On many projects that I have started in my position as the first IT guy at a nearly-megachurch church, I have had the opportunity to experience a shift from understanding the projects conceptually to understanding them experientially.

With our network overhaul, currently underway, I am doing just that. I knew it would be a booger to run new Cat-6 to the entire plant, but now I’m seeing that it’s nearly impossible to get it to happen.

Some of the challenges that we face:

1. 5 distinct different buildings, all melded together into one behemoth of a structure. Each of the 5 were built about a decade after the previous, and built on a budget without much consideration for networking and future wiring needs. Plus, the earliest was built in ‘48 with no drop ceilings and full of asbestos.
2. No current IDF’s are in place, switches are strewn about in various offices and mechanical closets.
3. The room that I have secured for an IDF is centrally located, but is upstairs and requires massive conduit to be placed on the roof to get downstairs.
4. Though the physical distance from the main IDF to the offices in the front of the building is less than 300-feet, the path the cable must take is about 400-feet, which means I need to find room for another IDF - however, 350 of the 400 feet are in the attic above the sanctuary.
5. I’m an IT guy, not a construction expert, and our maintenance guys have been giving me a hard time about that because I think things would work that just wouldn’t.
6. I can’t afford to pay a contractor.

So, this will be a fun project, with a capital F-U-N. You may wonder why I feel the need to rerun the entire network, I’ll post about that soon.

Sending this update with Safari on my new iPhone.

We’ve started our network overhaul at church. We are so far overdue with this, and it’s not going to be fun, but I’m glad we’re finally doing it.

More to come from a regular keyboard later.

I’ve got to say that I love Nick Nicholaou. He was indeed my favorite part of the Shelby convention last week, and I gained a ton of valuable information from him. Today, here’s some insights from one of his classes.

Here are some of the things that I found noteworthy in Nick’s class:

• Short-term fixes are more costly than long-term strategies. As I try to lead our church to create and approve policies and procedures for IT, I am learning quickly that when you don’t have a plan you end up spending a lot more on technology than you should.
• When possible, avoid wireless networking. Much like abstinence, the easiest way to avoid viruses (and other bad stuff) through a wireless network is to avoid it. If wireless is a necessity for your organization, keep the AP behind the firewall (edit: outside of the firewall, thanks JRob for your comment). Our APs are a horrible example and are a huge risk to our organization. However, since there wasn’t a long-term strategy for wireless, it will be MUCH more expensive to re-cable these devices than it would have when they were installed.
• Standardization. Though not really about new building/expansion, it’s essential to standardize the software, hardware, PDAs, etc that will be used by your church. It is cost-prohibitive to support multiple word processing applications, PDA platforms, and printers. Standardize, and save today.
• Cable specs. When running new cable, go Cat 6. The cable costs more than Cat 5/5e, but it’s more future-proof, though Cat 6a/7 is on the way. Plus, the real cost is in labor, not in the cable.
• Run cable EVERYWHERE. When running cable, run it everywhere. Double the amount of conduit you think you’ll need when at 100% of current needs. Run cable to the platform (stage), to the worship center lobby, all classrooms, custodial office, and even the conference room table (not just the room, the actual table). If you may need it sometime, run it when you’ve already got the labor paid for.

Thanks Nick for a great session!