RETAIL!!??

I knew I was going to discover this. Digging through the company's old invoices I found that it was paying retail for all its technology purchases. Coupons don't count, that's still retail. I think this behavior is similar in many non-profits. Often e-tailers don't charge tax so non-profits never hammer out their status with them. Also it seems that non-profit buyers don't want to talk to sales people, so they never see how much they can save. This is unfortunate because, as I found out, there is a wealth of discounted technology out there.

I realized at my last job that requesting account managers (sales reps) at vendors and retailers I liked was the best way to guarantee non-profit or discounted pricing. Regularly I would search their site, assemble a shopping cart, then email them to find out if they can do better on the price. I usually received quotes that were much better deals. Creating these relationships was beneficial because when I needed something in a hurry and didn't want to research pricing, I knew that I'd still do better than retail.

The fear of a sales pitch is an unnecessary concern. The sales rep's business is to filter the torrent of new products into those that are relevant to your business. I considered this information educational. At the very least the sales rep was a starting point for my own research into solutions.

A misconception I originally had was that one must be a volume buyer to have an account manager. When setting up the account they certainly questioned my spending potential. Remember, just because you say you are going to buy 5 servers doesn't mean you have to. Furthermore, I learned that the purchases don't have to be huge. All sales were welcomed. I did buy through my sales reps regularly as to maintain the relationship. Even if I saw a bargain basement web deal, I would still call my rep and at least get the same deal through them just so they got the credit and I maintained my contact.

Of course sales reps make their money off the amount of sales they make. That doesn't necessarily mean they are going to swindle you. If you don't like your rep, you can always get another. A good rep knows how to work with you so they can keep working with you. As much as possible I've brought with me the account managers I worked with at my last gig. They're happy I'm giving them more business and this translates into bargains for my new organization. Additionally, when I leave this job the company will continue to benefit from that relationship.

Sales reps are a great resource for any IT decision-maker to keep in their portfolio, especially non-profit IT Managers trying to wean their organizations off retail.

How Murky is Your Techsoup?

In response to my last post, Seanan from Techsoup (site) simplified Microsoft's charity software policy (link) as best as possible. It helped some, so for that I thank Seanan, but after reading the clarification I could not stop laughing. It was that hysterical, maniacal sort of laughter that usually ends in shuddering and tears. Microsoft has really handed Techsoup a lemon. The problem is compounded by the fact that different software manufacturers have given Techsoup limes. In the end it is doubtful that non-technical staff trying to gain control of their software inventory (instead of leaving it in the hands of consultants) could ever work with these policies. I'm a technical person and I am having trouble with them. I now know what staff feels when I start spouting tech jargon. I also spoke with a Techsoup customer service rep and even he had to consult with a few people to answer my questions about Microsoft licensing. The ball is still in Billy's court.

Techsoup offers an outstanding service but for the last several years it has been the same service with the same problems. Non-profits are starting to grow and building up their infrastructures. Techsoup could be the tool these organizations increasingly rely on. But that is not going to happen under these complex licensing agreements. Of course, that's not Techsoup's fault but they can do something to make things simpler.

Since I have a venue I'm going to make a suggestion. Techsoup, use it if it makes sense: Don't force people to learn the complex structures of the purchasing part of these policies. Since you have decided to provide software to non-profits, please make it easier to obtain them. Upon registration, provide the registrant a set number of Tokens for each manufacturer. If I were the registrant, I would start off with a Purse that had 6 Microsoft Tokens, one for each title I am allowed to buy, and 4 Adobe Tokens for the 4 titles they allow me to buy, etc. In addition, I would have Shopping Bags for each order I'm allowed to place. For Microsoft there would be 2 bags good for 2 years. The purpose of all this is so when I get to the checkout I can see how my Purse has been allocated allowing me to reconfigure the cart to maximize my purchasing ability. Additionally this would allow me to consider all the other wonderful software that would be available to me if I didn't have to figure out all those policies. I can't imagine this would be too hard because someone at Techsoup must already be keeping track of who is purchasing what and how much. This would also allow customers to review their purchasing options at a glance instead of setting aside an afternoon.

