The Suretec Blog - PostgreSQL

Facebook, Instagram and Microsoft. Some big numbers and scary implications for mobile, VoIP and web future!

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:00:29 +0100

Those of you on Twitter would have seen the news first, but in case you didn't:

Facebook buys Instagram photo sharing network for $1bn

Why Microsoft spent $1 billion on AOL's patents

The first one is cool and shows you how the social media sector can pay for itself when an app is released free. Instagram allows you to takes pics and automatically upload them up to Twitter, Facebook and do fancy effects on them. The native Facebook iPhone app was clunky to use with pics.

There are also 13 guys in Instagram now all worth almost $100m (CEO got most). The general comment is that the Android release last week had a big impact on the deal and also their powerful RESTful API and OAuth 2 (just like the SureVoIP API, but we weren't first ). Oh, and they also run a massive PostgreSQL cluster

The scary news is that the newly owned Microsoft patents are so powerful. They just bought one for SSL, you know, the thing that allows you to go to https:// for your bank and the whole web.

There's a lot of other mobile patents in that list too. Food for thought as to what damage they can do in the future like create a Microsoft tax for many things and kill a lot of mobile innovation and there's even some in there about VoIP!

SureVoIP Launches Innovative API

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:43:20 +0000

Aberdeen-based communications company SureVoIP has just launched an innovative API (application programming interface) which will provide an even better service for customers and partners and allow 100% self-service and interaction with the SureVoIP suite of products and services.

To ensure communications with other products and services, the company has just launched what is believed to be UK VoIP’s first publicly available and documented Application Programming Interface (API) beta of this kind.

Commenting on the move, SureVoIP managing director Gavin Henry said: “It is vital for us to remain at the forefront of technology and it is anticipated that this API will further enhance our ability to provide the broadest possible spectrum to all customers and partners, existing or potential.

“The SureVoIP API can be used to send SMS messages, faxes, generate telephone calls, manage accounts and telephone numbers, subscribe to event notifications and use a feature called OAuth 2.0 which allows third parties to create Apps like those for Twitter and Facebook.

“Various partnerships have been put in place to maximise adoption and many of our existing customers are already incorporating this API into their Mobile App strategy. Because of this, SureVoIP has also started development work on its own mobile app for customers and partners as well as a long list of exciting new ways to make a telephone call.”

SureVoIP is regulated by Ofcom, is a member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA) and is a finalist in that organisation’s 2012 awards. The company is also the holder of an ITSPA Quality Mark accreditation. For further information visit www.surevoip.co.uk or call 01224 900123 or email sales@surevoip.co.uk

Notes to Editors

SureVoIP is a leading Internet Telephone Service Provider and is part of the Suretec Group. Based at Bridge of Don, Aberdeen the company has worked in locations as diverse as Canada, Nepal, the Netherlands and the Seychelles. The company is a member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA) and is regulated by Ofcom. For further information visit www.surevoip.co.uk or call 01224 900123.

SureVoIP, a UK ITSP based in Scotland and FreeSWITCH

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:03:38 +0000

SureVoIP is Scotland's First Dedicated Internet Telephony Service Provider.

Suretec recently got approval from Ofcom, the U.K. communications regulator, to assign U.K. telephone numbers. Therefore, SureVoIP can assign phone numbers across the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. The company is also authorised to supply global numbers for over 60 countries.

This is unique in the Scottish market, because other companies act as "middle-men" between clients and service providers.

SureVoIP is partnering with British Telecom (BT) through a VoIP Interconnect to offer clients added benefits. SureVoIP has also partnered with Xconnect on their Global Alliance program, as well as two other U.K. VoIP carriers.

SureVoIP also provides 24/7 emergency telephone support.

Gavin Henry, managing director of SureVoIP, and founding member of the Suretec Group, said, "Our journey to securing the approval from Ofcom has been long and complex, involving the submission of detailed business plans, demonstrating an in-depth knowledge of the Communications Act 2003, various legal requirements, help from ITSPA (we've worked so hard that we will soon be getting the ITSPA Quality Mark), documentation and a significant investment in equipment throughout the U.K. With out FreeSWITCH and the FreeSWITCH community this would not have been possible."

