christ. It is worth watching. I haven't read the book personally but I hear that it is changing people's lives.

Baskin Robins vs Linux

2008-07-18T15:10:00.001-05:00

There are many flavors of Linux out there in various forms. Some have cool names some have cool branding. I started out with RedHat. Then I moved to their Fedora distro. Now I am using Ubuntu and now they are my go-to-guys for two major revisions. I use ubuntu because there is a plethora of detailed of instructions sets for step-by-step instructions with screen shots and complete command line examples. I'm a gumby when it comes to Linux and I know that. It's been nice; all I need to do is add ubuntu and a description of what I want to accomplish in a search bar and I'll find newbie instructions so I can do what I want.

Linux is a great tool (OpenSource, Yeah!) since it can run on outdated hardware and there are no licensing fees associated with it. Some people use it to run everything from testing to full production.

I know why I chose Ubuntu but it makes me wonder why people choose their specific flavor of Linux. Am I missing out on some great gem or going about Linux entirely the wrong way?

OpenOffice

2008-07-18T14:51:00.001-05:00

Ever since I was exposed to OpenOffice in 2003 I've been keeping an eye on it. My interest was initially sparked by an article that indicated the City of Houston was moving away from MS Office to a hosted product called SimDesk. That got me looking around and I came across OO. I've used sporadically on personal level but haven't thought much about moving our organization to it until now. We have a volunteer that is a trainer and he is willing to help get our church offices converted. I plan to meet with him and iron out some of the logistics but needless to say I'm very interested. I've said it before but I'll say it again, Non-profit pricing models are great but OpenSource pricing is hard to beat. This is really possible especially since the OpenSource applications have gotten so good in the recent years.

I'm interested if any other organizations have scrapped MS Office for an openSource package like OpenOffice.

As a follow up the City of Houston is no longer using StarOffice as far as I can tell.

OS imaging and Cloning computers

2008-07-15T12:37:00.001-05:00

Until recently when we get new computers from our manufacturer we just use the default load that comes on them. We then have to patch each computer and load the necessary software. Up until recently that has worked fine for us. Granted, it does take us quite a while to deploy new systems. Our last batch of computers had some sort of issue with the image that was loaded to all of the computers and they would lock up frequently. The worst part is that we didn't notice this common issue with the computers until most of them were deployed. I am not fast and furious looking into imaging products so we can clone our default image with all necessary software and patches. I figure I can take a deployment process form 4 hours to less than 1. In come cases if the computer doesn't have any additional software we can bring the configuration time to about 15 minutes which is a serious improvement of 4 hours.

In the past I used the Symantec Ghost product but licensing on it is a little tricky and it has been several years but all I can remember is creating boot disk after boot disk. So, I am looking into some other cloning packages.

I tried to go the free route and use Clonezilla. I am sure it works great but not being super Linux savvy I had massive amounts of trouble. After several days I was able to pull an image but was never able to successfully push an image. Frustrating. My PXE boot would hang during the Linux boot process. I can only guess that my hardware wasn't compatible with the PXE boot image of Linux.

My struggles led me to a vendor called Acronis. I had used one of their products (True Image) so we could backup a production server to an image and restore it to dissimilar hardware. That is kind of what we are trying to do but only on Desktops and Laptops. Browsing around on their site I am persuing their Snap Deploy product It has some wonderful features that I'm very excited about, but it is a little pricey for me.

If I've overlooked some great products I'd sure love to try some others before I go and buy Snap Deploy.

Where's all of the traffic?

2008-06-25T08:22:00.001-05:00

I was doing my weekly breeze through of my google analytics and when I came across the blog listing I noticed it had completely flatlined which reminded me that I hadn't posted anything in a while. The truth is, we've been busy. Mostly because we are looking for a network administrator to manage our IT infrastructure, we are replacing the brains in our PBX Thursday, and I'm getting ready to go to camp with the 5th and 6th graders from the church. Sad to say but the blog has been a little neglected and I apologize for that. So, please accept my apology.

