Warning - this is not "ministerial" - you won't find my biblical interpretations, suggestions, or other thoughts on faith, God, and His plan for us in this post. In fact, this post is full-on geek.
There's a lot to do if I'm ever going to take this ministry off the ground. I've been thinking about a lot of the logistics that need to go into getting things rolling, and being in IT as a full-time career, that's where I'm going to start. I'm going to assume that my prayers will be answered affirmatively and that someday there will be more than just me and my wife making things run, putting out the good word, and growing our ministry, so I'll start with how I'd like to organize IT to really capitalize on how the Internet, and specifically social-networking has helped spread the word.
1) Build for the Web
Internal applications, such as accounting, fund-raising, membership management, etc. should all be web-enabled applications. If it can't be worked on in a browser, it shouldn't be a major component of any system. The same should be true of the desktops, laptops, tablets, etc. - they should require very little maintenance. More than likely, they will be virtualized (since that's a bit of a technical specialty of mine). One option may be Ulteo's virtual desktop solution.
A few of them:
- Accounting / ERP: Openbravo
- Website: Joomla or Drupal, perhaps CiviCRM
- Live Sermons: DimDim
- Recorded Services: YouTube and Google Video
- Office Productivity: OpenOffice.org or Google Apps
- Email: Zimbra or Google Apps (GMail)
- Voice Calls and Voice Mail: Asterisk and Google Voice
2) Minimize the Proprietary.
This means getting Windows out of the majority and into the minority the planned IT infrastructure. Since #1 is "Build for the Web, that means lots of Linux, MySQL, and other Open Source applications. I'd rather stay clear of GPL 3, but since over 56,000 applications are now using it, that's not likely.
3) Hit the Cloud Flying.
Build with minimal internal infrastructure. It is better to pay for redundant network connections than to invest in items that only depreciate over time. That said, all internal resources should also participate in an internal cloud. This is a little forward-thinking still, but before long there will be agents that can be installed on every computer in an internal network that will portion some of the resources (CPU, Disk, and RAM) to an internally-managed cloud, which can then be sub-divided into storage nodes, application / server nodes, etc. Some early products in the open source space are Eucalyptus and Enomaly.
4) Environmentally-Friendly and Cost-Conscious.
As I've said previously, God gave us this great world. Trying to keep it clean for Him is our job - just because we have dominion over everything doesn't mean we can be irresponsible with that authority. So... sustainable power and cooling needs to be a big factor in designing the data center. Wind, solar, gray-water turbines, etc. A reliance on wireless over wired (less material use) is called for, as is the possibility that cloud computing allows for the use of use older, used equipment (offlease, donated, etc.). Using TechSoup, CharityAdvantage, and other sites that specialize in serving non-profit organizations can reduce costs as well. Investing in electronic recordkeeping cuts paper, especially when accompanied by digital signatures.
It should be interesting... if you have ideas, suggestions, or anything, I'd love to hear comments!
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