Read original article on FreeSWITCH.org

NORTH EAST IT COMPANY BECOMES COUNTRY’S FIRST DEDICATED INTERNET TELEPHONY SERVICE PROVIDER

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:47:00 +0000

North-east IT and telecoms support specialist, the Suretec Group, has become the first dedicated internet telephony service provider in Scotland, with the launch of a new company division, SureVoIP.

The creation of SureVoIP – a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service provider – follows Suretec securing approval from UK communications industry regulatory body, Ofcom, to assign UK telephone numbers.

As an Ofcom regulated VoIP provider with its own telephone number allocations, SureVoIP has been approved to assign phone numbers to clients across the UK and Northern Ireland. The company can also supply global numbers for at least 60 countries.

This is a unique offer within the Scottish market, as other internet telephony specialists within the country must act as ‘middle-men’ between the client and an approved service provider. The result is that SureVoIP and its partners have higher control over costs and can offer preferential and transparent rates that are to the benefit of clients.

VoIP technology transmits voice and multimedia communication through the Internet as opposed to the fast-disappearing Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which has been the basic form of service connection to the telephone network in most parts of the world for the last century.

Heralded as the natural successor to its PSTN predecessor, VoIP offers significant improvements to the flexibility, speed and cost of global communication.

Top line advantages of this new technology include the ability to make and receive calls from anywhere in the world where a user has access to an internet connection, at a cheaper rate; make and receive as many calls as an internet connection can support; ensure the security and confidentiality of a communication; and rapid provision of telephone numbers and outbound calling.

SureVoIP has chosen to work in partnership with British Telecom (BT) by way of a VoIP Interconnect, which offers clients a range of additional advantages such as further cost-effectiveness by accessing BT’s UK and global networks.

SureVoIP has also chosen to partner with Xconnect on their Global Alliance program, as well as two other UK VoIP carriers. The Global Alliance interconnection hub allows VoIP service providers to bypass the PSTN to exchange VoIP traffic with over 100 networks worldwide under the policies and settlement terms they choose.

The division has also taken the extra – and equally unique - step to provide clients with 24/7 emergency telephone support.

Gavin Henry, Managing Director of SureVoIP, and founding member of the Suretec Group, said: “This is a hugely exciting time for Suretec. Our journey to securing the approval from Ofcom has been long and complex, involving the submission of detailed business plans, demonstrating an in-depth knowledge of the Communications Act 2003, various legal requirements, documentation and a significant investment in equipment throughout the UK.

“It is predicted that VoIP will fully replace its predecessor in the next five to ten years. As such, to have received this approval at such a critical period in this global development is a fantastic result for us.

“Our position as an Ofcom regulated service provider will make us a preferred supplier, as we are ideally placed to offer a holistic and competitive service to clients within the North-east of Scotland and beyond.

“The applications of VoIP technology are clear and we see it being of particular interest to the oil and gas, shipping, legal and financial industries as they need to make international, reliable and cost effective communications as a basic function.”

Established in Scotland in 2003, the Suretec Group specialises in open source IT support and consultancy, open source telecoms and training in open source software. SureVoIP is the fourth division within the group, which also includes Suretec Systems, Suretec Telecoms and Suretec Training.

For further information about the Suretec Group and SureVoIP please call 01224 279484 or visit www.suretecgroup.com and www.surevoip.co.uk

ENDS

Issued by Mackenzie PR on behalf of Suretec Group. For further information please contact Paul Beaton or Andrew Reid on (01224) 580 188 or email paul@mackenziepr.co.uk

Suretec allocated a Communications Provider Identity ("CUPID") code by Ofcom

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:13:19 +0100

Exciting news!

Our Communications Provider Identity ("CUPID") code application has been processed by Ofcom and we just received our number of 291.

The start of many good things to come with our own VoIP provider SureVoIP (brand and website being worked on now). We're also listed as an ITSP at ITSPA.