Farewell to a Great Table Waiter

2008-06-06T11:49:00.001-05:00

A couple of months ago Wayne Bollenbacher (my immediate supervisor) announced that he was was being called to a different job at a different organization. He spent 12 years at Crossings Community Church leading the church by serving. He always had wise, kind, and encouraging words to say but what impacted me the most was the spirit with which he served. Numerous times in the announcement of Wayne leaving I'd hear him say "I'd be most happy if my epitaph read: 'he was a great table waiter.'" His humility and character really reflected what a great table waiter is. Most people think that the role of a table waiter is second class and something to be looked down on. Wayne blew those perceptions out of the water for me and established the table waiter as an honorable job that's a very important part of ministry. Whatever needed to be done he would do it. He wore many different hats here which included treasurer, human relations, operations manager, finance, and the man with all of the answers. I witnessed him walk down the halls time after time and although no one could see and he wasn't a janitor, he'd pick up trash or wipe up the floors. In my absence he would act as tier 1 tech support. The list could go on and on of how he would see some kind of support service that needed to be done and he would do it.

Wayne lead by example with Love and great effort and effort for the Kingdom. He taught me to be proud of the support staff position and for that I couldn't thank him enough. This goes without saying, Wayne will be greatly missed.

UPS's don't like small generators

2008-06-05T17:03:00.001-05:00

In our effort to keep our datacenter running we rented a relatively small generator to run our IT services during our multi-day power outage. We found out the hard way that small generators and our battery backups don't work well together. The electricians were explaining to us how the power is sometimes too dirty for a UPS to function. The units would switch contently between line power and the battery. Unfortunately the batteries weren't off long enough to charge and they were eventually drained. Now we are on a quest to find out how to run our datacenter on emergency power. We don't actually pull that much juice but we don't want to run on dirty power. If you have some experience with small generators and computer equipment, I'd love to get your take (read: solution) on this problem.

Extended Power Outage

2008-06-03T14:05:00.001-05:00

Over the next couple of days we will experience an extended power outage in our administrative office area which includes our Datacenter. This is due to constructions and the need to move some of the lines that power this part of the building. We are doing quite a bit to prepare for the outage. A large generator will be tied into our current infrastructure to power the entire wing during working hours. This wouldn't have been a problem until we realized that the servers and phones work even after hours. To accommodate this we will be running our phone system, network equipment, and 5 servers off a smaller generator that will run until the power is back on.

The cool part about this (other than the gas powered noise) is we will be able to simulate a large power outage disaster. This has instigated the installation of a power outlet in our datacenter which will connect to a generator if a true, unexpected disaster actually happens.

YouVersion

2008-05-30T10:56:00.001-05:00

My brother-in-law (a children's pastor in Owasso, OK) was asking me the other day about any great places that I use on the web. It is funny that even though I feel like I spend my life on the internet I didn't have any great nuggets to share with him. He then asked me if I used YouVersion. I couldn't be too cool and act like I already knew about it because I was very intrigued. When I got home to check it out I immediately fell in love with it. Basically it is a web-application that allows you to read the scriptures and make notes and comments on specific what you are reading. I was trying to do this with my personal bible study and a blogger account. It was a little difficult. YouVersion gives you the ability to do what I was looking for and quite a bit more. It also allows you to share your thoughts and ideas with others and they can in turn share theirs with you. This would be great for small groups who want to connect with each other int their reading of the scripture.

As I was browsing around on the site I noticed that the copyright was LifeChurch.tv. The have been doing some really interesting stuff recently. I've been really impressed with their effort and drive to share their resources. This app could have been built only for their church members and they could have packaged it and sold it to others that were interested. Instead, they made it functional and available to all believers. This could be a huge blessing to many people and get more people digging into God's Word. Many people and their churches are receiving blessings from the openness of LC and their willingness to share and equip.

Their leadership and example encourages me to share our resources and knowledge for the Church not just our church.

