Cloud Computing Benefits

Cloud computing- a ‘trendy’ term that to many, may still sound a bit vague, but once it’s value is understood in its entirety, it is really not so ambiguous.

A recent article from EurActiv, simply defines cloud computing as a term based on the principle that users do not usually own the physical infrastructure which hosts applications and software. Keeping that in mind, cloud computing comes into focus when thinking about what IT always needs: a way to augment capacity or add capabilities on demand without investing in new infrastructure, personnel, or software. Cloud computing includes any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that can expand IT's existing capabilities in real time, over the Internet.

Viviane Reding, EU Information Society Commissioner advised SMBs that cloud computing services are the cure needed for the current economic downturn. She strongly believes that cloud computing services can increase business productivity by changing from fixed costs (i.e. hiring staff or buying PCs) to variable costs (i.e. you only pay for what you use).

During her speech, Reding highlighted some very valuable points. In Europe, there are 23 million SMBs, making up to 99% of all of their firms. However, SMBs continue to fall behind in the use of ICT tools that can enhance overall productivity.  It was estimated that a million new jobs could be created simply by relocating office activities to the cloud. This can potentially add up to 0.2% to Europe’s annual GDP within the next five years.   

With cloud computing uncertainty to the side, SMBs worldwide are clearly encouraged to leverage web-based services to begin to overcome the global recession. 

So what are you waiting for?

Enjoy immediate cost savings and the complete benefits that cloud computing can bring to your business through Pingsta ICE™.

Pingsta ICE- 101

The Glue

People who have kept the internet up and running have always had different names for themselves; internetwork engineers, web pros, router jocks, the list goes on and on. But recently, a new term has been coined to describe the hardworking people behind the scenes who keep our essential Internet infrastructure up and running: The Glue. When you think about it, this term makes the most sense, and truly describes what we do in the shadows.

Today, the world expects everything to be on the Internet –not only their music and movies but also essentials like medical records, bank accounts and vital personal data. People want to access all their data at any time, through any media from anywhere. As the Glue, network engineers are responsible for keeping people unfamiliar with technology meshed with the complicated system on which they depend. So good job Pingsta Members, you are the essential, and more importantly, top of the line Glue of the world.

-Will

The Pingsta Fun Fact

Many members may have breezed right over the login screen while accessing their Pingsta account, totally missing the Pingsta ICE™ fun fact of the week. This week’s fun fact describes one particular member, who has earned over fifteen thousand dollars in the last few weeks by using Pingsta ICE™. This engineer has made enough to surpass the monthly income of an engineer at any major telecommunications company, just by leisurely sitting at their computer, wherever they wanted, at their own convenience.

This simple fact solidifies the message and technology that Pingsta ICE™ brings to the world. The future is here, and Pingsta members can now truly work from anywhere on the planet, and more importantly on their own time, to monetize their knowledge. The opportunity is now, and the possibilities for personal gain are limitless.


-Will

Pingsta ICE is Out of Beta

Pingsta ICE is finally out of Beta status, fully ready for the enterprise! The entire Pingsta team have been working ferociously over the past few months, dotting the Is and crossing the Ts and finally, the wait is over. The time to truly empower the world is here.

Pingsta members can now expect a full array of break-fix, consulting and R&D tasks from some of the largest and most prestigious service providers and enterprises across the globe.

So Pingsta members: you worked hard to become industry-experts, get out there and start monetizing your knowledge by Pingsta ICE-ing from anywhere in the world through any media.


-Will

pingBox 0.1 is launched

FYI... Pingsta recently launched pingBox 0.1 to facilitate intra-Pingsta communication.


What is the "Ping Me" feature?
The Ping Me feature is an intra-pingsta communication tool that allows you to "Ping" other Pingsta members and send them short messages.

How does it work?
Click on the Ping Me button from the people page, enter your message in the displayed form and send. Your message will be sent to the user's Pingsta pingBox and a copy will also be forwarded to their regular email inbox.

How do I track my Pings?
All your sent and received pings are stored in your pingBox.

For more information on pingBox and other Pingsta features, go to http://pingsta.com/help.

Happy pinging!

