One of the projects I’ve been wanting to take on over the past year has been a rename/rebuild of our domain.  We’re still carrying our old domain name around from our previous name and location.  This hasn’t been a high-priority matter, but I do want to get it done.

After some research on how to go about it properly, I feel like I’m ready to take this on.  There’s a lot to think about and plan for, though.  The fact that I’m now able to to testing and pre-production building in VMware is a HUGE benefit, and since I’m not really on a time limit, I’m going to be able to work without being under the gun.

I’ll be posting on this more as the project take shape more.

I just came across this tonight.  I wish this product would have been available when we were in our previous building!

Here’s a link to the manufacturer’s product page.

Last night was another work night at NewPointe.  Here’s what went down.

–> Data/phone lines were run to the kitchen.  This is funny, because I remember doing the wiring plan thinking When will we ever need phones and data in there?  Well here we are, 6 months into the building and they’re being installed.  It just goes to show you, never say “never” and don’t lay down too many absolutes when planning a network.

–> A 12-drive eSATA array made its way to our Final Cut desk.  Since mid-March, we’ve been making it a point to archive video from our services from the weekend…at least one of them.  The problem comes with the fact that our video system is HD (it looks great, but it’s a double-edged sword).  Recording HD video will stretch your hard drives to the limit.  Compressed HD runs about 60 or so GB per hour (which is great compared to uncompressed HD, which is upwards of about 650GB per hour).

Enter the Norco DS-1220.  It’s got some pretty good reviews on it and so far I’ve really liked what I’ve seen.  We loaded ours up with 12 750GB drives; 10 for the array and 2 for hot spares.  The only drawback I’ve seen with this board is that it comes with a PCI-X eSATA controller, and since our MacPros don’t have PCI-X on them, I ended up buying a HighPoint RR2314 eSATA controller to work with our Mac’s PCI-express.  Other than that, I’m pretty happy with it thus far.

Next Work Night:  It’s gonna be a cable-pulling extravaganza.  We’re putting some much-needed data and phone drops into the control and editing rooms, and also taking care of some AV lines in the process.

On Tuesday night I took the opportunity to shut our servers down for the night, clean up the wiring in our server rack and MDF, and move the server rack to the other side of the room.  The moving of the server rack wasn’t super-crucial, but it did line the rack’s exhaust fans up with the air return in the room, so our air flow is now slightly more efficient.

I said on Wednesday morning that I would post some pics… really more for my benefit than anyone else’s.  So here they are.

A picture of the server room before the cleanup.  We’ve got wires hanging all over the back of the MDF/Telco rack. 

Here’s a couple pics of the server room and rack after the cleanup.  The wiring at the MDF is cleaned up, and the CAT5e wiring from the servers has all been replaced with CAT6 and is running to the ceiling through a piece of flex tubing.

The wiring in the server rack was also tied down with velcro ties (just in case we need to loosen it up to run more wires through).  Again, no pictures of the inside of the rack, because some goof (me) forgot to take them.

Why so much trouble to clean this up?  I admit, I’ve got a little bit of OCD when it comes to keeping things neat and orderly (and I’m still learning how to do it better as I go).  But I also believe that if something is hard to look at (like messy, unlabelled cables strewn loosely inside racks and such), it’s going to be hard to WORK ON, too. 

I’d rather make a time investment to get things in order rather than pay the price for it when something goes down and we have to start chasing down a patch to this or that.  We’ve still got a bunch to do in this room (as well as our IDFs), but Tuesday night got us off to a good start, and I’m looking forward to doing more of this in the future.

It’s just coming up on 6:30 Wednesday morning.  I just got home.  Tonight’s work night was a success for the most part.  The only thing that I didn’t get nailed down was figuring out how to run CommVault Galaxy Express on a network that’s separate from our LAN, though I think I might have stumbled onto the answer during the drive home.

I have to say, I really love what I do (duh).  I mean, I could have called it a day at 1:00am and gone home, but being RIGHT on the EDGE of getting something to work the way it should (namely the backup server)…man… that fuels me and keeps me going.  I guess I’m passionate about stuff working properly and looking good, even if it does keep me on task until the birds start chirping.

I’ll post some pictures of last night’s work after breakfast.

One of the biggest things that has happened to us over the past year was our relocation from Sugarcreek to Dover.  Not only was it huge in the sense that we were moving to a new building, but we also ended up changing our name as well.  Talk about a transition!  This has brought on many new opportunities and learning experiences.

If you are getting ready to embark on a transition such as this, whether it’s just an addition to your current building or a full-fledged relocation, make sure you take time to consider your IT needs for whatever your doing.  Whether this means simply new cabling and terminations, or more switches and new servers…whether you are an IT volunteer, the Tech Director, the Executive Director, or someone on the building committee, you simply MUST think about what will be happening in your new space and how IT might play into that.  Doing it ahead of time will save you time, labor cost, and a whole lotta stress when it comes time to occupy your new space.

• Never say “never.”- NewPointe has been open for 5 weeks now, and we’re already putting phones and F1 check-in stations in places that we never thought they would be.  Don’t think that a CAT6 drop won’t ever be needed in a room or in a certain location in your hallway just because there are no current plans for a computer or phone.  It’s a lot easier (and less costly) to put them in before ceiling tiles and drywall is in place.
• Plan for more. - When you’re putting together your network, make sure you plan for more than you need at that time, especially when it comes to your switching and your storage space.
• Have a dedicated room for your servers. - It doesn’t matter whether you have one server or 10.  If you’re moving your network to a new location, you need to have a secure place to put them, especially your domain controllers if you’re using Windows as your main platform.  Make sure the room has adequate cooling to keep your servers from cooking.  If you’re not rack-mounting your equipment yet, you should!  There are plenty of vendors out there that sell racks and rack-mount shelves.  We are using Hubbell racks for our switching, and our servers are sitting in a Dell rack.
• Get volunteers involved. - It goes without saying, but volunteerism is key to making things happen in a church.  One of the biggest wins during our move was being able to call on a few volunteers to help take computers out of our old offices, move them to the new building, and reinstall them on the users’ desks.  This freed me and Todd up to get our servers installed in the rack and get the rest of the network up and running, and when our users came in the following Monday, they were able to power up their computers and go to work with little-to-no incident. 

So plan ahead, and do it with an open mind to what the future might hold for you.  It will help you keep your cool during the last 1-2 months of your project when things start getting crunchy.