Computer Clutter

2008-05-30T10:18:00.001-05:00

If you ever walked by my office you would notice the piles of stuff that I have to step over and work around to get the job done. Anywhere I have worked I can honestly say that I've never been able to keep a tidy office. I'll admit that about half of the blame lives in my hat but the other half is attributed to the amount of stuff that passes through my office. I have papers, boxes, cables, computers, ram, etc... well you get the point.

My computer isn't much different. It gets loaded with trial programs, web servers, SQL servers, OS files, CD images, drivers, diagnostics, etc... Again I'm sure that you get the point and if you work in Information Technology I'm sure that you share similar battles. I have a good policy for myself and that it is to wipe my computer every year and start over. As in the case of may other policies, I don't adhere to this one like glue. It takes a while to get a computer loaded back up the way I like them. This configuration also mutates month by month so an image of my ideal OS isn't very practical. So instead of the theoretical "every year" I usually depend on my pain threshold. Yesterday I hit the pain threshold yesterday when my desktop crashed 3 times rendering me useless for about 20 minutes each time.

This time I'm going to try and be a little smarter. I've loaded VMware on my computer and anytime I would like to test drive some software I'm going to try it on a VM before I load it to my wonderful desktop. In the process of reloading my computer I went ahead and snagged one of computers that we purchased for our desktop replacement program (don't judge me, they are awesome).

What are some good policies or tips/tricks to avoid your computers getting cluttered and sluggish?

Disaster Recovery Development - Simplified

2008-05-28T16:24:00.001-05:00

Tony Dye posted some great information defining some really important disaster recovery terms.

RTO & RPO - Recovery Time Objective & Recovery Point Objective

These two definitions should be the building blocks for developing your DR plan and its strategies. If you know how much time that you can live without your data and how much you are willing to lose then you are well on your DR way.

The other major factor in development of a DR strategy is obviously cost. The bigger the number for your RTO and RPO the less you are going to have to spend. As your RTP and RPO approach zero you costs increase dramatically. It is like adding 9's in your uptime or reaching absolute zero. The trickiest part is meeting your expectations to your budget.

Welcome to the PARADOX.

Hello, I'd like to introduce myself...

2008-05-28T13:10:00.001-05:00

I can't tell you how many times a week I receive an email or a phone call from sales people. I completely understand what they are trying to do and I believe they are really trying to save us money or give us better service. The people who we usually work with provide us a great service at a very high value to our organization. What I am struggling to deal with is the balance between being open for new opportunities and not spending too much of my time meeting with vendors.

Aside from my time management, I'm always reminded that the people that are cold calling me are God's children and every interaction is an opportunity to make an eternal impact on someone's soul. That single fact keeps me from hanging up on pesky vendors vying for our business. When I'm ready to be uber-assertive (read: rude) I'm gently reminded to Love.

What are some things to help you find the balance in your work ministry? I think that this applies to everyone regardless if whether you work at a church or not.

Windows Live Writer

2008-05-23T11:27:00.005-05:00

Jason Lee mentioned that he was using the Windows Live Writer (free download with different configurable services) to compose his blogs. I downloaded it a while back but I'm just now starting to use it. It is actually really nice. We have started to get some of our staff here blogging for their ministry and this might be a good tool for them to compose their posts since many of them aren't super savvy on technical things. I mean many of them just found out what blogs actually are.

Blog Applications

2008-05-23T11:27:00.004-05:00

We are using blogger.com for the time being because it is what I know. In the future our ministry blogs will be run by our website once the overhaul is finished. Are there any other good blogger applications you blog-a-riffic people use and love. I notice that many of the CITRTers use typepad and wordpress. What made you choose one over another?

A Nice Welcome Back

2008-05-23T10:28:00.002-05:00

Back in the middle of April my wife and I took a trip for our 4th anniversary. We saved up over the past couple of anniversaries to go somewhere big. We went to the Dominican Republic. It was wonderful.