Thanks,

Gavin.

Yubico key has arrived!

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:39:58 +0000

It's taken us a while to get round to ordering one of these Yubikeys from Yubico, but they do look great and have lots of documentation via the wiki.

We're going to be testing them via the pam module for SSH access (and of course using pam_ldap).

So, users in LDAP^[?] via pam, and a Yubikey, let's see how it goes!

(will be interesting for logging in a SIP handset via Asterisk or FreeSWITCH that needs one too and all the others technologies Suretec use and support (Catalyst, Perl, PostgresSQL, Squid and more....). We'll see....

Suretec now have a merchant account!

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:16:34 +0100

It's been a long process, almost 6 weeks, what with the new laws regarding PCI DSS compliance as of the 1st of October 2009, PCI DSS Scans, Business plans, website terms and connditions and many more things we have a merchant account at last!!!

This is mainly for our new Internet Telephony Service Provider called SureVoIP which is currently live with various customers but has no front facing sales and marketing site yet, only the admin and customer portal.

We'll keep you posted with a proper press release in due course.

Thanks,

Gavin.

Suretec VoIP platform coming soon - SureVoIP

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:43:02 +0100

A quick update:

SureVoIP a new startup ITSP will be launched by Suretec very soon. It is currently in development and being installed in a Scottish datacentre using various enterprise grade Open Source products. Keep an eye out for when it goes beta and will be available at http://www.surevoip.co.uk

Request Tracker (RT) 3.8.3 is out!

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:18:31 +0100

Grab it whilst it's hot!

Request Tracker (RT) 3.8.1 Screenshots

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:10:13 +0100

Suretec use RT and are currently on 3.6.7. Since it has just been announced, we thought we'd quickly install RT 3.8.1 and post some screens.

So here you go:

Flexi Time Manager Shortlisted for National Business Award

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:59:56 +0100

Flexi Time Manager "in the pink" after shortlisting for National Business Award

Entrepreneur Louise Wreathall has been shortlisted for the ‘Best Mumpreneur’ award at the National mother@work awards 2008. Louise, creator of Flexi Time Manager, which offers an online flexi time recording service, launched her business last year and has seen it go from strength to strength. She will attend a reception at 11 Downing Street on 18th June, where the winners will be announced.

Louise says, “Being shortlisted for this award means so much to me. Of course I’d be thrilled to win, but reaching the final stage itself shows that my work in getting the business where it is today has paid off.”

As a working mother who returned to work after a career break, Louise knows how important flexi time can be. Working in the HR department of a charitable organisation, she was responsible for administering a time consuming flexi time system for 30 staff, using scraps of paper and mental arithmetic to calculate hours worked. When staff numbers doubled, she knew something had to change, and set about creating an electronic timesheet system. By 2005, Louise had set up the business and set about trialling her own online time management system. With the help of Enterprise North East Trust, and local networks Women Into Business and Aberdeen Entrepreneurs, she learned the fundamentals of business management, finally launching the fully tested web application in November 2007.

Suretec designed and implemented the Flexi Time Manager Solution.

Spring 2008 - a UKUUG Conference Review

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:37:12 +0100

I got back last night, after a somewhat hectic Flybe.com flight (long story).

I really enjoyed the conference, my first time speaking at one, bit nervous, but it can only get better

Tuesday:

As I arrived around 10.30am on Tuesday, I just caught the end of Testing with Selenium, very handy bit of kit.

- System Configuration : An end to hacky scripts? This was very good and showed an alternative (IMHO, much better) to things like Cfengine and Puppet
- An Introduction to DBIx::Class - Tom Hukins is an excellent speaker and a very nice guy to boot. Had some good chat in the pub afterwards, mainly Perl related. He knows his stuff.
- Building a new model for account management - I've meet Simon a few times before, he's another great guy. His talk was about a completely new way to manage accounts (and much more) that they are using at Edinburgh uni.
- Software patents and open standards - This was one hour of very interesting, worrying and intelligent discussion.

It was good to see so much Catalyst usage too.