Deka

Pingsta Mailserver Malicious Attack - Update

Our investigation has revealed that the cause of yesterday's mailblast incident was a malicious attack on our mailserver sourced (or spoofed) from 202.71.201.178 which resolves to en201178.uac63.hknet.com. Our engineers are currently taking all necessary steps to ensure that this never happens again.

Once again, we apologize profusely to all those that were impacted by this incident and we are most grateful for the relentless support we've received from our members and ecosystem.

We've learnt a few lessons from this incident that will no doubt make us stronger and improve the Pingsta experience for all.

Sincerely,
Peter and the Pingsta team.

PS. What a way to start the new year! :-)

Pingsta mailserver bug

All,

Within the last hour, we have been experiencing a bug in our mail-servers that is causing multiple copies of unwarranted Pingsta invitations to be sent out. We ask that you please bear with us as we investigate the root cause of this issue.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Happy new year
Peter :-(

mySolvr is live!

In case you’re wondering why we’ve been so quiet over the past couple of months, it's because we’ve been working tirelessly to launch mySolvr – Pingsta's open repository of internetwork intelligence.

As you may know, the lack of an openly available repository of internetwork intelligence that is comprehensive, organized and validated is the key driver for this core Pingsta objective.

Thus, we invite network engineers and enthusiasts alike from all corners of the world to sign up to mySolvr - it's free and open to all - and start submitting entries today so that the world can benefit from our collective intellectual capital.

See mySolvr FAQ for more information.

Enjoy,
Peter :-)

Weekly Weigh-In #6 - The "Self-Healing" Internet

Any business that relies heavily on web apps and services needs to have a safety net. This was made abundantly clear this week when we saw cisco.com of all sites offline for a little under three hours during U.S. business hours.

Cisco’s PR team posted the following message:

"We have traced the cause of the issue to an accident during maintenance of a San Jose data center that resulted in a power outage in that facility."

Now, irrespective of the amount of money that they, their partners and their clients lost while the site was down (which after doing a little research could potentially be quite a lot) this begs the question: what happened to redundancy, traffic engineering, distributed networking, the self-healing network, etc?

Cisco as the giant networking company must surely have failovers in place to prevent this kind of scenario and they of all people should know that a well designed network infrastructure will not have the failover backup data center in the same locale, state or even country.

Regardless of the reason(s)-for-outage, we have to seriously start considering how to make the Internet openly self-healing. My rudimentary thoughts on this include a possible scenario where web servers from across the world serve as "peer-to-peer cache-servers" for other websites, such that when a user requests a page from pingsta.com for example and that particular page is temporarily unavailable for whatever reason, any other non-pingsta web server closest to the user geographically can present the most recently cached copy of that page seamlesly.

Thoughts?

Owen

Weekly Weigh-in #5: Google vs. Verizon, AT&T, etc...

The FCC is getting prepared to auction off the 700MHz spectrum, and as all the likely bidders (AT&T, Verizon, etc...) are reaching into their deep pockets, happy with the lack of governmental restrictions, Google is asking that certain conditions be set ahead of time in exchange for a substantially high minimum bid.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently sent a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin explaining that if the FCC wants their $4.6 billion minimum bid to be considered for a part of the UHF TV spectrum they “should extend all CRMS-type spectrum licensees clearly delineated, explicitly enforceable, and unwavering obligations to provide (1) open applications, (2) open devices, (3) open wholesale services, and (4) open network access.”
Google's most vocal opponent has been Verizon (who has recently said they are willing to consider some, but not all of the obligations) throughout this whole debate.

This begs the question: What's in it for Google? If the FCC accepts their obligations, is this the first step towards a free-for-all Google VoIP phone?

Update: As it stands now, it appears that the FCC will take its chances and not accept all of Google's conditions.

Weekly Weigh-In #3: Software vulnerability auctions vs. ethical disclosures

A week ago, a Swiss company by the name of Wabi Sabi Labi (gotta love the name) launched an Ebay-style marketplace for software vulnerabilities. They allow anyone with a verified security flaw to auction it off on their site. Wow!

While I find this very discomforting because of the potential for exploitation of such defects by unscrupulous 'buyers', I believe researchers should be compensated adequately by software manufacturers for "ethical disclosures" that end up improving software quality.