The night before we left to come home I got a call from work to let me know that our exchange server had crashed and burned. My stomach immediately turned and my mind started to race. I was out of the country where my mobile phone didn't work, I had no computer access, so there was absolutely nothing I could do. I kept asking myself if I did have some kind of connectivity could I actually be doing something to fix the problem.

I was able to contact the church from our hotel phone and got some more details. None of them were good. After a $75 phone call I found out...

We lost a disk in our array for Exchange
The were able to call in a friend to come and help
A new disk was ordered and installed in the array
As it turns out when installing a replacement disk into an array on Dell PowerEdge servers there is a possibility that the array will become corrupted
Our array became corrupted when the replacement disk was installed
The most recent complete exchange backup was a month old (a whole other story)
The friend we had help us was able to purchase a program to restore the data from the corrupted array (Arax Disk Doctor - totally saved my bacon)
After the restoring the exchange database files we found out the they were corrupt

Needless to say I didn't sleep very much the next couple of days.

As I find out more information I learn that the server crashed the night that I left for vacation and had essentially been down the entire week I was gone. At the Sunday service they announced that the we weren't mad at the congregation and we weren't dodging their emails but our server had crashed. I my heart sank as did my body in the pew.

Over the next few days I worked nonstop to do a hard repair and a defrag of our database (which wasn't easy since the db was 40GB and we had almost no servers with enough room/power to deal with files that large). We were able to restore Exchange by Wednesday morning at 3:30 am with no noticeable data loss. The outage was about a week which is far beyond unacceptable. The only good thing is that it brings DR to forefront of management's mind which is something I've been trying to do this entire year.

Needless to say I needed another vacation to recover from the welcome back I received from my last one. The unfortunate part is that I may never be able to take a vacation again given what happened this past one.

I don't know what it is about servers but somehow they know when you leave and the worst possible things happen when you are gone. I think that it has something to do with separation anxiety.

Desktop Replacement Program 2008

2008-04-11T12:42:00.002-05:00

The year that I started a Crossings I implemented a program to replace every heavily used PC on a regular basis. In the past they would order single computers when they either died or they became too slow for the person using the PC.

Currently we are on a 3 year rotating basis for CPU's that are worked on everyday. We just ordered our 2008 batch and needless to say I'm pretty pumped about them. This year marks we will be replacing the last set of computers that were here when I started. It is a momentous occasion and I have the leadership of Crossings to thank for supporting our endeavor to keep our hardware current and useful.

If you look at my track record you fill find out that I am not brandcentric. The first year I ordered Dell because they were the best, cheapest computers for what we were looking for. The next year's model ended up being HP's because we got a better price for what we were looking for. This year we are back to Dell. Some of you might be rolling your eyes by now but the way I look at it: We order desktops once a year and from year to year a new model will be out by the next time we order. So, were are not completely standardized but we have gotten our desktop models down to 3 for the workstations that are used on a daily basis.

The computers that are still alive and kicking when they are replaced go to the bone yard to be frankensteined and used as check-in stations or other various tasks.

the 2008 model specs...

Optiplex 740
AMD Athlon x64 x2 2.9 GHz processor
2GB RAM
WinXP Pro Sp2
Dual Head DVI/VGA video card with 256 MB
17" Monitor with adjustable stand
DVD +/- Optical drive
Includes speakers

All together a pretty good computer that will be smoking for the next 3 years.

Power Tools

2008-04-11T12:29:00.005-05:00

In my spare time I attempt to remove myself from the information technology sector and look for other interests and hobbies. One of those interests that I partake in is working with power tools. I'd like to call it woodworking but I don't feel right about putting the things that I slap together on a level as high as that.
The Monday after Easter our wonderful church gave the staff a day off. Since Jennifer didn't have the day off with me I had to find something to occupy my time until she got home.
All of the houses in our neighborhood are pretty much the same and I noticed that my neighbor next door had constructed a shelf for his wife in the two and a half feet of wasted space between where the fireplace juts out and the wall of his house. I thought to myself we have that same nook and it could be used as a storage space for our gardening stuff. So, I made some rough measurements, sketched out a prototype, and went to Lowes and picked up some lumber.
(a funny side note is that I forgot that my rope which is usually in my car wasn't in there so I used a singe bungee cord to affix the six 10 foot pieces of lumber to the top of my car. only by the grace of God did it all make it to my house unscathed.)
My favorite part of this project is the fact that no holes were drilled in the masonry of the house. I used dowels to fit between the bricks and wedged the rest of the wood around. So, when we leave we can take our shelves with us.

