Triennial Computer Hardware Refresh

On a schedule every three years, the monastery replaces all its computers. This brilliant innovation from Bodhinatha a decade ago keeps the IT side of our lives quiet most of the time, getting all of the purchasing done at once and then out of the way so we can focus on our religious work for the coming few years. We procure the latest and greatest computers that Apple has to offer, and then for three years we don't have to pay any attention to anything new that comes out. Warranties are also for three years, so we never have to deal with hardware that is out of warranty, which would cause untold inconvenience and unexpected expense.

February 2013 was the time for our hardware refresh, and like last time we flew out our IT engineers from Rocket Science Consulting in San Francisco to assist. Joe Russell, who has worked with the monastery since 2008, and Jesse Ruegg, a recent addition to the Rocket Science team, came for about a week, spending four days at the monastery installing and configuring new servers, helping the monks migrate their laptop workstations from old hardware to new hardware and conversing at length with Senthilnathaswami, who is responsible for the monastery's IT infrastructure and our relationship with Rocket Science, as well as Shanmuganathaswami, Siddhanathaswami and Sadhaka Mayuranatha, who helped with the project in many ways seen and unseen. Of course, Joe and Jesse had some personal time off to enjoy our beautiful island as well. It's always a treat for hired workers to come from the mainland!

Jesse (left) and Joe (right) ponder an issue with one of the monks\

computers'

A deep-dive into migrating a Windows virtual environment one of the monks uses

Our servers are housed in a temporary office trailer while the Ganapati Kulam Media Studio is under construction

Jesse, the workstation wrangler, at another of the monks\

computers'

Meeting with Bodhinatha and discussing the overview of our IT needs is always a part of these visits

A few of the many boxes of computers from Apple

A panorama by the pali on a beautiful day (hover over the left and right side of the image to pan)

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