The rest of the day was spent chatting with Matt and Mike, meeting lots of very clever people, drinking, eating and generally have brilliant discussions over dinner and in the pubs

Wednesday:

I sat in the PostgreSQL talks all day.

Simon did an excellent job being the event host. Dave gave us an insight into how the Postgres project works..pretty much like other well organised Open Source projects of this size. Chris fewtrell talk was interesting to see how Postgres is used at the core of a business.

Explaining the Explain was very technical, but also fun. I think some useful things for Postgres will come out of the HA talk.

Mark Cave-Ayland was another excellent speaker and his talk on Integrating Map Data with PostGIS was well worth attending.

A real eye-opener was Simons talk on PostgreSQL Performance Features in 8.3. Well worth an upgrade!

Simon has written his thoughts on the event up too.

Gavin.

A Catalyst Appliance?

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:21:30 +0000

We have had some interesting discussions about offering a locally hosted version of a Catalyst Web Application called Flexi Time Manager.

The question was also raised on the Catalyst Mailinglist, with no replies...so we raised it on the PerlMonks forums at Offering a locally hosted solution?

A very interesting response about doing an appliance:

Gavin,

I've been pondering these questions in anticipation of some stuff i'm working on. Some corporations prefer to have the stuff in-house for a few reasons. These come up alot:
1. Security - they may feel unconfortable having their data outside the company. it may even be policy
2. Network outages - if its internal, your site or their network connection going down won't affect the in-house application (unless you use the light frontend that goes back to your servers)

Thoughts to consider:
1. How much control do you want to give them in terms of access to the source code and the ability to break things even if well meaning. Will they need to sign an NDA?
2. How is the application maintained? Do you have a tunnel into their environment to fix things? (will they consider this a security risk?)
3. How are updates applied? Onsite cdrom/flash drive? Downloads (like IPCop), automatically downloaded and installed? How do you deal with a failed update.
4. What happens when they want to connect some other system to your database to pull the timesheet data?
5. Security. What liability is involved if the appliance is the mechanism for the breach. And would the appliance provide a method for securiy breach (see #2 and #3).
6. Legality - if you have gpl code, you're ok when its a service, when leasing hardware/software youre approaching a greyer area the RMS wanted to kill with GPLv3 (it didn't make it into the final cut)
7. If your model is based on usage, how do you guarantee you're sending back the appropriate data and a firewall isn't getting in the way.

I'm personally leaning towards the leased appliance model. You "lease" a box with the software installed on it. Providing in that fee is an "update" subscription service, where the software will poll the update server and pull the encrypted & signed updates down. Perhaps with a web interface for the company admin to decide whne to apply the updates. Of course the leasing is noticably more expensive that the web version (for the updates and support).

Applications that do some of that I was talking about:
1. IPCop - downloadable signed updates
2. Tivo - ideal model in my mind (at least for the hardware end result)
3. Google search appliance (to they offer the google office apps as an appliance yet?)
4. Vigilant Minds security appliance - (was originally nessus with a rockin web interface)
5. Salesforce.com and SugarCRM i think also have appliance versions as well.

You want the corporate types to think of the box you provide like a Tivo, not like software they purchased. In the latter you end up with the companies wanting you (or themselves) to make customizations to the app. Enough of those and you become a development shop and not a service provider.

Now all that said, the Xen/Vmware image idea might work well. I've dabbled with using a single Xen image on a piece of hardware just to cope with the fact that hardware continually improves and unless you're buying in bulk from Taiwan you're guaranteed to not hav ethe same platform to install on year after year. It will also offer greater flexibility for larger companies who have migrated to a Vmware setup. The downside is that if they stop paying, they can effectively keep the Vmware image and get into it whereas an appliance can be reasonably locked down to make it less likely. (Downloads are something people put little weight WRT to stealing.)

How does this relate to perl? There are dozens of modules out on cpan that can help with accomplishing the task of remote updates, package signing, etc...

dratsab

Food for thought.....

Gavin.