Materials used

4- 1 5/8" x 6" x 10'
2- 2" x 4" x 10'
1 - 7/16" dowell rod
wood screws

Tools used

Good old fashioned hammer
Skill Saw
Drill (various bits)
Saw horses
Clamps
Tape Measure
Pencil

Adobe CS3

2008-04-08T15:38:00.003-05:00

If your church does any heavy creation of any type of publication you are probably using Adobe Creative Suite (hopefully). Praise the Lord Almighty that Adobe offers a Non-Profit licensing model because it is not cheep.

We kept needing different pieces of the CS3 family on the evolving needs of our organization. Check out the matrix of features that each package has. We just got the mother load version that has everything that is CS3. I just loaded to the workstation that we ordered for your new graphic designer. The software itself comes on 4 DVDs! That's right I said DVD not CD. The just the software load itself takes up 17.5 GB of disk space.
I'm glad that we ordered the most honking sweet workstation on our network (aside from our new Exchange 2007 server) to run this puppy.

All that to say, I can't wait to see what this software can do!

GO ADOBE!!!! YEAH!

ministryTech

2008-04-07T15:39:00.002-05:00

This was the first year for the ministryTech conference. We had a great group of men and women that came from across the entire country. The three things that impacted me in order of greatest to least are as follows...

Networking - Getting to know the other people at churches across the nation and building relationships with them to send and receive information was priceless.
Key note speakers - the speakers that they had lined up for this conference were incredible. They were able to relate things at a much higher level than I usually live my life in which gave me perspective on what I am really doing everyday.
Peer-to-peer sessions - The peer to peer sessions were fantastic as everything else was but some of the topics were far longer than we had time for.

Overall I am planning to attend this conference again.

Linux test

2008-04-03T22:03:00.003-05:00

Well I lost my drive on my laptop at home. While I waited on the restore disks from Dell I decided to see how Ubuntu would load to my Dell E1505 Laptop.

I've played with Ubuntu server on several occasions but it was only in a VM test environment and I didn't do much "work" on those loads. I thought that loading it at home would force me to figure things out.

I've had it loaded for several weeks now. And there are things that we like a ton and things that we really miss.

Things that we miss...

iTunes - I can connect to my iPod G5 with the native music player that shipped with my linux flavor but it doesn't connect up to iTunes.
Everything that I did with Windows is available with Linux but it takes me a while to find it. We are not the most patient people with searching for the stuff we are looking for.
Office is nice but still just a little different.
specific drivers aren't officially offered for linux on my dell.
Sonicwall Global VPN client not actually offered for Linux. (it is nice b/c I can't work from home, but then again I can't fix stuff from home now).

Things we love...

Simplicity
Quick boot
Quick shutdown

I plan to reload my laptop with windows and possible it will be a dual boot. Ubuntu is nice but not exactly what we need.

Blackberry Storm

2008-03-14T13:30:00.002-05:00

A few years ago Blackberry swept over Crossings like a raging storm. It was in high demand and a large portion of our staff decided that this was the answer to all of their problems.

Through these years I've seen the iterations of phones roll through like spring, summer, and fall. It is not uncommon for me to swap out a phone once a month or more. (We only have 15 Blackberry users). I am proud to say I'm still rocking and rolling with the archaic 7920. Don't be jealous, but it does what I need it to and it is as durable as a brick. I should know; I've dropped my phone down the concrete stairs more times than I'd like to admit.

