It’s always a bit scary when someone asks you to recover really important data from a week or two ago.  Did the backup run that day successfully?  Did it copy to tape successfully?  (We do disk to disk to tape backup)  Will the restore work?

A little over a week ago, our membership people found about 13,000 “Unassociated” records in the Shelby database.  Under Shelby’s guidance, I did a database backup and we deleted the orphaned records.  Shelby assured us it wouldn’t affect any “good” records.

Well, here we are a week later and apparently a few people are missing, so I’m uploading the current backup and the backup before the pruning so that they can figure out how to restore the deleted people.  Unreliable software is really annoying and Shelby is moving higher and higher up my “Unreliable List.”

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to meet with Jill, our new communications director, about how we manage out membership data.  How do we communicate with our members?  Where does the data come from?  What are the problem areas?

We were able to identify at least 8 different types of “Databases” in use other than our Church Management Systen (Shelby).  Yikes!  The next steps are to identify why we are using so many disconnected databases and develop a solution that will meet the needs of the church long term.  It’s going to be a lot of work, but should be fun.

I love being on the bleeding-edge of technology.  In our “wired” world, technology is critical in empowering our staff to more effectively carry out the mission of the church.  We were a relatively early adopter of Exchange 2007 - migrating from Lotus Notes last summer.  Now, we are actively exploring the cool features Windows Server 2008 has to offer as well as beginning to roll it out in our production environment.

Things have gone relatively smooth so far, with a WSUS server, three terminal servers, and a few other miscellaneous apps successfully running on Server 2008.  I’ve recently been looking into migrating our exchange environment to Server 2008.  Since they are both Microsoft Products, it should be easy, right?  NOT!  I wonder sometimes if MS makes it hard for us on purpose.  Here are a few of the stipulations for running Exchange 2007 on Server 2008 (from the Exchange Team Blog:

• RTM version of Exchange 2007 will not install run on Server 2008 (I can understand this, since Exchange 2007 was released way before Server 2008)
• Exchange 2007 SP1 runs on Server 2008 (sounds good so far)
• Upgrading to Exchange 2007 SP1 on Server 2003, then upgrading to Server 2008 is a No-Go
• Upgrading from Server 2003 to Server 2008, then installing Exchange 2007 SP1 = absolutely not
• Clean install of Server 2008 + clean install of Exchange 2007 SP1 is gold.

So, basically, the only way to get exchange onto Server 2008 is to do a clean install of Server 2008 on bare metal, then install Exchange 2007 SP1.  At that point, you must configure all appropriate Exchange roles on the new server, migrate all the mailboxes, and then decommission the old server.  Doesn’t sound like much fun.  And, to think, I have 3 Exchange servers.

Obviously, I’ll survive and it will all get done, but it’s a bit frustrating that a company like Microsoft can’t plan for better integration/interoperability among their own products!

I attended the Microsoft product launch event in Atlanta yesterday.  Been traveling all day today, so just not getting a chance to type up a post about it. Overall, it was a great experience.  Got to see and learn about lots of cool new features in Window Server 2008 that I haven’t had a chance to test yet.  Also talked to several interesting vendors.  Here’s a few random thoughts:

• Freebies are always nice.  I walked away with a full copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and limited or trial versions of several other products.
• Overall, the speakers were really good.
• The exhibit hall was like way crowded in the morning.  Hard to have a serious conversation with the vendors do to the number of people present.  Got a little better later in the day.
• Network access protection is interesting - can check certain aspects of a machine, such as antivirus and firewall status and only allow access to servers if certain criteria are met.  Optionally, traffic to servers containing sensitive data can be IPSec protected.  Awesome concepts, but I have a feeling it’s going to be difficult to manage and create headaches for users and IT staff.  I might play with it a bit if I can find time.
• TS RemoteApp is really nice.  We already have a couple of servers running it and will roll it out in our production environment really soon for Shelby and EMS.
• I really, really like Terminal Server Gateway and Web Access features.  Combined with RemoteApp, it seems like the perfect solution for users to access certain apps from their home computers.  Basically, the user logs into a web site and it presented with a Windows desktop looking screen with icons for apps and servers they can click to connect to.  All the traffic gets tunneled over SSL, which makes me less concerned than opening RDP to the outside.  It can also be hidden behind an ISA server (which we already use for remote Exchange access) for additional security.  I really think this is the answer to some of my remote access woes.
• I thought the web server session was boring.
• MS has come a long way with their virtualization products.  In my opinion, it’s still not up to par with VMware though.  There’s still no live migration ability.  There’s still a host OS involved (I think about how many times I have to reboot windows servers vs how I never have to reboot ESX).  There’s no way to resize a virtual hard disk (seems really odd to me, VMware has had this for years).  Give it a couple more years, and HyperV might be the way to go.  I’m not convinced yet though.

I just installed the Xirrus WiFi monitor gadget and thought it was kind of cool. Shows all available access points and their relative location on a “Radar Screen” with signal strength, SSID, MAC Address, etc. Nothing to see here at the house but my own AP. Will have to play with it some more at the office.

One thing that seems to always be an issue here is getting big files to outside vendors etc. Obviously, email is good for small files, but it never ceases to amaze me how many printing companies have email systems that can’t accept a 5MB file. Then there’s the bigger files that shouldn’t be emailed anyway.

The obvious solution is FTP. However, it requires client software and user training. The training it no big deal, but the software is - another app we have to roll out and support. Windows explorer can kind of do FTP, but it really doesn’t work very well. There’s also the issue of having to maintain passwords (which would have to be separate from internal AD passwords do to outside vendors needing access) or have anonymous FTP, which is not a good idea for obvious reasons.

Then there’s web-based drop boxes, but they have many of the same issues as FTP. There’s a need to not have access wide open, yet allow outside parties access. From the user perspective, it would be easier, since there’s no special software required - only a web browser is needed. Still, not ideal.

I guess what I’m looking for is something where the staff member can upload a file and enter an email address, and the recipient will receive an encrypted link to download the file. Basically, kind of like yousendit, but ideally it would be hosted locally. I’ve searched and searched and can’t seem to find an app to do this. I may just end up writing it myself if I can find the time. If anyone has any ideas on this, please let me know.