Dedicated OpenLDAP GUI?

nospam@example.com (Gavin Henry) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:42:00 +0000

We know there are various desktop apps like gq, Jxplorer etc. and web based like gosa and phpldapadmin, but do we want a GUI specfically tailored for OpenLDAP?

Suretec do.

So, what style?
We've already done a nice Web 2.0 style app using Catalyst, Dojo and PostgreSQL. Why not one like that or Google Desktop?

Probably speed. Loading up LDIF data etc may be too slow.

It would probably have to be something OS independent and written in C or C++

I would prefer using C for making use of libldap for possibly a benchmark suite to include in the app with a plugin API for others to contribute. Then you could use GTK+. I don't know, these are just minor details really, feature set is the key here.

So I'm thinking of features like:

- Standard LDAP^[?] stuff
- OpenLDAP Configuration Wizard
- Monitoring stats and graphs
- Tuning wizard
- Benchmark wizard
- Importing from various sources
- many more etc..

The interesting thing about the import part is you could then hook up to various Social Web Apps to get address book info and then import that to your directory. Just a thought.

The main thing I want is configuration tools for cn=config made easy and monitoring with stats etc.

I know it's all just LDIF and LDAP and that you can use any existing GUI, but it would be nice to dumb this down a bit for clients and not find different solutions all over the place for handling the same old task.

But should this be a fresh new app, or could we add to say gq. It might be worth looking into to speed things up.

Feel free to add your comments.

Gavin.

Flexi Time Manager - A Cost Effective and Time Efficient Solution for SMEs to administer flexible working

nospam@example.com (Suretec) — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:12:38 +0000

Flexi Time Manager is a web application that provides a cost effective and self-contained administration system for recording and calculating flexitime. Designed to help small and medium sized businesses introduce or extend flexible working for staff, the system can be accessed at a mere 54 pence per employee per week (£30 per employee, per year) and does not require specialist software or hardware, just an internet connection. For firms that already operate flexible working, Flexi Time Manager will ease the administrative burden associated with calculating employee flexi time. Employee hours are input by the user at any time and their data is then automatically calculated, totalling the working time, flexi credit or debit and flexi carry forward.

Louise Wreathall, creator of Flexi Time Manager explains,

“Due to the changes in legislation, employers have to seriously consider how to put the necessary procedures and protocols in place for effectively managing flexible working. Smaller firms often don’t have the money, resources, or expertise to put flexible working into practice. Flexi Time Manager offers these organisations the means to efficiently administer flexi time at considerably lower cost than by manual calculation. The database includes all of the features of a sophisticated flexi system and can be used on any PC. This makes it ideal for those who work remotely. As it is web-based there is no expensive hardware or software needed, only an internet connection and web browser.”

Flexible working has been the hot topic of many government announcements this year. Both Tory leader David Cameron and the Labour Minister for Children, Young People and Families, Beverley Hughes, have called for an extension to the right to request flexible working. Changes in legislation and the Government drive to promote better work life balance has led to almost 95% of requests for flexible working being granted by employers*.

Flexi Time Manager is suitable for users from a wide range of industry sectors from University departments, medical surgeries and voluntary organisations, to accountancy firms and solicitors. The versatility of the system allows it to be tailored to individual user needs, as Louise explains,

“Each person can set up their own unique profile on the database, inputting basic weekly hours, limits to the working day, minimum lunch times, core working times and minimum daily hours. All subscribers are provided with a unique username and password, so that each time they use Flexi Time Manager their settings will remain. Individuals can log into the system at any time to view their total hours and flexi balance ‘as they go’. Flexi Time Manager can also record holidays, sick leave or any other form of absence.

“The system is beneficial for organisations that employ a high percentage of part time (often female) staff. With the new laws granting carers with children under six or disabled children under 18 the right to request flexible working, it is necessary for all employers to plan and prepare for the introduction of dynamic patterns of work for some or all staff.”

For further information on Flexi Time Manager log onto www.flexitimemanager.co.uk or call 01224 649484.

Flexi Time Manager is a Suretec Web Project.

* sourced from the CBI