Bill Sheeler Church IT and more

A New Chapter Begins

2010-12-28T10:01:00.001-05:00

Well as a lot of you know, I have been part time at Glad Tidings A/G Church for the past 3 years doing IT etc. Well, the Lord has made his decision and as of January 2nd, 2011 I will be Full-time at GT as the Technical Operations Manager. I look forward to all the things I will be able to do with respect to technology at GT and know that it was all in His time.

I'm also looking forward to going to the CHurch IT Round Table (CITRT) in Melbourne Florida in February. It will be a great time of exchanging ideas, collaboration and just meeting some friends again face to face. Also, my sister in law lives 4.5 miles from the church we are going to be having CITRT at, so my lovely wife Donna will also be accompanying me (some vacation time too).

More to follow soon.

Migration complete

2010-08-15T08:57:00.000-04:00

I'm finally getting around to writing about the conversion from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008. It went rather well considering everything. We had Mark Moreno fly in to assist on site rather than do it remotely, which made everyone feel a little better considering the data loss we incurred prior to the conversion when we were migrating data on our VMs.

With the help of my TechOps Team of volunteers, we got all the workstations and laptops off the old domain and onto the new one without too many issues. We went away from having our user folders on the server (backing up gigs and gigs of music and personal photos was consuming a lot of time and space) to locally on their assigned computer. Very few worked on more than their own computer and if they need to access that data from home they can use the Remote Web Workplace and remotely connect to their PC and do their work that way.

We installed Sophos Antivirus and it is now pushing out to all our workstations. We also installed a SonicWall CDP device to facilitate backup of all the servers (other than the SBS 2008 server itself) including Exchange 2007, our Financial Edge SQL database, sharepoint, and our data server, not to mention all client computers local my documents folders with the exception of music and photos (with a couple of ministry exceptions).

We've also implemented a Terminal Server for our Board members to access since we also added a Board area to our sharepoint companyweb for the exchange of meeting minutes etc. The Terminal Server is also used by employees that do not have a workstation at the church nor do they have a church provided laptop. We only are allowing VPN access to our network, using the SonicWall Global VPN Client, or NetExtender, from church owned laptops to help alleviate the introduction of any viruses or spyware / trojans. The persons that may use the Terminal Server have complete access to shares that they would have access to if they were at GT, and also have the complete Office 2007 Pro Suite to use.

As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, we installed an Intel MFSYS35 modular server chassis, with 6 1TB Sata/Sas hard drives, and a single MFS5000SI compute module with a single Intel Quad-Core Xeon L5420 2.5GHz (1333 MHz) 12 MB cache CPU and 32 Gigs of ECC Reg Ram. We then installed VMWare ESXi 4.x on it. Well here is what we are now running on it.

We now are running eleven (yes 11) virtual servers on it. They are, SonicWall EmailSecurity server (running on Server 2003 std), SonicWall ViewPoint server VM, SBS 2008 Premium server running Exchange 2007, Sharepoint services, AD & DNS, Std server 2008 (that came with the SBS 2008 Premium and runs our SQL 2008 server for our Financial Edge Account software), another Server 2008 std server handling our Data shares, Four (4) Enterprise 2008 servers running our TechOps Spiceworks admin server, as well as an Imaging server (still in the works), Terminal Server, and backup AD server / backup DNS server/ Printer Services server, and finally an Ubuntu Linux server for a few small websites.

We still have some bugs to work out though. Macs cannot use the Remote Web Workplace therefore they must use the SonicWall NetExtender VPN to access the servers. The problem with non church owned Macs. They cannot use the RWW, to access the Terminal Server, since it only works with Microsoft's Internet Explorer due to the ActiveX control needed. Therefore, we still need to figure a way to utilize NetExtender VPN but not allow direct access to the servers or shares but only allow those Macs to use the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for Mac. This is still being worked on.
Other issues are accessing RWW from the SonicWall Guest Wireless system. I believe, that due to the inherent nature of how SonicWall created the Guest Wireless, and locked it down for security purposes, that we may never be able to get through that way. We don't hand out our WPA passphrase that allows access to our secure internal wireless network, and that is the problem with allowing iPhones or non church owned laptops access. It is quite a dilema. I believe something on the order of a radius based type wireless authentication is needed and I am researching that now.

As things progress and we make more changes I'll post more info.

Migration from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008

2010-04-25T09:05:00.000-04:00

Well, it looks like we are finally on schedule to convert from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008. There have been some issues that we have wanted to work out, the main one being that we are using an externally routable domain name as our internal domain, not good practice. So, we are going to create the server NEW using a .local domain therefore eliminating DNS issues etc that have plagued us in the past. To do this though will require alot of help from my volunteers, and backend work and direction from Mark Moreno at C&M Support Services. We will be starting this transition on Thursday May 13th at 5pm and plan to have it completed by Saturday May 15th at 5pm or sooner. We will have to touch all domain workstations to move profiles etc, and also all laptops, macs, and iphones to get this all working correctly, smoothly and efficiently. I am confident that we can accomplish this task with the TechOps team.

I will post more info as we hash out the exact route we are taking to do this.

SBS 2003 Server Virtualized now on to next phase

2009-11-02T05:38:00.001-05:00

Well it looks like we finally got the SBS 2003 server virtualized to the new Intel Modular Server hardware, one step closer to getting onto SBS 2008 with Exchange 2007. I'll get you more details soon.

