Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

Did you say 50TB?!!

A couple weeks ago, we had our first Grand Puhbah Storage Meeting at GCC.  I gathered together all the key staff that work with lots of large files to talk storage and digital asset management.  Since we are a media heavy/driven church we consume lots of drive space. 

Here's a snippet of the meeting invite that was sent out ...

Why a Meeting?

We have LOTS of files (many mission critical) getting saved in various places both at GCC and individual’s homes and ??? … some are backed up, some are not, some are on redundant drives, some not, etc … all of our storage resources are full or filling up fast and we’re only going to need LOTS more storage in the coming years … can you see a problem :-)

Couple questions to ponder prior to our first meeting …- How much storage space do you currently consume?

- Where do you save your mission critical data?

- Is it backed up? How often? Where?

- If the church or your home were destroyed what data could you still recover?  From where?

- How quick/easy is it for you to find older files?

- How quick/easy is it for someone else to find your files if you get hit by a bus?

Purpose of the meeting was to begin putting together what a 3 year storage and digital asset management plan might look like, assign cost figures to it, and then get it into the budget proposal process for next year.

First rough estimation is that we have 20TB (20,000GB) of physical storage space spread across various network shares, SAN, XRAID, media editing stations, various external drives, etc.  yowsa!  How much space will we need in 3 years?  Great question!  I think it's probably safe to say 50TB (useable) at this point until some actual predictive analysis is done.  Sound crazy?  When I talked with the guys at North Point last year they already had a 40TB+ XSAN.  (note to self - visit Ryan and crew at North Point in near future)

Here are the 3 driving points we're working from at this stage:
- Centralized Storage (one place where ALL files reside)
- Centralized Backup (one backup solution)
- Easy to find both current and archived stuff (need for structure and controls and attaching metadata for easy searching)

After an hour and a half we had no answers, but the consensus was that this IS something we need to be pursuing.  Now that Innovate is over I'm hoping I can divert some brain activity towards this project again.

Innovate 2007 is over

What a week!  I'm exhausted ... spent ... but there's this great sense of satisfaction about what has just happened at GCC.

MEGA thanks to my wife and kids for understanding or at least putting up with only seeing Dad for about 2 or 3 hours since Monday.

Special thanks to my team ... Ed and Kyle went above and beyond ... you dudes rock!

Thanks to everyone who attended the IT roundtable Weds ... great discussion.  It was recorded so hopefully the audio is good enough to turn into a podcast.  I'll post more details later.

Thanks to those that attended the IT Best Practices breakout and Blogging breakout.  I'll post details and links to some of the stuff we talked about in a few days.

Thanks to the many people that have introduced themselves to me over the past days.  Many great conversations.  I hope you were encouraged, inspired, and re-energized to go back home and lead the charge for Jesus.  You have encouraged me likewise.

After I recoup I'll post some pics and details from the past days.  Rock on Church!! :-)

GCC IT Roundtable live stream and chat

Today (Sept 26th) the GCC IT Roundtable kicks off at 9am Eastern.  If all goes as planned you can listen to the live audio stream and join a chat room to sorta participate in the discussions (see links below).  Audio stream will not be available during breaks and lunch.  We'll be working to turn the audio into a podcast later
this week.  Enjoy! :-)

UPDATE:  Sorry ... no live audio afterall

Link to live group chat

GCC Roundtable housekeeping items

It just struck me that it's possible someone had a registration snafu and thus hasn't gotten the last 2 emails I've sent out with details about the GCC IT Roundtable on Weds.  So if you registered (yes, you still can), but haven't seen this info please contact me ASAP.  ============================================

-          Tuesday evening we’re having an informal meet-n-greet from 4-8pm Eastern for anyone coming into town early.  If you can make it Tuesday evening please shoot me an RSVP reply to this email.  For those arriving between 4-6pm come to GCC and follow signs to the Tech Offices.  We'll plan to leave GCC at 6pm to head just down the street to Moe's Southwest Grill (FREE MEAL baby!) ... feel free to just meet us at Moe's too.  At 7pm we'll head back to GCC to hang out until 8pm.

-          Wednesday the Roundtable starts 9am and runs ‘til 4pm officially … BUT the fun doesn’t stop there!  For those that can stick around we’ll continue to keep the room open until 8pm for further discussion into the evening and we’ll even order in some pizza or subs … yet another free meal!  If you plan to stick around after 4pm please RSVP to this email.

-          If you’ve not done a roundtable before here is how it works in a nutshell …
At the beginning of the day we’re all going to create a list of discussion items.  The rest of the day is spent going through the list.
So it’s very important that everyone contributes to the creation of the list as well as the discussion that follows.  Thou shalt not not participate!

o   Your assignment is to bring a list of topics and/or specific questions you’d like answered/discussed.  Below are some topics generated from past roundtables that might help you create your list (see end of message).

Week of Innovate is here!

Last week was busy busy ... this week will be crazy busy!  It's pedal to the metal prepping for Innovate 2007 ... attendance is on track to see 1000 church leaders from across the nation descending on Granger Weds-Friday!