In addition to simplifying purchasing, I would love to see bundles or easily navigable suggestions like those that retail shopping sites offer. So for Windows Server products, show me that I can get a 50 CAL package, server licenses, and Exchange 2003 with link in the description. Also tell me what I need to make the purchase work. It would suck if a project ended costlier than it should have because the organization didn't understand either a manufacturer's policy, Techsoup's policy, or both.

Help us out Techsoup.

Microsoft's Charity

Why must a lawyer be hired to understand Microsoft's licensing? No matter how much I deal with MS licensing, my brain will not fathom its magnitude. I stand before it as if in the presence of something monumental, but I do not know if it is a construct of genius or stupidity. Combine Microsoft's general licensing complexity with its requirements on Techsoup and I'm left with IBS (info). If there is a certified Microsoft Licensing Decryptor (that really needs to be a MS certificate), please assist me.

I get that along with the purchase of a Microsoft server operating system I need a server license for each additional server and CALS. How does this work on Techsoup (site)? Do the CALs and Server license count as one additional purchase in the allocated six or not? And how does this work with Office on Techsoup? Am I better off getting non-profit pricing through a vendor?

WTF Billy?! I don't benefit from any of this, why make me suffer? Like you, I'm trying to do some good too.

Collective Responsibility

I sat down with all of them individually today after the mail service was reinstated. I explained the worst of it first, that much of their emails were archived and that their mailboxes were capped at 400 MB. For some this was a quarter of what they had on Friday. I told them that it wasn't the number of emails they amassed but the attachments within. That 10 MB from the limit they would receive warnings before they were restricted from sending mail. Showing them the properties of their mailbox and explaining the folder breakdown helped them isolate the largest folders. Then I showed them how to use the field chooser to create a size column to sort by, so they can trim their mailboxes by only dealing with a handful of large messages. After my explanation and time they all seemed a little easier with the restrictions. The staff was pleased to realize their efforts would have a positive impact on the health of the network, in that Exchange would never max out again. At my last job I managed to create a collective responsibility around the network in this way and maybe I can do the same here. If both the staff and the IT people can empathize with each other's position, a level of alignment is achieved that makes running the business easier. 10 minutes per staff person is a worthwhile investment.

Lastly I told them I was always available if they had any questions. I meant it. I always do. It's easier to answer a question then to troubleshoot a problem because I was inaccessible.

Exchange

I was furious yesterday. I'm sure that was made clear. I've come to some realizations today. While I did lay blame to yesterday's fiasco on administration and staff, that doesn't really address the issue. Having used Exchange Enterprise Server for the last four years, it didn't immediately occur to me that Exchange Standard Server's miniscule mailbox limit would be a factor so soon. Additionally I didn't know that the database cap of 16 GB was the sum of priv1.edb and priv1.stm. The priv1.edb was "only" 9 GB so I didn't see anything alarming. Yes, some staff do have extremely large mailboxes but in all fairness, it was never explained to them why it's better for them to behave otherwise. Administration does fear creating computer use policies beyond security matters only because they do not know enough to justify their actions to staff. IT Managers need to explain themselves better to non-technical administration. It's important to remember that they aren't going to learn our language, so we need to speak clearly in theirs.

In speaking with my boss today we agreed on capping mailbox sizes. To what size is still up for discussion but I do like keeping those limits low. The conversation on attachment size limits has not concluded yet. But there was progress!

Here's some of my day's reading from the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Differences between Exchange 2000 Standard and Enterprise (link)
How to Determine Which Edition of Exchange Server is Installed (link)
How to temporarily increase the Exchange 2000 16-gigabyte database size limit (link)
Upgrading to Exchange 2003 (link)

Tough Love

Sometimes crying doesn't mean weeping, it means screaming at the top of your lungs so someone will pay some f'in attention.

