Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

Registration OPEN for Fall 2012 Church IT Roundtables!

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

REGISTER ONLINE

 

 

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: [email protected]
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 — [email protected]
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 — [email protected]
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 [email protected] 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 – [email protected]; @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 – [email protected]
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 – [email protected]
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 – [email protected]
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

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!

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

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

Apple Quietly Introduces Accidental Damage Coverage: AppleCare+

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

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

Description reads:  

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

How to get AppleCare+

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surprise IT Volunteer Award for Tom Templin

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

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

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

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

________________

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justin Moore - Tom Templin - Jason Powell

Farewell Free OpenDNS For Businesses (and Churches)

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

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

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

Here's the full announcement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google Apps For Nonprofits AGAIN Open to Churches/Ministries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Registration Open for 2012 National Church IT Roundtable!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just text FOLLOW GCCTECHOPS to 40404

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

Thanks,

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