Not all information technology is costly. There is a wealth of free or nearly free tools available for churches and dioceses to leverage for their mission and operations.

1. Innovations on a Budget
Joe Luedtke
Liturgical Publications Inc
JLuedtke@4LPi.com
@cathtechtalk

2. • Introduction
• The Pace of Technology
Change
• Trends in Technology
• The Infrastructure Needs of
a ―Typical‖ Church
• Innovations on a Budget—from the Ground Up
• Network and Network Monitoring
• Server and Workstation Infrastructure
• Applications
• Websites, Apps, and Social Media
• Collaboration Tools
• The Wrap-up

3. Why is a Church
Bulletin Company
talking about
technology?

4. Innovation
&
Budgets
Are not mutually
exclusive ideals!

5. Pace of Technology Change

6. Technology Change and the Pace of Change
• I love hindsight; I just don’t get it early
enough
• Working in the church, we do, however,
have the benefit of hindsight
• Techies within the church often lament
that we’re slow to adopt technology
• Take the glass half-full few… we’re
deliberate, thoughtful, and efficient in
how we do it!

7. Technology Changes that Are
Impacting the Church
• Innovations we are
leveraging
• Innovations we should
be leveraging
• Innovations being
inflicted upon us

8. Innovations that You See?

9. Corporate CIOs 2010 Top Priorities
• Consolidate IT infrastructure
• Significantly upgrade DR and Business
Continuity
• Expand use of mobile for employees and
customers
• Significantly upgrade security
• Implement and expand use of collaborative
capabilities

10. Typical Church
Infrastructure

11. Typical Church
Infrastructure

12. Survey of 4,000 Catholic Churches
Operating System %
Observations:
Windows 7 19%
• Churches aren’t as successful
Windows Vista 12%
as corporations in enforcing
Windows XP 53% standards
• Macs are on the rise in
Windows 2000 7%
churches and will continue to
Windows 98/ME < 1% grow
• The Windows 7 lag in
Windows 95 1%
churches probably means an
MACs 7% acceleration of Windows 8
when released
Linux < 1%

13. Technology Needs
• Internet Access
– Firewalls Commodities
– Sufficient bandwidth
– Secure and safe access for staff and parishioners
• File and Print services
• Backups and Disaster Recovery
• Business Applications (Finance, CMS, School ERP)
• Website and Social Media Sites

14. Technology Challenges
• Mishmash of old hardware and software
• PC and LAN support capabilities vary dramatically
church by church
• Security issues are increasing
– Religious … sites were found to have triple the average # of
[virus / malware] threats than adult/pornographic sites.
—Symantec, April 2012
• Data privacy is becoming increasingly important
• Network capabilities are not prepared for growth

15. Network and Security Innovations on a Budget
• Separate Wireless for Staff and Parishioners
• Lock down staff access
• Segment and limit guest access
• Leverage Cloud-based Network Services for
Simple Security and Malware Protection
• OpenDNS—$1250/yr
• Dyn.com—$30/month
• SpamHero – Spam filtering for $5/month
for 100,000 e-mail messages

16. • Open source tool
with a freemium
model
• Nagios XI premium
verison is free for 7
or less nodes
• Robust network
monitoring
• Event monitoring
• Batch monitoring
with a little effort

17. Network and Security Innovations on a Budget
• OpenVPN—Open Source VPN Solution
• Proxy Server
• Squid Proxy is my personal favorite, squid-cache.org/
• Reduces bandwidth plus some content control and reporting
• Drive Encryption
• BitLocker—comes with Windows 7 Ultimate or Software
Assurance Subscription
• Starting with OS X 10.7—Full Disk Encryption now available

18. Hardware Innovations on a Budget
• Virtualization
• Start with server virtualization and then
evaluate workstation virtualization
• VMWare Vsphere Hypervisor (ESXi)
• Free for 32 Gig of memory or less
• Benefits:
• Abstracts the servers from the hardware
• Move servers to solve hardware and
capacity issues
• Introduces simple backup and recovery
solutions

19. Hardware Innovations on a Budget
Case Study at Liturgical Publications
• LPi’s server infrastructure was 48 physical servers in
2009
• We’re at 18 now
• Each of our print facilities had between 12 and 15
physical servers. Now, they’re going down to 2
• Each server runs at less than
50% capacity
• VCB Backups copied to the
other server nightly
• No hardware maintenance
• LOM / iLO / ipmi