Fact: 99% of all bugs are customer-found.

Software is imperfect because we are imperfect, thus, defects are here to stay. Therefore, anyone that helps to "dev test" a software to the point of identifying a flaw should be compensated (and possibly offered a job) for their hard work.

Although I do not condone the WSL marketplace, I do understand why it came about. It is a logical reaction to the lack of fair recognition that is currently given to members of the public that point out software flaws to manufacturers.

The fair thing to do would be for WSL to offer software OEMs the chance to "buy" vulnerabilities offline before resorting to publicly offerings. On the flip side of this, I guess researchers can now add WSL to their list of leverage points when negotiating software OEMs.

Thoughts?
/Peter

Pingsta Globetrotter

Over the past year I've had the opportunity to travel quite a bit (ahh, the luxury of studying abroad while in college). During my free weekends I traveled around Europe, even spending my spring break in sunny Malta. Loving travel as much as I do, I can't help but remark how great it is that in our day and age I don't have to be confined to a desk at all times to get my work done.

Most recently I spent a week in the Big Apple, both touring and working in the city. I find it is an amazing feeling to always have the capability to be connected with the people we want or need to reach. I can easily email someone with an idea as I am waiting for the light to turn green in Times Square, how much better can life get for an aspiring globetrotter? Granted not everyone has the luxury of being able to work away from the physical office, but with the latest and greatest online tools becoming ubiquitous we no longer have to stay chained to a desk or locked away in a corner office.

Fortunately for me, Pingsta embodies and embraces new forms of collaboration. We - the Pingsta team - are spread out throughout the continent, some of us have never even met in person, yet we are able to collaborate as conveniently as if we were all in the same room. Call me an optimist or even an idealist, but I think it's fantastic to be experiencing this virtualization revolution firsthand!

Cheers,
Owen

Weekly Weigh-in #2 - IPv6 replaces SSN - The true human network

The Weekly Weigh-In is back with our Independence Day special.

Imagine a world where everybody the world over is assigned a unique confidential IPv6 address instead of a country specific identifier like a social security number? If you marry this thought with a scenario where all our data is stored in an encrypted format online (part of the decryption process should include a 3-way authentication handshake with the data owner's IPv6 address), such that PCs, handhelds, surface computers etc simply become intelligent browsers interfaces to a 3-dimensional internet where our web-based "hard-drives" reside.

What you get is a world where we all effectively become an extension of the Internet thereby making it possible for us to access all our media, photos, music, videos, playlist, medical, academic and financial records etc online from anywhere in the world. Imagine being able to rent a car while on vacation in Tokyo, assign the car your IP address to grant you on-the-go Internet access, download your playlist through the car's interface, log into your home IP-CCTV cameras in San Francisco to see if your neighbor is watering your plants as promised, pay your bills, drive to a dentist in Tokyo, who simply accesses your dental records online before proceeding with your scaling and polishing et cetera.

One world, one IP, seamless applications. I’d love to hear your thoughts regarding additional possible uses and concerns.

Happy 4th of July to our US audience and remember to party like rock stars!

-Peter Alfred-Adekeye

Weekly Weigh-in #1: Wikipedia vs. Britannica

Every week we'll be having our "Weekly Weigh-in", a discussion about any topic that is currently being debated around the office.

As our first installment of the Weekly Weigh-in, we'll focus on the digital age-old debate of Wikipedia, with its unmoderated socially-generated user content versus legacy print encyclopedias like Encyclopaedia Britannica.

We'd like to have you weigh-in on this topic:

• Do you consider Wikipedia the epitome of open-source collaboration or do you see it as fundamentally flawed?
  
• Although Wikipedia is a more up-to-date resource, does it have as much legitimacy as print sources?
• In what cases would/should one turn to Wikipedia as a resource?

-Owen

How did the name "Pingsta" come to be?

Many of you have asked us what Pingsta means, and since we can't resist the opportunity to tell a good story whenever the chance presents itself, here it goes...