New Sonicwall and Radios installed and more

2009-06-06T10:33:00.000-04:00

Well the new SonicWall NSA-3500 is installed and running as well as some of the SonicPoint N Dual-Band Radios, as well as the new Intel Modular server. The Sonicwall is running, as are four of the radios, but the Intel server is partially up (it's on VMWare but network not switched over to it yet). We had some issues with our switches, the make of which will remain unspoken (those who know me and the situation know what make they are). I believe we are still having some issues even after turning on Fast STP to quiet the apparent flooding on the switches. I still need to work with the radios and get a better understanding of them, but so far they rock (as long as their ssid's don't disappear).

Well for being part time, I sure feel like 2 full time people right now, but it is all for the glory of our risen Lord Jesus Christ. I could be elsewhere doing IT but I love doing it for Him, not me, so here I am.

With this upgrade and move to Sonicwall we created some interesting VLANs that work pretty well in doing what they are supposed to do. I can't wait to get the VMs running and work on them.

I need to find a good program to monitor network traffic across our 4 gigabit Ethernet switches, to see what is really going on there and what may be causing our network weirdness. Going from a small 2 - 24 port 10/100 switch environment to a 4 - 48 port 10/100/1000 switch environment has been interesting to say the least.

Well, I need to get back to the 2 Dell 1545's that I'm adding on the domain (Vista Ultimate seems good so far and the price was right at $99@ to upgrade), configuring, adding software etc.

More to follow.

New Building 34 days from soft opening & lots of IT work to do.

2009-05-22T20:17:00.000-04:00

Well we're 34 days from our soft opening on June 24th 2009. I'm getting things ready for it as we go. I just got done having Marty from Metro Sales Solutions tip the rest of our fiber optic cable runs for the new Worship Center area using Panduit Opticam connectors that are too slick to describe. Let's just say that he tipped 12 strands of fiber on both ends in about 2 hours. That's 24 connections in total, and tested. He had been here back in September and did 12 strands on both ends back then (24 tips in total) for the run from ou Main Network / Electrical room to Distribution Room #1 in the KidZone, and now he just finished the other run from our Main Network / Electrical room to Distribution Room #2 under the New Worship Center, and he did it all for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and didn't charge us either. He wouldn't even let me take him for lunch. But I told him he needs to come back when the new area is up and running, and I'll give hime another tour and we will do lunch for sure, it's the least I can do.

Now the guys for our fob system are able to come in and connect up the 2nd ACU in the new area to the system so we can make the doors hot and locked via electronic lock system.

And in IT it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas but without snow :-)

Our new SonicWall NSA-3500, along with 8 SonicPoint a/b/g/n radios have arrived as well as our new Intel MFSYS35 Blade server which will run VMWare ESXi and MS SBS 2008 Premium server, as well as a virtual MS Windows 2008 std server with SQL server, and a Windows 2003 std server and more.

I got boxes everywhere, and no where to put them (more on that later).

All of this is due to going to CITRT back in April and meeting Mark Moreno, a great vendor, an even greater man of Christ, and a new friend too.

I was going to install a new Cisco 4402 WLAN Controller along with Cisco WCS and 4 new APs (I have 3 Cisco APs now) to start off our campus wide wifi.

Well after talking to Mark, and checking him out with some other people at CITRT, I decided to go with a more unified solution that he put together that included not purchasing he Cisco gear, removing our Juniper Firewall, removing our Barracuda Spam Filter 300, as well as our Bluecoat 200SG Content Management device, and our old HP server running Windows SBS 2003 Premium, and replacing it with a SonicWall NSA-3500 to take care of our firewall, and wireless Access Point controller, as well as 8 new SonicPoint a/b/g/n APs, and a new Intel MFSYS35 Blade server running VMWare with a VM of Windows SBS 2008 Premium server running Email security for Windows SBS to handle Spam etc.

At this same time I'm trying to get ready to move my office from one of four cubical's in a room shared with 3 other people to my own office (woo hoo). The carpet layer is supposed to have the carpet down this Wednesday (Mark comes in Wednesday late afternoon), and I already have 6 Gigabit Ethernet connections in there, as well as 2 20amp power circuits, so I'm ready to move in and set up to get things rockin and rollin when Mark comes in (I pray).

More to follow.....

What's happening in GT Church's Tech Ops

2009-05-22T20:06:00.000-04:00

Taking a title from 24 and some of the guys & gals on CITRT (Church IT RoundTable) I'm calling the IT Department Tech Ops here.

I've been with GT since January 2008 as part time staff holding the position of IT / Web Administrator working 3 days / week (approx 20hrs). I started as an outside contractor back in September of 2006 when our Lead Pastor, Bryan Koch asked me to help them get a website going. The rest is history.

We went from using an outside firm to handle IT with our Director of Operations and our Multimedia Director handling day to day issues, to having me on staff along with a handful of volunteers for doing things from servicing PCs, loading software, etc., to working on a revamp of our website.

We are in the final stages of our Forward By Faith building program, in which we have built a 16000+ sq ft KidZone for ages B-5yrs old (which is open and being used), and our 1500 seat Worship Center that also has a large atrium with the new Sacred Grounds Cafe Grill along with Scrolls Bookstore, and more. This new building encompasses approximately 45000 sq ft of space. You can see the plans at http://www.gtaog.org/220930.ihtml.