Frequently Asked Questions about Paglo

What exactly do you do?
We are "Google for IT." Paglo is the world's first search engine for IT. Now businesses can discover all their IT information and get instant answers to their computer, network, and security questions.

How did you get the idea for Paglo?
Customer feedback is what gave us the idea for Paglo. Paglo was founded after Brian de Haaff and Dr. Chris Waters led the sale of Network Chemistry's wireless security business to Aruba Networks (NASDAQ: ARUN). The company had also built technology that allowed companies to discover everything about the devices on their network, and customers continually requested the ability to search that info to solve computer, network, and security challenges. We have our customers to thank for leading us to deliver the world's first search engine for IT.

Why is search a good fit for IT issues?
Search is a great solution for any problem that requires ad hoc investigation. It is particularly good for IT because tons of heterogeneous data are created every day and lots of complex and hidden relationships between the computers, networks, and users.

What do you mean by "Universal Search" for IT?
Universal Search means that we allow you to collect all of the information about your computers, networks, and users with the Paglo Crawler. The captured data is then securely sent to the Paglo Search Index and is ultimately presented through your Paglo Web Account. This is important because we are not limited to one type of information, say logs or documents. We also are unique with patent-pending technology that presents query results as both simple text and rich quantitative data.

I don't think of this as a search engine, aren't you simply a Web-based network management tool?
It can be used as a network management tool. It also can be used as an operations, security, or audit tool as well. But at the core of Paglo, we discover information, index it, and give you the ability to search it. These are the fundamentals of a search engine and that's why we call Paglo, the world's first search engine for IT.

How do you fit into my company's existing management system?
We complement any systems that you already have in place. Paglo gives you the ability to proactively answer questions about computers, networks, and users before something catches on fire. Paglo is the starting place to resolve your IT problems.

Why are you offering the Paglo Crawler under open source?
We believe strongly in what we call the "open enterprise." It's a transparent way of doing business and a key component of it is that technology and expertise of significant value is provided at no cost and can be extended by the community that uses it. We also recognize that the Paglo Crawler runs on a business computer or server at the customer premises. Users like to understand what they are running, so by making the source code available they can understand exactly what the software does when it runs at their business. Finally, there are thousands of different networks and devices out there that businesses would like to discover and index. By making the Crawler open, anyone can easily write a plug-in to gather additional info. That info is then uploaded into the Paglo Search Index for searching and reporting.

Aren't there other companies that do IT search? How are you different?
We are focused on IT professionals because they are ultimately the ones that will judge us. Competitors will come and go. With that said, we are fundamentally unique in the following ways:

How do you know there is a market need for Paglo?
We've spoken with hundreds of IT professionals over the last few years and they have told us directly. The fact that thousands of folks have already registered for the Beta also indicates that we are on to something.

That's great, it's FREE, but what's your business model?
We are maniacally focused on delivering the most value, for the most users, as quickly as possible. To achieve this, we are removing barriers to getting started (like complex installation and cost) and making the service convenient to use. Our experience and the history of the Internet tells us that lots and lots of thrilled users of a free service are much more valuable than a handful of paying customers. If we are successful, you will love Paglo, use it daily, and tell your colleagues and friends.

Do you need to install Paglo on every computer on your network? If not, how can it index all of a computer's software installations without a peer or credentials?
The Paglo Crawler only needs to be installed on one computer. From there it will connect to other devices and computers over the LAN to collect their information. The Crawler needs credentials for these other devices (such as SNMP community strings, SSH logins or Windows domain credentials) so that it can login to them and get the information. The credentials that you enter are only used by the crawler and are not uploaded to, or stored in, the search index.

Does it work with Macs?
The Crawler itself only runs under Windows, however it can collect information from devices running different OSes, including Linux and Mac OS. It is worth noting that Paglo also provides an open API for submitting information to the search index, so it is possible to get data indexed directly from any OS by having a script submit the data directly.

Companies trust you with their sensitive data and infrastructure?
Yes. Within Paglo.com, the information about each network is stored completely separately. Your data is not intermingled with anyone elses. The technology for securing online services is now widespread and well understood, and there are many examples that show they have great adoption (such as salesforce.com, NetSuite, gmail, TurboTax, etc.), but we realize that it is not for everyone.

What does the name Paglo mean?
Search is really about discovery, discovering new things and relationships that were previously hidden. That's what we help people do. We like to say that Paglo was a little known Italian explorer who brought the first sheep to New Zealand and is celebrated every year on Dandy Mutton Day, but the truth is that we made up the name.

Can I host Paglo on my customers' Intranet and monitor it remotely from my server room?
Yes, simply set up an account for each of your clients, download a Crawler and run one instance at each client, and then invite yourself to view the information. All of the companies will roll up into one account for you to manage. Paglo is already multi-tenant. Note that although the Crawler runs at each client location, you view the data through our SaaS offering. This means no hardware or software for you to install at your location.

For technical questions, see the Support FAQ.