3. My Role
Responsible for planning, implementation,
security, and management of multiple
information and communications systems and
projects, including voice, data, imaging, Internet,
and office automation. Develop annual
departmental budgets and corporate IT policies
and procedures. Provide technical support and
training at all levels of the organization.
4. People I Serve
• Board of Directors
• Founders
• Guests
• Staff
• Teachers
• Volunteers
• Customers (aka Yogis )
5. Outside Help & Services
Eric Woudenberg – Dharma Seed
Geof Karlson – Yogi Enhanced System (YES)
Mark Pirani – Electrician
•Expert Laser Services (copiers)
•Charter Business (voice & Internet)
•Rapid7 (Nexpose)
•Gravity Switch (website)
•Prevco Audio (sound systems)
•CCB Nonprofits (software)
•Citrix (XenServer)
•Orange Oil (air conditioners)
•Dell (servers)
•Provantage (equipment)
Over 60 vendor/service providers including:
9. WHAT YOU DON’T SEE
The invisible and/or intangible aspects of IMS IT
10. What You Don’t See
• Astounding layers of complexity
• Vast array of hardware, software and technical
standards & protocols to study and master
• Anticipating obsolescence/adoption of new
technologies
– rate of technological innovation leading to
dramatically short lifespan of assets and
investments in hardware, software, web presence,
data formats, storage resources, etc
11. TIP OF THE ICEBERG
How much are we talking about here?
12. By the numbers
• 15 wireless access points
• 2 VPN firewall routers
• 2 dharma talk recorders
• 4 fiber media converters
• 2 air conditioners
• 6 microphones, 2
amplifiers, 2 equalizers, 2
FM transmitters for dharma
hall wireless headsets
• 2 phone and voicemail
systems
• 2 photo copiers
• Fax machines, digital
cameras, video recorder,
etc..
• 23 telephone lines
• 2 locked fireproof storage
boxes
• Phones: 6 cell, 2
conference, 7 emergency,
40 system, 2 helpdesk “red”
phones
13. By the numbers
• 6 external drives, 2 network
attached storage (NAS), 2
storage area networks (SAN)
• 37 desktop and laptop
computers
• 20 servers
• 48 displays
• 25 network switches
• 26 print devices
• 39 battery backups
• ~11 different operating systems
• ~15 programming languages
• ~100 username and passwords
for internal systems, vendor
websites, etc
• Central anti-virus & software
management for all servers and
computers
• ~26,500 lines of code for online
registration and donation etc
• ~300,000 lines of code under
the hood in YES
• Death by acronym:
– DNS, DHCP, LDAP/AD, DFS,
HTTPS, MySQL, MS SQL,
Subversion, SSH, SAMBA, iSCSI,
VLAN, NTP, GPO, MSI, VNC,
WSUS, ODBC, IIS, SMTP, POP3,
IMAP, ARP, WPA2
• Myriad cyber threat vectors
monitored with Nexpose etc
19. Case study: Retreat Support
What’s needed?
A system that provides on-call help for yogis
after normal operating hours
• Needs to be easy to use
• Needs to be reliable
• Needs to be flexible—given time-off schedule
for respondents (aka retreat support fellows)
20. Case study: Retreat Support
• Red desk telephone
• No buttons
• Dials immediately when receiver lifted
• Calls Google Voice number
• Google Voice rings one or both
cell phones
21. Case study: Retreat Support
• Rugged cellphone + GPS
• Operates in all
conditions
• Clear audio
• 6 hours of talk time
• Rings when red phone
received lifted
• Receives notifications
for missed calls
26. Roadmap (Future Planning and
Investment)
• Yogi Enhanced System (YES)
– succession plan for ongoing enhancements and
maintenance of our mission critical database
application as Geof Karlson moves towards
retirement
– forward migration planning
• Upgrading obsolete wiring at Retreat Center
