Community IT Innovators. Established 1993. Serving social mission organizations with integrated technology services you can trust.

There are a lot of interesting nonprofit technology events coming up in DC in the next few weeks:

• Wednesday, Jan. 27, InsideNGO Technology Update: Inside NGO will be presenting a full day course detailing four technologies. CITI’s Matthew Eshleman will be presenting on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).  Virtual collaboration and training, Windows 7 deployment, and WAN optimization will also be covered.

• Wednesday, Feb. 3, CITIzens’ Forum: The Value of a CIO Perspective: The second forum in our series asks, who is managing technology at your organization? Do you have one person  who takes a big picture view, or are different people responsible for managing your network, website, databases and applications?  What’s the difference between a CIO and a CTO? Join in an open discussion to share what you’re doing and how other organizations address similar challenges.

• Monday-Tuesday, Feb. 8 – 9, Managing Nonprofit Technology Projects: Our second conference partnering with Aspiration to help you better manage technology projects in your nonprofit.  See this post for additional details

• Wednesday, Feb. 10, NTEN Webinar: Greening Your Nonprofit’s IT: Find out what all the green IT buzz is about and get practical information for greening your IT infrastructure.  Matthew Eshleman will be presenting with Peter Campbell on virtualization; other breakout sessions will cover green IT strategy, hardware and software, case studies, and sustainable design and printing.

• Friday, Feb. 12, Nonprofit 2.0: This unconference will let participants shape the agenda around how nonprofits use the latest technology to communicate, fundraise, and organize and advocate for their issues.  The event is already sold out, but there is a waiting list, and there may be a conversation or two to follow on Twitter…

• Wednesday, Feb. 17, CITIzens’ Forum: Salesforce: Learn how organizations are using Salesforce as a powerful CRM to manage contacts, campaigns, and related data; find out how Salesforce could be helpful for your organization, and share your story if you’re already using it.

TechSoup and Microsoft will be conducting two free webinars to help nonprofits reduce the environmental impact of their information technology and learn more on effectively using IT to improve their organization’s efficiency.  They’ll cover ways greening your IT can help reduce energy, resources expended, and costs, as well as practical tips for using power management and Microsoft software.

One webinar is geared towards small organizations, with fewer than 10 PCs and fewer than two servers. (10 AM Pacific/1 PM Eastern)

The other is aimed at medium and large organizations with more complex IT infrastructure and dedicated IT support. (11 AM Pacific/2 PM Eastern)

One of my roles at CITI is to conduct audits of our clients’ IT infrastructure. This process is a requirement for the intake of new clients as it provides us the opportunity to assess needs and make recommendations for a network that is initially unfamiliar to us. Clients who are already receiving CITI infrastructure support also sometimes request the service. It provides an overview of network health and network effectiveness that does not necessarily emerge in day to day operations. It’s a little like wanting a physical from your doctor even though you’ve already seen her plenty for coughs and aches. The tech audit can frequently uncover an underlying issue that may not have been immediately apparent, or help identify potential efficiency gains.

One recommendation I’ve been making in these network audits recently regards shifting services from local servers to hosted solutions.  Moving services to the “cloud” gets a lot of IT media hype these days, but it really does make sense for a number of our clients, for some of their services.

• One example is email services. It’s true that the software licenses required to set up an Exchange server are almost free through TechSoup pricing, but the cost of owning and operating an Exchange server is not incidental nor is the cost of paying CITI or another IT provider to set one up. For smaller organizations, paying a per person monthly fee for similar service hosted on the Internet is often less expensive.

• Moving organization file sharing to the cloud is a less common recommendation, but one that we consider more and more. A hosted file sharing system often increases remote accessibility and generally comes with functionality not included in a standard local Windows file share (such as versioning and edit tracking).

• While somewhat outside the scope of an infrastructure audit, another frequent recommendation is to consider moving specific application needs to hosted solutions, whether it’s a CRM database or a corporate Intranet.