Earlier this week, a conversation every non-profit IT manager has had with administration (paraphrased):

CRIER: Our mailboxes are out of control. Some of them are over 1 GB. We should cap the maximum mailbox size.
BOSS: We can't do that. No one is going to like that.
CRIER: Well, at least we should cap attachment size. That is standard practice.
BOSS: It's going to be hard to get staff to accept that.
CRIER: Some of the mailboxes have almost twenty thousand emails. How can they even manage that much mail? We could archive.
BOSS: We need some alternatives, something easy the staff can feel reassured about. Come up with a plan and then we'll talk.

Fear of staff.

Today, Friday, at exactly 5:01 PM New York time, the Exchange server stopped exchanging. The database hit its cap of 16 GB.

Tomorrow, Saturday, I will trek to the office and do what I think is right:

• Run a utility that expands the database by 1 GB temporarily


• Go through the worst mailboxes and archive stuff


• Defrag the database


• Cap the mailboxes


• Cap attachment size


• Write everyone on how to manage their mailbox

I've been there one week and I've had it. I'm the IT Manager, I'm going to manage the goddamn Information Technology. The network needs to be babied and the staff need some tough love. Tomorrow the tie comes off.

IT's Made Out of People

If the organization isn't investing in infrastructure, it surely isn't paying its technical staff well. The result is often a poorly assembled network with an undisciplined IT department and few standardized practices. It isn't necessarily that the technical staff is poorly trained or inexperienced, though that is often a factor. In the handful of examples I can think of, including my own present circumstance, the IT department is an army of one. If offering uncompetative pay, the organization must settle on what it gets. That could mean a person lacking in technical skills, problem solving ability, and/or people skills, or a talented person stretched thin with responsibility. Additionally, the idea that an inexperienced tech can run an organization with assistance from consultants belittles just what is involved in IT management. That setup could only work in the smallest organizations but many larger ones have continued in that vein. For example, at my last gig I was one technical person among 90 end-users over five sites. This thinking also shows how disconnected non-profit administration is from the tools they need to help them surpass their goals. One of those tools is the right people for the job.

Nonprofit Curmudgeon (link) rants on the topic.

The Ravages of Spam

Non-profits send out newsletter blasts, post their email addresses on the website, and of course the out-of-office responder. There is also the sweet, good-natured staff person (which is nearly everyone since it's a non-profit) who will click away at everything. All this combined with the attitude to ignore something until it is too late results in an organization inundated with spam. This is what I have concluded is the main problem with the Exchange server. Over the last three days I've marveled at the speeds at which folders open (1.5 minutes) and how quickly our branch office staff get their POP3 emails (6 hours). Today the BadMail folder h ad over 3600 items four hours after I purged it. I was wondering where the T1's bandwidth was going.

I feel there are three possible solutions:
1: Network/Desktop software. This is usually the cheapest solution and works adequately but requires regular tweaking. A product like IHateSpam (link) allows each user to do some custom tweaking using a Blacklist, Whitelist, and Quarantine folders. This is nice but, as I discovered at my last job, users tire quick and stop doing it. Additionally, a software-based spam filter only makes the server work harder to filter spam while it is getting hit with all of it. All the while bandwidth continues to get used up.

2: Appliance. Stick an anti-spam network appliance between the Internet connection and your network and you could have a great solution. The server is no longer being hit by thousands of junk emails nor working to filter. Out-of-office responses don't confirm to spammers that the email address exists since it never gets to the mailbox. However, this won't work if the purchase is in response to overwhelming spam because even with the appliance, bandwidth will continue to be hogged by junk mail.

3: Spam hosting. Mail is filtered through an outside filter, sending only clean, relevant, kind-to-bandwidth emails. This seems to be the costlier of my three options but unfortunately this may be my only solution since the spam problem has become impossible. I haven't even begun to do research enough to know which services are worth the money.