20. Hardware Innovations on a Budget
Case Study at Liturgical Publications
• Old workstations make great dumb terminals
• Reuse donated or old equipment while creating at least
OS-level standards
• Remove the hard drives, Optical drive, and fans and you
have a dumb terminal
• Remote access, remote updates not available on the
VMWare server
• Lowers support cost and centralizes administration
• Augment VMWare with remote desktop solutions:
• I love Citrix, but it’s expensive
• Openthinclient.org with VMWare Vsphere is a free
alternative

21. Hardware Innovations on a Budget
• Cloud-based Backup Solutions
• Dropbox
• Mozy
• Disk-based Backup Systems
• Disk mirroring
• Disk-to-disk backups with physical swapping

22. • Benefits
• Access your data anytime and anywhere
• Syncs your files to all your devices
• Backs up your files to the Web
• Costs:
• Free for < 2 Gig of data
• 100 Gig is $99 / year
• Team Dropbox starts at $795/year

23. Cloud-based Computing
• Removes infrastructure support, OS support, application
upgrades
• Anywhere, anytime access
• Pay-as-you-go and pay-as-you-grow service
• Browser-based, does not require anything but a Web
browser to run. Should be mobile enabled
• No upgrades to perform. You’re always on the latest
version
• Backup and Disaster Recovery become the vendor’s
responsibility

24. Application Innovations on a Budget
Software as a Service (SAAS)
• E-mail is a core communication requirement that many churches have not yet
addressed
• Churches should not:
– Have their staff use their personal e-mail addresses
– Try to implement their own e-mail server
• Churches should:
– Leverage readily available cloud-based e-mail services
• Gmail—Free via Google Apps for Non-profits
• Office 365—$4/user/month
– Leverage diocese e-mail services if they’re available
– If not using a cloud-based email, look at outsourcing SMTP services to companies
like SendGrid

25. Application Innovations on a Budget
E-mail Newsletters
• E-mail Marketing
Programs make
an rich HTML e-
mail and e-mail
list management
simple
• MailChimp is my
favorite as it’s
free for lists under
2,000
• VerticalResponse
and Constant
Contact are good,
cost-effective
alternatives

26. Church Management Systems are
Moving to the Cloud
• They’re just starting to move to the Cloud
• Marketing hyperbole—CMS’s that claim
they’re in the Cloud by offering Terminal
Services or Citrix-based solutions
• ParishSoft is potentially the only Catholic-
focused CMS that currently offers a Cloud-
based solution

27. Application Innovations on a Budget
Websites
Websites:
• Are you really still hosting your own website?
• Remember it’s not an IT Development Project it’s an
ongoing Content Management responsibility.
• For the ―average‖ church, don’t build your own. Leverage
one of these providers:
http://catholictechtalk.com/website-builders/.

28. Application Innovations on a Budget
Collaboration Tools
Parishioner Engagement:
• Yes, you should have a Facebook Page, but for
marketing your diocese or church
• Look to parishioner engagement-focused systems like
LPi’s WeGather (free) or FlockNote ($13–$100/month)
for more
• Online Giving – What does your diocese recommend?

29. Application Innovations on a Budget
Collaboration Tools
Collaboration Tools:
• Diocese Video Conferencing—great idea, but start with Google+
Hangouts first
• Getting the budget for a good video conferencing system is easy
compared to changing your culture to use it
• For IT Projects, check out Redmine.org
• Extend this group here
– Where do you all connect and share information online?
– Any plans for CTMag discussion forums?

30. The Wrap-up
• Open Source, SAAS, and Cloud Computing bear serious
investigations in many areas
• Don’t be an ―early adopter.‖ Strive only for silver or
bronze
• Remember software is sold not purchased. Do your
homework before making a buying decision
• Leverage hindsight by looking at what corporations and
other non-profits have already done
• Share with each other. You have a strong community
here. Figure out how to connect online; not just connect
once per year

31. Thank You!
Joe Luedtke
Vice President, Liturgical Publications Inc
JLuedtke@4LPi.com
@cathtechtalk