The cloud works because the resources supporting it have an economy of scale (shared among many users) with which local services often can’t compete. And the high levels of bandwidth available today allow hosted services to have a performance comparable to that of their local versions.  It’s not a solution for all situations and we still believe in installing local servers, but cloud computing is often a compelling option we want our clients to explore.

CITI partnered with the William James Foundation on Thursday, July 9th to present a seminar on Green IT.  Nate Solloway, CITI Systems Engineer, discussed what it really means to go green with your technology, including environmentally-friendly practices such as virtualization, green procurement and computer disposal, and desktop power management.  Some highlights:

• Server Virtualization remains a hot topic and is fast becoming just the way things are done, particularly with servers, as the resource efficiency gained is significant.

• Desktop virtualization is the next step that can be taken. Replacing a desktop with a virtual desktop and thin client can significantly reduce power consumption to just a small fraction of previous consumption for each virtual desktop user.

• Desktop Power Management software can significantly reduce power consumption for users who cannot easily switch to a virtual desktop.

• Reusing or donating old computers that are nearing the end of their life cycle, but still usable, can further reduce the environmental impact of your equipment.

Contact us to find out more about our Green IT Assessments and implementing the above suggestions.

At this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, CITI Director of Professional Network Services Matthew Eshleman, along with Earthjustice’s Peter Campbell, presented a session covering virtualization technology. We’re pleased to announce that their session was included in NTEN’s June newsletter summary of the best NTC sessions, selected based on conference participant feedback on each of the sessions.   A summary article by Matthew and Peter on “Virtualization: The Revolution in Server Management and Why You Should Adopt It” is featured on the NTEN blog. Excerpt:

Most of the discussion related to virtualization has been centered on large data centers and enterprise implementations, but a small network can also take advantage of the benefits that virtualization has to offer. Here are three common scenarios:

• Using a new server running a virtualization hypervisor to migrate an existing server
• Using a new server to consolidate 3-4 physical servers to save on electric & warranty expenses
• Using a storage area network (SAN) to add flexibility and expandability to the infrastructure

In the first scenario, an existing server is converted into a virtual server running on new physical hardware…

Visit the NTEN Blog to read the full article.

It’s time to admit I have a problem.   I keep telling myself I can quit any time I want.

I can’t look at a software product without thinking “I bet I should virtualize that”.

My habit started innocuously enough.  Microsoft sent me a sample of a product called Microsoft Virtual PC.  On my XP laptop I installed a virtual instance of Windows 98 and was suddenly able to play some of old favorite RPG’s that never developed support for NT architecture.  Maybe it was being lost in the imaginary world of Baldur’s Gate, but I began to see possibilities for using virtualization at the desktop level.

When I go into small organizations and have to take their domain controller offline, I have a ready made one on my laptop ready to join to the domain so the desktop computers can authenicate to the virtual instance all day while maintenance is performed.

Suddenly I was carrying test configurations of everything I needed to troubleshoot.  Windows systems with various versions of Outlook, Linux desktops for testing network compatibility and doing network scanning.   With virtualization, my laptop became simultaneously a sandbox for learning and a toolbox for administering networks.

One organization I support had a challenge of doing Arabic and Hebrew HTML newsletters.  Getting proper right-to-left formatting was difficult without international versions of Windows XP installed.  Those versions had problems with some of the other software we used, so I put Virtual PC at each desk and people could run the international version of XP for specialized tasks.

Virtualization is a buzzword now, but there was a time when virtualizing servers was new and scary.  Desktop virtualization is an easy way to become familiar with the basics of the technology before starting on virtualizing your servers.  There are two free products available that make this an easy start.  If you have installation disks for Windows XP, you can be up and runniing in minutes.

VirtualBox is the desktop favorite in our office.  It’s free, rugged, and works across Windows, Mac and Linux.  It’s lacking a little on the networking tricks side, but for a non-Windows user who needs that one Windows only program to run in a window, it’s a nice choice.

