Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

Crossings Community Church Network Admin Opening

Just noticed this posting over on Jason Lee's blog

"Crossings Community Church in Oklahoma City is expanding their MIS Team.

Network Administrator

Scope of Position: Assist in supporting the stable operation of the in-house computers, servers and IP network infrastructure as well as other information systems applicable to Crossings Community Church.

Organizational Relationships: While this position will interact with most, if not all, of the departments of the church, the Network Administrator shall report to the Director of Management Information Systems (MIS).

Responsibilities: The Network Administrator’s role is to enable the ministry of the church with information technology hardware and software. This includes planning, developing, installing, configuring, maintaining, supporting, and optimizing all network hardware, software, and communication links. The person will also analyze and resolve end user hardware and software computer problems in a timely and accurate fashion, and provide end user training where required. This person will also work closely with the MIS Director to optimize all areas of the church’s information systems.

Skills Required for Position: Working knowledge of a Microsoft Windows domain and networking. Proficiency with Microsoft Office, desktop operating systems, and a strong willingness and ability to learn.

Education and Experience: The Network Administrator should hold a vo-tech or college diploma, at a minimum, and should have a minimum of 1 to 2 years experience in working with computers and various information systems components. A+ Certification or equivalent knowledge is required and any Microsoft or Cisco certifications will be beneficial.

If you are interested email a resume to Michael Foster (mfoster at crossingsokc dot org)"

ESXi Officially Free and Available

As was rumored last week ... the latest VMware hypervisor is now available for free.

Features & Benefits

Virtualize processor, memory, storage and networking resources into multiple virtual machines with VMware ESXi, an enterprise-class hypervisor with a thin 32 MB footprint for added security and reliability.

VMware ESXi is the virtualization platform customers build upon for continuous application availability and infrastructure security. With VMware Infrastructure 3, customers can add the benefits of server consolidation, automatic load balancing and business continuity to ESXi.

Happy System/Network Administrator Appreciation Day!

Hey! Go find your office geek(s) today and give them a hug ... it's System Admin Appreciation Day! :-)

July 25th, 2008 (Last Friday Of July)
9th Annual
System Administrator Appreciation Day

http://www.sysadminday.com/ for deets

VMware to release ESX3i for Free!

Dustin shot me an email this morning with the news ... next week VMware is going to start giving away it's latest ESX3i hypervisor ... and yes it fully supports iSCSI SANs!

Of course, you'll still need to pay for the big daddy features like vmotion, virtual center, etc; but this is a great move by VMware to get their hypervisor product into the publics hands (like ours) before we look closely at switching to Microsoft's new hypervisor :-)

Sadly, we don't have any physical servers that are on the hardware support list for 3i ... but the list is still young and growing.  That won't stop us from testing it on our older Dell servers :-)

This is just the next step in the virtualization ladder.  VMware Server is a great entry point to get familiar with virtualization and we've been running it production level for 3+ years now.  It works VERY well.  However, the bare metal 3i hypervisor eliminates the need and resource hit of the host operating system, in our case Server 2003 Enterprise, along with a host of other benefits VMware Server doesn't offer ... and again all this for free.  So we loose nothing and gain features all for free?  w00t!

Even support is available for a low cost of $500-900 ... that's a no brainer.

Now if only VMware would give us non-profits a big price break, like Microsoft, for vmotion and the other VM goodies!  Pretty Please!!!???

reminder: live Church IT Podcast TONIGHT, July 17, at 10pm Eastern

Don't forget the time change ... our interactive podcast has moved to 10pm Eastern ... still the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month.  Talkshoe is now very easy to join ... no user/pass required and no client to install ... more info at www.churchITpodcast.com

Tonight we'll get to see a 'webex'-ish demo of Solarwinds Orion network monitoring solution via our church IT peer Derek.  After that who knows what interesting stuff we'll discuss ;-)

The plan is to integrate more screencasting into each podcast so we can have more visual presentations instead of just plain ole audio.

Got something you'd like to demo for all to see?  Send me an email and we'll get you on the schedule.

Cya tonight!

GCC IT Roundtable Sept 17th

Wanna learn IT best practices?  Interested in how other churches are doing IT?  Then an IT Roundtable is for you!

Just a friendly reminder:  We're a little over 2 months away from our annual IT Roundtable held here at GCC.  Registration is open and only $49 ... I'd encourage you to sign up now. 

We'll have an optional meet-n-greet dinner the evening prior to the roundtable and then dinner again the evening of ... neither of these are yet mentioned on the registration page ... so plan accordingly :-)

What's a Roundtable?  Check out that link on how we run our events.  Peer to peer learning rules!

Huge list of possible Discussion Topics that have been compiled from prior roundtables.

And here's a recap from last year's event.

So if you can't make the big event at Seacoast in October, consider a trip to GCC this September.  I personally guarantee it'll be worth your time* :-)

* personal guarantee not legally binding in the following locations: planet Earth.

GCC Cowmunications/IT/Web Team

A recent team outing for Comm/IT/Web staff ... cowabunga dude! :-)

front left to right: Kem, Lisa, Your's truly
rear left to right: Ed, Matt, Lindsay, Jami, Jeanna, Daryl

Long live the bovine!

Watermark Community Church IT Openings

Scott sent me a note today that he's got a couple IT openings at Watermark in Dallas, TX.

"Do you have as much enthusiasm for God as you do for technology?  If so, Watermark is looking for you to join us as we grow.  Right now, we have a full-time Network Administrator position available as well as a part-time helpdesk position.  We are looking for someone who is…"  MORE

Interested?  Give Scott a holler and see if this is your next step :-)

A Great Vacation Photo

Just wrapped up a week of vacation ... Cedar Point was our big family fun event this time 'round.  Those of you following my Twitter have already seen this picture, but it's just too fun not to share with everyone else :-)

Jacob (10yrs) and I were determined that no matter what we had to ride the Top Thrill Dragster ... 0-120mph in 4s ... 420ft straight up then back down ... here's a youtube video that gives you an idea of what it's like.

So our last day at the park we stood in line and waited for front row seats ... yup, if you're gonna wait might as well go all out!  The ride was amazing!  I love acceleration and this did not disappoint! 

Jacob said he was a bit freaked out on the way up to the apex, but he gave the ride an 'awesome' rating.  When we viewed the picture they took of us doing ~120mph I immediately knew we'd have to buy it ... and I'm a bit of a tight wad.  So we plunked down $12 for this photo that will serve as a great laugh and a great reminder of our summer 08 vacation.

Church IT Podcast Time Change

After 30 episodes it's time for a change to our podcast ... a time change to be exact ... from 2pm to 10pm Eastern.  What the??  Well, it's becoming more difficult for people to squeeze time into their day to participate (including me!) so we'll try a night slot and see if that helps.

For sure this will allow some new 'faces' to join us since I know several IT volunteers that can't dismiss their day gigs to join our podcast during the afternoon.  I'm really seeing this as a positive although it does interfere with family time a bit.  2 hours or so a month shouldn't be a hard sell though :-)

So make a note on your online calendar of choice ... podcast moving to 10pm Eastern ... still every 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month.

REMINDER: NO podcast July 3rd ... enjoy your Independence by blowing something up!  Cya next time on July 17th at 10pm.