The name "Pingsta" was born after months of caffeine-powered deliberations (caffeine is, as you might have observed by now, a big part of our life here). Pingsta is a combination of two words. The first word, "PING", is the acronym for "Packet InterNet Groper", a troubleshooting tool used to test IP network connectivity. Ping is also commonly used as a verb... "to Ping" meaning to "IM", call, email ( in other words, to contact) someone. The second word (well... half a word actually) is "Sta" - derived from the word "Star" as a subset of "Superstar".

As we set out to create an environment where technology enables people to communicate and collaborate seamlessly, we decided to follow that train of thought further, and it went something like this...

"This tool will help the world to 'Ping internetwork Superstars' (hmm, interesting)... 'Ping Superstars' (like it... but it's way too long)... 'Ping Star' (better! Now, how can we make it sound modern. Let's see... drop the "r" maybe?)... 'PingSta' (Eureka! we have a winner)."

/deka

P.S: Here are some other names that crossed our minds and the reasons why they were discarded:

1. "Hubnob" (it initially sounded clever, but eventually reminded us too much of the failed Walmart attempt at re-creating Myspace)
2. "Geekspace" (Myspace for geeks?... Boy, that sounded unholy!)
3. "Citizen IP" (someone - who shall remain nameless - might have been watching a certain movie... Citizen Kane, perhaps?)

Alright, alright! We won't bore (nor torture) you with the whole list of unusual (and sometimes funny) names we entertained during this entire process. Let's just say that Pingsta sounded like music to our ears.

Fasten your Seatbelts, folks.

The first time I saw Pingsta, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I don’t know if it was the name, the element of mystery wrapped up in the “invite only” paradigm, or the fact that the Pingsta jobs page mentioned ”...helping to make the world a better place” as one of the employment perks, but I had to find out more. I applied on the spot.

A couple of days later I found myself on the phone with Peter, in what had to have been the most unusual job interview I’d ever experienced. We talked for hours about what Pingsta was, is, and promises to be, about the supreme court and Paris Hilton, and about the potential of the Internet to make a difference in the world, as well as the special role in the Internet that Pingsta can play. I knew I had to get on the team. Anybody with that much drive and enthusiasm about what they’re doing is unstoppable.

Here’s what I didn’t know: They’re ALL like that. After joining the Pingsta team, I’ve discovered that every one of its members shares the zeal and drive of its founder. I’ve had the honor of working with some amazing people in the past, but nobody has the fire that these folks have. And it’s infectious. I’m working harder and more intensely than I have in a long time, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

In the two weeks since I started with Pingsta, we’ve rolled out some great enhancements (check out the feed reader and the new login flow on the home page, for starters), as well as a lot of little improvements that will, hopefully, make Pingsta as much fun for you guys as it is for us. There are much bigger things happening right now and in the near future, and I can’t wait to tell you more.

I won’t lie to you; there is a tremendous amount of work to do around here. But every last bit of it is going to be a blast. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

-d.

It's not social networking, It's Pingsta

Pingsta was inspired primarily by the lack of the following:

1. an internetwork intelligence repository that is comprehensive, validated and openly available to the world
2. a social and intellectually stimulating playground for the rock stars that invented (and continue to sustain) the internet.

We set out to create a platform where internetwork experts can hang out and socialize with colleagues from across the world, discussing topics of personal interests such as kite-surfing, IPv6, rock-climbing, inter-planetary communication, Matter-over-IP etc seamlessly, while also collaborating to extend their intellectual legacies through submissions to the internetwork repository.

Several barrels of coffee over months of little sleep later, Pingsta was born. We've since put together a core team of some of the smartest minds in software engineering and design and they are working tirelessly towards making Pingsta the ultimate virtual internetwork playground. Keep an eye out for weekly feature roll-outs ;-)

We're proud to say that four months after beta launch, our niche membership of early-adopters spans inventors, fellows, distinguished engineers, technical leaders, CCIEs, JNCIEs, etc from the US, UK, Australia, Japan, France, Belgium, Poland, Canada, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, South Africa, Israel, India, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Taiwan, China, Bangladesh, Slovenia, Singapore, Ireland, Russia, Spain, Italy, Norway, Serbia, Croatia, Finland, and Brazil.

Thank you all for your continued support, participation and feedback. We hope you enjoy the ride with us!

Peter Alfred-Adekeye
Founder, Pingsta, Inc.