Microsoft Virtual PC  is also a free download.  I often use it to acclimate people to the idea of virtualization.  The interface is very Microsoft style, so long term Windows users are not intimidated by it.  Unfortunately, it is not cross-platform, so not handy for a non-Windows shop that needs some Windows licenses to run some software.

Come back next week and I’ll be using VirtualBox to walk through an installation and explain some of the vocabulary you run into.

As I mentioned, I’m preparing to lead a class at the Georgetown University Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate program on Managing the Inter-Connected Organization. Right now I’m compiling some resources to share. Here’s my list — which of your most valued resources am I missing?

Organizations:

Nonprofit Technology Network: discussion networks, plenty of webinars, and a huge annual conference, the NTEN NTC, coming up April 26-28 in San Francisco.
http://nten.org/

Idealware: In-depth reviews of tools and technology.
http://www.idealware.org/

TechSoup: Best known for “TechSoup Stock,” discounted software packages for member nonprofits. Plenty of other resources and information, as well.
http://techsoup.org

Pew Internet and American Life Project: Big-picture research on internet usage trends.
http://pewinternet.org/

Blogs:

Frogloop: Care2’s nonprofit online marketing blog
http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/

“Remixing the web for social change”
http://www.netsquared.org/blog

Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/

Deborah Elizabeth Finn – often re-posts her “Ten things (just ten!) that every nonprofit executive needs to know about information technology,” which helped inform this session
http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog

Etc.:

eBenchmarks Study: conducted by M&R Strategic Services and NTEN, compiles data across a wide variety of organizations on open rates, click-throughs, giving, and other online strategy metrics
http://www.e-benchmarksstudy.com/index.html

Progressive Exchange: an online community that was started in 2004 by M+R Strategic Services’ eCampaigns division as a way to share information among people doing online organizing, advocacy, marketing and fundraising on behalf of the public interest.
http://www.progressiveexchange.org

When it came time to plan our latest network upgrade at Community IT Innovators we opted to virtualize all our server infrastructure.   As a typical 60 person organization we have file, mail, database, web and remote access servers.  With our systems and software going through the usual 3-5 year replacement cycle, our IT staff was looking for a solution provided the most flexibility going forward.   Virtualization provided the benefits of a smaller server room footprint and a smaller carbon footprint.

We began exploring virtualizing servers when troubleshooting existing installations with performance monitoring tools.  We were consistently surprised by what a small percentage of the processor these hulking servers were using most of the day.  Large in footprint and small in efficiency,  we began exploring products that would allow us to consolidate the need of keeping operating systems separate but on a shared piece of hardware.

Virtualizing the standalone servers on our server room proved to be consistent with the Green IT guidelines that are starting to trickle down to even the smallest organizations.  CDW’s data centers studied the effects of virtualizing servers and power consumption.  A standalone server had 75% percent of the carbon footprint of a mid-sized automobile.    The same functionality virtualized and then sharing hardware had a carbon footprint of 1/6 of the original with no loss in delivering services.

Reduced carbon footprint is nice for the environment and the bottom line.  Most network administrators don’t see the power bills, but I bet most accountants at organizations would like to see that cost reduced.

Virtualization has proven a boon to network administration as well.  Hardware conflicts are few because each virtualized instance has identical hardware.  Virtualizing also reduces fear of applying patches.  Each server is just a file that is easy enough to copy or track the changes of.  If a service pack or update creates problem, reverting to the previous night is just a mouse click away.

Our virtualized infrastructure has created a flexibility for our developers.  If they need a new server stood up to test a configuration no hardware has to be purchased and we can copy an existing setup.  Our testing and lab has now also standardized on virtualized instances.  Our staff is able to stand up the latest products in minutes rather than hours.

Virtualization is a panacea that has solved a number of administrative and technical hurdles for us.  We’ll be continuing to blog about virtualization in coming weeks.  If you’ve heard the buzzwords and been curious we’ll be walking you through setting up your first virtualized server and familiarizing you with the technology.  Virtualization is one of the easiest new technologies to grasp once the initial hurdle is jumped.