Once again, the Church IT RoundTable managed to be the coolest thing ever. Here are my quick, contemporaneous notes from the roundtable sessions. I moderated in Studio B, so my ability to take good notes was limited.
Conference WiFi
- 24 laptops in the room. Most if not all connected to the demo Xirrus array in the room. Worked perfectly. Kudos.
Mac OS issues
- magic triangle – term used by Apple to describe AD-OD integration
- Why do AD-OD integration?
- Daryl Hunter at LifeChurch not sure why it’s needed. Mac people have tons of files all over the place, completely unmanaged, not searchable, etc. Hezekiah Barnes – Mac admin from Southeast very strong
- Brian O’Neal – faith based support from Apple
- Biggest issue is setting up ACLs so they sync between the two directories
- Exchange 2007 even worse problems with Entourage than before. Entourage database corrupts occasionally. Problems with people using Entourage on one computer and Outlook on another. Entourage 2008 is more stable with better features.
- Don’t need AD integration for file and printer sharing. Ideally it will work for single sign-on, but this is tough.
- People love their Macs partly because they’re not managed. Everyone lets their Mac users be local admin. Some are doing the same for PC users.
- Too much Mac data isn’t getting backed up.
- Can become a certified Apple shop and then do your own repair. Don’t have to pay for Apple Care.
- Backup Exec has an agent for Mac.
SAN/Virtualization
- Compellent has cool interface
- EMC is awesome performance, difficult to manage
- EqualLogic is fast
- SAN Melody is a software-based SAN – does storage virtualization. Cheap.
- KVM virtualization for Linux – feature equivalent with ESX. KVM easier to manage than Xen. Performance is very good.
- Windows people love Hyper-V
- Mark Rock says ESX people are always looking for a place to hold a user group. Love churches with an open area and WiFi.
- Compelling reasons for virtualization: Better hardware utilization. Quicker disaster recovery. Lower space requirements, lower heat.
ChMS
- Joomla has a CRM plug-in
- Tony says all ChMS are too hard to use.
- Most discussion around check-in and attendance. Various theories about hospitality and whether self check-in or assisted check-in is better.
- David Drinnon built a system using RFID for check-in
- Text to a short code number (like we did our survey this morning) used by Southeast to do student ministry attendance http://www.polleverywhere.com/
Desktop management/Help desk
- Altiris. Dell is a reseller.
- Spiceworks
- AuditISX – open source
- Easy Audit
- Everrest Corporate Edition
- Dave Waters works in the IT Dept. for Numara, makers of Track It
- Ruckus does authentication integrated with AD
- Dameware – remote support NT Utilities includes Mini Remote Control. (Numara resells as Track It Remote)
- Vista image utility boots from a USB drive. One image for any kind of machine so long as all drivers are present.
- Help Desk – Reimage.com
Network monitoring
- Cacti
- Ground Work
- Open NMS
Intranet
- David Drinnon: “I don’t like Sharepoint. We’re playing with it.”
- Daryl Hunter: “LifeChurch built an internal portal. No adoption. Abandoned. What does an intranet give us a search server doesn’t? We live in e-mail. Use corporate IM, Yammer.”
- ACS has a home-built intranet. Couldn’t work without it.
- Al Fresco – Sharepoint competitor
iTunes
- ACS – music not on the network except certain users and certain specific network folders
Remote access
- Don’t use port 3389 for terminal services. Consider 2-factor authentication. Security concerns.
New facility construction
- 20% “forward thinking”
- Two 4″ conduits between buildings
- Two 4″ conduits into the building for the telecom providers
IT Management
- Surveys of users about help desk experience
- How to measure IT health? Key indicators? My answer: ticket load, project time lines, annual goals
- Identify felt need -> evaluate how a particular solution fits with mission/values
- IT Staffing – importance of team affinity is Jason Powell’s #1 lesson of the last year
Clif Guy sporadically 