The thing that interests me is how many people are jumping the blackberry ship. Has the SS BES lost its luster? I can't speak for every organization but I think that a few of our staffers finally realized that receiving and responding to email isn't as cool as it first seemed.

Don't get me wrong I don't see CCC going BB free anytime soon. We have several die hards that you couldn't pry their blackberry out of their hands with a rusty crowbar. These people also don't mind the expectations that comes with a Blackberry so it is a perfect fit. I just never thought that I see someone go cold turkey from a crackberry and not go through any withdraws. So far of the people that jumped ship have even mentioned going back to BES.
To me, this is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, it's just an observation.

Exchange 2007: Beginnings

2008-03-14T08:56:00.004-05:00

Just to update you on what is keeping me busy. We have our new server and I am working at getting Exchange 2007 installed.

So far it has been pretty straightforward. In theory Exchange 2007 implementation is anticlimactic because there are wizards that do all of the installation tasks for you. So if you can read and install software in a windows environment it should be a snap getting MS Exchange 2007 loaded.

I did have a few issues getting the domain prepared for Exchange. Currently we have a Windows Server 2000 box running Exchange 2003. That machine use be the "everything server" here at CCC which really means he used to do everything.
Here is a list that this server did at one time or another...

Exchange
File share
The only Domain Controller (for 100+ users)
(which would include all of the FSMO roles)
DHCP
DNS
(inluding WINS)
Certificate Server
IIS for Outlook Web Access

Call me crazy or "old school" but I think that is a lot to expect from a server so we have slowly been moving roles off of this workhorse to other hardware.

Here is where thing went a little rough for us.
Exchange 2007 updates the Active Directory Schema and it cannot have an Domain Controllers that are older than Server 2003. This forced me to demote our current server that had exchange on it. Scary! As it turns out she also was the primary DNS Server. After the demotion this server had nothing in DNS and on one could get any where. It took me quite a while to figure out why mail wasn't routing and people could neither get on the internet nor get to their mailboxes. It took a while to get everyone's DHCP changes updated and then there were the static addresses.

My motto is...
All in the name of progress.

The best part is that if everything else goes right no one should notice.

I will, however, notice many benefits for the upgrade.

Most importantly: hardware that is under warranty and in good working condition
The hardware is wicked fast (2 - Dual Core Opteron x64 Processors w/ 6GB RAM)
the Exchange 2007 management has simplified many of the views for administration tasks
All this server will do is be a DC and run Exchange.

It is all simply magic. Now all I have to do is get everyone's mailboxes over to the new server and make sure that BES 4.0 is working with Ex07 since it is not officially recommended.

Server Room Makeover

2008-03-04T08:37:00.002-06:00

Our server room, which is actually more of a closet, just got a nice makeover to allow for future enhancements specifically our new email server.

Background: Up until now we have been purchasing tower servers because we didn't have a rack to put them in. Needless to say the floor of our server room is getting pretty crowded. We have ample square footage in the room but it is an odd shape. The area is about 30ft. long by 4 ft. wide which makes it a little difficult to navigate during an emergency. We had cables and crickets everywhere you stepped. If anything ever needed to be moved it took what seemed like an eternity to navigate the rat's nest and figure out what you were unplugging.

Since we needed to order a new server for our new email solution I decided to make the jump and go rack mountable. I had extra money left over because we didn't need as much disk space on the new server so we purchased an open 4-post rack. Now we have the ability to implement new hardware without taking up anymore floor space. It has also organized our room much more and I don't have to stand on my head to access the phone blocks.

I would like to note that the majority of the cables that you see are for our security camera system all of the other cables are bundled nicely and can be easily identified.

During this makeover I was able to remove 3 extension cords, 3 power strips and a myriad of other junk that has been there longer than anyone can remember.

Bring on the new server(s)!

Throwbacks

2008-02-21T16:12:00.002-06:00

Knight Rider?!
American Gladiators!?

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like tv has gone back to the 80's. Don't get me wrong I am not saying anything bad about either show but doesn't it seem a little strange. I fully expect Buck Rogers to be remade to.