Sample missions IT Infrastructures

From MissionTechWiki

Mission Growth

One cannot simply list off sample mission infrastructures without some context. Missions have a fairly standard growth model, though there are a number of things that can affect it.

Mission Growth Factors

The main issues that affect the growth of IT in missions are:

• Audiences - Who needs access to the data in the database, and who does the database need to cater to. As the mission grows, so does the audience.
• IT Staff - The capabilities of the staff are more important than the tools available to them. Well trained staff can leverage free tools and can get a mission much farther than untrained staff.
• Mobility - Some mission organizations start as highly mobile. In this case, the standard model shifts such that tools to access data remotely are an initial need, not a need for later on. This moves the technological infrastructure up to a point where less mobile organizations would only get once they are much larger.
• Technology - Technology does play a part in the growth of a mission organization. The tools a mission chooses usually locks them into a box that they are lothe to break out of until absolutely needed. It usually takes finances and trained staff to change the technology in a mission.
• Finances - Finances make all of th above easier. Most missions do not finance their internal IT department well until after they have grown considerably. But a well funded mission IT department will have less troubles getting trained, purchasing the correct technology, and changing to meet the different audiences.

Pages for each audience

About Staff

Most missions find that they cannot get pre-trained staff too easily. Most IT people in missions are regular Missionaries who have been turned into computer people. This is usually because it is easier to take a missionary who has a heart and calling for missions and train them technologically, then it is to take a geek and lay on them a calling and a love for missions.

LightSys provides technological training for missions IT staff.

About Mobility

Original page: http://www.missiontech.info/wiki/Sample_missions_IT_Infrastructures
from the MissionTech Wiki created by the International Conference on Computers and Missions