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We finished up the final day of Ministry Tech yesterday and it was great.  I made some great new connections, I learned new things, and as always feel re-energized. During the conference I had the pleasure of moderating one of the roundtable sessions. Session 2 to be exact. I will post more on the conference later as I go over the notes that I took. For now I am just posting on this session.
These are the notes I grabbed on the discussion for those who wish to comeback and look over our discussion.

Roundtable Session #2 Notes:

Topics
Storage
VLANS – Whats enough how to start etc…
IPv6 – Does it really exist?
2008 Server & Published Apps
Vista & UAC
Windows 7
Internal Wikis/Collaboration
Web based/Hosted Apps
Password Management
Documentation – If you get hit by a bus

Discussion

VLANS
-Dont VLAN without a PLAN
-VLANS behave differently so TEST before rollout
-Strategize Broadcast domains
-EBuford – VLANS:’Theres trouble to be had’
-Older hardware may ‘tag’ traffic differently
-If you use Linksys – We will beat you
-You WILL be accountable for security
-Whats the Entry Point?
-Hub and spoke for VLAN Routing
-Unused ports go into ‘Public’ zone
-VOIP VLAN voice traffic on Same switches
-VOIP does not need a GigPOE switch
-Ruckus -> Wireless solution that provides different access levels(ruckuswireless.com)

IPv6
-Turn it off
-Slows Name Resolution
-Not anytime soon

2008 Server
-What are the benefits?
-Some just member servers some DC’s

Exchange 2010

-It will be possible to upgrade from 2003 to 2010
-Great improvements for Mac users
-Entourage as an apple app would be ‘iSuck’
-Probably don’t want to run the current beta in production

Vista & UAC
-Good hardware and lots of ram
-Very stable
-No problems
-Maybe wait for Windows 7

Windows 7

-Lots of improvements with UI
-Better performance
-RC being released May 5
-Try it

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It’s no secret that we have some Sonicwall gear…. and we have been extremely happy with their performance. I have found recently that there is an interesting symptom on the E-Class units.

We utilize most all features on our firewall, from intrusion detection and anti-virus to content filtering. When using the content filtering you can utilize active directory(or another LDAP Server) for single sign-on authentication.  This works pretty well but in making some configuration changes we have noticed an unexpected result.

When changes are made to the user account or server used for LDAP authentication, the firewall will start rebooting. This could be an instance when you shutdown a domain controller, or maybe change the password on the account the firewall uses to authenticate users.

I have not heard of any fix from Sonicwall on this issue, but it is definitely something I hope is addressed quickly.

Leave me a comment if you have seen anything like this…your experience may be different.

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Here’s an overview of our recently finished registration kiosk project.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuN89SOOOS4

What are you doing for your kiosks?

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I had an interesting string of thoughts today during some of the talks here at MinistryTech. It was a little seed that was planted during Tony Morgan’s presentation.

Tony’s presentation went over the “10 Reasons Why Techies Scare” him. His number 6 reason was that techies don’t document processes. His example involved the concept of ‘the techie before’ and how we aren’t going to be where we are forever, for whatever reason. And we all have stories of knowledge/processes/documentation that left with the techie before us. So what exactly are we leaving behind?

I think that in order to do the best for the ministries we support, the churches we work in, and the God we live for, we must strive to leave a legacy.

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While going through my RSS today I happened upon THIS story.

 How cool would it be to have a speed cabling competition at the next roundtable?

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As you may have read on vaious other blogs, Northwoods was the place to be the week of Jan 7. Bill English, the man who wrote the book on Microsoft’s Sharepoint led 35 or so Church IT workers through the ins and outs of Sharepoint.

Fady got the ball started rolling on this one, and things progressed quickly after that. A location was chosen and registration opened. Once we had the time, the place, and the people it was time to get ready.

The big players on the back-end:

Linda Cleveland – Instrumental in the registration/preparation process for the attendees.
Melanie Gray – Made sure there was room for everyone, and that everyone had what they needed.
Linda McMillen – Kept us fed like noone else could.

The training was a great success in my opinion. My mind was filled to capacity and then some. I went into it thinking that sharepoint was just a simple collaboration/portal. But I have seen its true colors. Photo dump to follow.

Thanks again to everyone who came out, and a special thanks to Bill. Its not often you find someone in the private sector leading a Christian business.

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It’s Here!

We happen to have in our racks the hottest piece of server equipment released this year!

Check out a few pics, more info later!

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It has been a whirlwind. Things around here just haven’t stopped lately. Between the phone system move, data center stuff, the christmas production and closing up end of the year things there hasn’t been a dull moment and the days have been long. Here is a snapshot of things happening.

 As you may have seen on Jason’s blog we recieved our new racks and promptly starting filling them up. First with the move of the phone system.

While the phone guys were working their fingers off, we decided to start moving what other equipment we could.

Once we got the core switch(HP 5406zl) in and wired up the phone guys were ready to move our T-1. (Note: Rememer when VLANing that switch port numbers do not increase linearly)

We got the T-1 and our firewall and VPN moved all at the same time and wired up and ready to go.

 When we ordered our battery backup from APC This is not at all like I expected.

The phone guys were then able to proceed through each extension and getting it punched down in the new rack. Looks much neater now.

Once the phone guys had finished, I took a moment to examine the cable they had removed from our previous location.

With all this excitement stress levels can run high, Jason came to the rescue with a great Christmas gift. R/C Helicopters!

Once we had relieved our stress with some pilot action, I was on my way to a rehearsal for our Christmas production and noticed that our lobby was now a park…with an ice rink!

And to end things out we had finagled a couple pans of brownies out of some co-workers but our second pan must have been rushed out of the oven because it was not finished. This is Jason spreading the middle like butter. There are however some who think this is how brownies should be…those people are wrong.

 Things have definitely been crazy round here lately, but the mood is good. Christmas is my favorite holiday and this is shaping up to be a good one.

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Yesterday(Friday) I was privileged enough to be able to take part in the Northwoods Christmas party. It was a great time spent with staff in Chicago. I considered posting a photo journal of sorts but then I lost all of that ambition. So here are a couple of highlights and thumbnails of the whole trip.

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 I was doing some work in our server room today and a quick glance revealed to me one of the reasons we are in the middle of our relocation.

 I may not remember correctly, but I thought that 80 degrees was on the high side of the scale for your server room.

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