We've purchased 6 used Proxim access points expecting many more wireless users this year.  3 "public only" access points have been placed up in the auditorium catwalks (yes, I hit my head hard on a stinking beam) ... giving us 5 AP's to cover the entire auditorium.  That gives us capacity for approx 350 simultaneous users.  We recently learned that our AP4000's drop from 63 simultaneous users per radio to only 27 when WPA clients are connected ... crud, we use WPA for our private wifi.  So we could only handle 50 some users in the auditorium prior.  These new AP's will only allow guest access and thus can handle 60 users each.  We're also adding 2 guest only AP's to our downstairs areas ... and keeping 1 set aside for a spare or emergency coverage somewhere.  So we'll soon have 14 AP's across the building ... and no these are not centrally managed.  That's something we'll tackle when budget time rolls around.  We'll also be looking at other hardware options as well.  Aruba and Meru both look pretty sweet ... I'm so ready for .11n :-)

So now we're bottlenecked by our internet pipe (3Mbps up/down) and our Nomadix guest access gateway.  We've decided to cap guest users to 256kbps up/down ... it's not super fast, but hopefully it will create a better overall experience for everyone.  Our Nomadix is currently licensed for 250 simultaneous users.  We've never seen 200 wifi users at our past conferences, so I'm going to take a small risk and say we're ok for this year as well.  If we have more than 250 we'll see about routing some AP's straight to the sonicwall and out.  Always have a backup plan right ;-)

Here's what's happening in my world this week...

• Tuesday evening the GCC IT Roundtable kicks off with a meet-n-greet-n-eat 4-8pm.  You can still sign-up and come!
  
  • I'm also turning a year older Tuesday ... feel free to send gifts ;-)
• Weds is the Roundtable from 9am-4pm officially ... then we'll order in some food and hang until 8pm.
• Thursday I'm doing an IT Best Practices breakout ... out of maybe 1000 people how many you think will come hear about IT?
• Thursday night is New Community Service and our Film Festival
  
• Friday I'm doing a blogging breakout with Kem and Daryl ... last year this was a packed out room.
• Thurs and Friday I've been asked to be a "concierge" for a large group coming from Relevant Church in Tampa, FL.  They have crunchy music on their website so I think we'll be a good match :-)

This will be an exhausting but great week.  To God be the glory!!

reminder: interactive Church IT Podcast this Thursday (Sept 20) at 2pm EDT (-4GMT)

Hey, don't forget we're doing episode 16 of the Church IT Podcast this Thursday (Sept 20) at 2pm Eastern.

Featured Guest - ChurchPost.com will give us an overview and Q&A of their product ... we're even attempting a screen sharing session this time 'round.

"ChurchPost.com is a web-based communication service that allows churches to better utilize email technology to manage and communicate with their unique ministries, small groups and activities."  According to them, If your church uses products like Constant Contact (we do) you'll want to check out what they have to offer.

Afterwards it's open forum:  Bring your questions/topics and let's run them through the mill.

Interested in joining this live podcast?  You should be!
Want to hear past podcasts?  Of course you do!
Get all the deets on the Church IT Podcast Wiki

Stream the GCC IT Roundtable live?

I need your feedback on this ASAP.

If we offered you the ability to listen in or maybe even somehow remotely particapate in the IT Roundtable at GCC next Weds would you?

I've got a couple options to possibly pursue (like Adobe Connect), but unless there's a strong interest I don't want to spend much time investigating further.  Strong interest means I need 10+ people requesting we try and pull this off.

If this would benefit you please leave a comment below BEFORE noon this Thursday.

Happy B-Day Dean!

I've found a truly functional use for Facebook ... birthday reminders!

I logged into facebook this weekend and noticed Dean Lisenby listed in the upcoming birthdays box ... now there's a useful feature for a guy like me :-)

Dean leads a team of 24 some IT guys and gals at ACS Technologies.  Our church is not an ACS customer, but I enjoy hangin' out with Dean ... he's the real deal.  I've had the opportunity to hang with Dean at various roundtables, phone chats, the church IT podcast, and again last week at ministryCOM.  He even shuttled Tony Dye and me around in his kewl hybrid rental car :-)

What impresses me most about Dean is that I never feel like he's trying to sell me something.  He's an IT guy like the rest of us ... and he also has a heart for the Church that's quite transparent.

ChMS vendors take note!  Get your IT guys vs. your sales guys involved in our roundtables.  This will build your street cred when churches are shopping ChMS solutions.  Dean has street cred out the waazoo in my book :-)

So a big Happy Birthday to Dean!  Go wish him well over on his facebook profile

Bad form

We just walked into the Nashville Airport and this very visible info screen had a lovely "recovered from a serious error" message for all to see. And I now know they use VNC for remote access and that their anti-virus isn't configured with Windows Security Center ... etc

You'd think they'd just turn the monitor off rather than display a big error message ... this is just bad form ... and makes a poor impression.

Goodbye Nashville

Well, ministryCOM is now over.  Honestly, I got more out of it than I thought I would being an IT guy in a communications conference ... but this will prob be my only venture to said event.

Naturally, one of my favorite parts was hangin' with other IT dudes.  6 of us had pizza Thursday evening and then a good dozen were around for lunch Friday ... not huge numbers, but great conversation/discussion none-the-less.  Tony Dye was taking notes so watch his blog.  And thanks to the local guys that came to these IT meetings.  I strongly encourage you to find ways to continue to meet.

Today (Saturday) Kem, Jami, Daryl, Lisa and I did some sight-seeing around Nashville before we head home Sunday.  It has been fun to get to know them better outside of work ... we laughed a lot, walked around a lot, and ate a lot :-)

The next several weeks are going to be insane prepping for Innovate and the IT Roundtable at Granger ... as they say here in Nashville ... YEEHAW!!!!