Equipment Standards

How Does CedarCreek Handle “Outside Tech” At Our Campuses?

Central Support maintains inventories of equipment and spaces. Whether or not CedarCreek allows devices or tech from home or purchased by individual departments into our buildings is a Central Support call. These decisions should be made with the Central Support department responsible for that space. This includes not only I.T. gear, but also any sound/audio/video equipment in auditoriums, classrooms, conference rooms, private offices, etc.

The goal of this article is to help us find alignment on the “why” behind the “how” things are done. Yes, it can be frustrating or annoying to have to wait on a solution, or worse, to be told “no” to a plan that makes sense to you or your team. And it may be easier to just “rig up a make-shift fix” or have a “easier to ask forgiveness than permission” mindset, but these actions can affect how well Central Support can do their job, and it is important to them that others respect their role in these spaces. While it is understand that a local campus may feel they can be an exception, or wish to shape their own spaces, and often it’s easier to just “get it done”, they should also know they are part of a larger organization and need to hold to the same standards as other campuses regarding tech use. This is us being “Better Together” as a team. Let’s take a look at the “why” behind this system:

Security
When unknown devices hit our network, others are vulnerable to their influence. For example, a “Windows Home” level operating system can’t be added to our domain by software restrictions and it wouldn’t use our anti-virus solution. Central Support wouldn’t have remote eyes on that device to stop anything malicious. And if networked, it would have access to devices on our network at ALL campuses. Should it have malware/ransomware on it, everyone would be at risk of being compromised. Similarly to how CedarCreek don’t allow staff to bring in home PCs for work purposes, we ask that all devices be supplied by Central Support. This is the same logic behind why it is a horrible idea to plug in a random USB stick you may find in the parking lot… you just don’t know what’s on it and malicious code can run rampant. Similar concerns exist with regards to the safety of a device in terms of its build/quality (fire code) and origin (some devices sold on Amazon for TV streaming for example, have legit Chinese spyware gateways into networks and are advised against by the U.S. Government). As an organization, we don’t expect staff or volunteers to keep up with what is safe and ask that requests go through Central Support’s approval for these reasons.

Inventory
As an organization, it is best practice for Central Support to know what is where at all times. For insurance purposes (be it theft or fire), for power/UPS/heat/network load concerns, or even for space use concerns. If a technician shows up to do something and find the space planned for use is unavailable due to a home-brew solution, that’s an issue. Further, often spare parts for quick repairs/swaps are kept by Central Support. When gear breaks and they bring out what they assume is needed only to find the gear doesn’t match what they had recorded as being in that space, it wastes their time, and may further delay repairs as additional drive time and parts ordering/shipping time may be required.

Uniformity and Training
Our spaces are set identical with each campus being offered the same gear for a reason. When a support ticket comes in for “X” gear, if not supplied by Central Support, it’s very confusing when support technicians have no idea what end users are using or experiencing. It’s also possible for gear to conflict with other gear (wireless frequencies, IP addresses, etc.) and actually negatively impact our environments. Having a more “global knowledge” of the gear in use and how it interacts with each other is crucial to our success.

That said, Central Support is open to requests! They are here to serve our campuses! If a campus has a desire to have functionality they don’t currently have, please ask. Central Support will weigh those against what works for all campuses as standards offered, but it allows them to serve our campuses the best they can while still keeping our other locations secure and supported.