Ideally I would think that an appliance should be put in place at the creation of a new domain, before the first shred of spam arrives. Sure, eventually spam will eat up your bandwidth and a spam hosting solution will probably be necessary, but this will occur nowhere near as quickly as when nothing is done to combat spam from the very beginning. Look, you don't install a firewall after you've been hacked, so why do we wait for spam to arrive first when we know it multiplies quickly. Additionally the appliance will save the organization money in the long run since reliance on spam hosting will be postponed for a good while longer. Do it!

Privileged Position

I'm very much convinced that non-profits do lack self-respect because I feel, from my IT Manager's perspective, the they do not see themselves as a real business. This is unfortunate because the no-brainer is that their inefficiencies only hurt them from doing what they set out to do. This appears to be changing as more support-type business focus on non-profits and more technology related grants are offered. Still, not many non-profit organizations proactively seek upgrades to their network systems. Only through extra funding or dire need do the non-technologist in administration consider their infrastructure.

In my previous non-profit job it took some convincing to upgrade the servers from P2s to Xeons, and from NT 4.0 to Win 2000 (in 2003). With the help of grants the project was funded and approved. Of course only after the upgrades did the non-technical administration understand the benefits of upgrades they thought they did not need. "Yes, Boss, Outlook Web Access IS nice!" An uphill battle it was -- a victory nonetheless. So funding from grants helps non-technical people get motivated to make changes. Noted.

So then there is dire need. It is what my current organization is going through. My attempts to get budget details for an overhaul were met with significant resistance today. It wasn't until the end of the day that the Boss vocalized his intentions. He told me, essentially, that I'm in a privileged position. That he wants me to come up with a plan that will fix their entire mess. That I should consider this project having unlimited funding and that he will do everything he can to come up with the money. I "simply" must justify to him why we must do what I propose.

There is a caveat here somewhere, most likely in the justification part, but right now these are tears of joy. Day two ended in such stark contrast to day one. Yes, yes, I know. I too believe this is all too good to be true.

First Day of Work

I named this site quite appropriately. My first day as the sole technology person at a downtown Manhattan non-profit proved this. It's not that non-profits are difficult places to work, it's that they lack self-respect. I doubt any self-respecting organization would allow their network and infrastructure to fall into such ruin. What I saw today, knowing that I have to deal with it, would have made anyone weep bitterly.

Picture four servers, three years old, each with a tape drive, each running it's own version of Symantec/Veritas Backup Exec. Imagine all staff having administrator rights to their computers, saving their documents locally since no one can figure out the shared drive structure. Ponder an Exchange server that takes more than two minutes to launch a window. That alone is enough to give a person IBS (info), but there's more! Much, much more!

I will think of it as the challenge of a lifetime. Single-handedly wrangling this decrepit multi-million dollar non-profit into something smooth, sleek, and overall, efficient. I will take care of it like a child, working its rough patches away until a beautiful being results. I will be a hero....or a completely miserable failure. Wish me luck for I know not where to start.

Launch!

What I know: the new job starts on Monday; the company is a non-profit; it is similar to my old job; this organization has a lot more money than the last non-profit I worked for; the organization has ignored its infrastructure for years.

My goals for this site: to document my activities; to seek advice and opinion; to build community; to help me and the company I work for.

My goal for the company: use technology to change it into a business that must think about alignment and ROI, not rebooting and dust-bunnies.

Unfortunately the company and I will most likely remain anonymous. This site is being set up independently and I doubt airing the organization's dirty laundry would be sanctioned. No company has a pristine IT infrastructure but no one wants to talk about it -- especially not a non-profit seeking funding.

Otherwise I do hope to be as frank as possible on this site. If that means opening myself up for criticism...well, that's the only way I'm going to figure stuff out. I don't know it all. I'm not sure I know anything. But I'm betting I'll have something interesting to write about.