Jims-steempowered-witness proposal for the Peerplays network & Witness monitoring script with Telegram notifications

Dear Peerplays Stakeholders,

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce my Peerplays witness for your consideration.

Witness Name: jims-steempowered-witness

Who am i:

I am Jim from Australia, you might know me as Gchicken (Bitsharestalk and Mumble), Jim888(Telegram) or Steempower (Steemit).

I am a regular in the weekly mumble sessions, telegram and provide a weekly report 'Bitshares State of the Network' (BSotN) via the Steem platform i have also previously done some work in the early days assisting in distribution of Brownies.PTS and the development of a distribution tool to speed up the process, most recently i have created the Beyond Bitcoin guestbook.

I was also involved in the recent Bitshares test-net Stress-test where i contributed 1 witness node and 5 transaction generating nodes and was happy to be the signer who achieved the largest TPS in the test being 9985 TX in a single block / 3328.33 TPS - Block# 6878287.

I have been involved with Graphene and pre-Graphene project since 2014 contributing to PTS, VOTE,DNS, BTSX, BTS, MUSE, STEEM and now Peerplays; i even did a little bit of mining for BitAssets/Smartcoins in original multipool located within the bunker hosted by Datasecuritynode (you can check out my miner HERE).

I donated in the initial Peerplays funding round and also the most recent funding round and have been spreading the word ever since. The Australian government has very recently made moves to make online poker and sports betting illegal for operators so i am very excited to see Peerplays grow and evolve.

I work as a system administrator and have done so for the last 15 years. I also spend a lot of my personal time in front of the computer consuming knowledge and tinkering with different systems; these days my time is pretty much entirely dedicated to cryptocurrencies. I also have an interest in trading and programming and am a pretty good chess player; although i could be a little rusty these days.

Witness Hardware:

Block Producing node - Running now / ready to sign
    * Quad Core 2.6 GHz Intel Xeon
    * 32 GB RAM
    * DDOS protection   
    * France

Backup node - Running now
    * Separate hosting provider and country from primary node
    * Quad Core 2.6 GHz Intel Xeon
    * 32 GB RAM
    * DDOS protection
    * Germany       

Seed node - Active within 48 hours of being elected 
    * Quad Core 2.6 GHz Intel Xeon
    * 16GB RAM
    * DDOS protection   

Automated Witness and Seed node monitoring with Hot switching for maximum reliability

I have a monitoring script configured that is currently watching for missed blocks under my witness account and the availability of my seed node. This script is configured to send alerts via Telegram and also to update my signing keys automatically to my secondary node after a missed block is detected.

The Basis and inspiration for this script come from Hive account@roelandp's original Bitshares witness monitor script. After tweaking the script to use python-graphenelib which allow it work with Peerplays i have also added some code to update the signing key (This part is in Alpha and should not be used on a production network unless you understand the risks). I have shared the code on GitHub; which you can find HERE please be advised this is still in Alpha and comes as is.

I plan to carry out extensive testing on the script via the testnet and ensure it works in all edge cases.

I have also started on developing a service which will allow active witnesses to subscribe via telegram to receive alerts if their witness is missing blocks.

Commitments:

• I will ensure good monitoring of my node's resources and automatic detection of a failing node and automated switch to the secondary node to ensure minimal downtime and good service to the network.
• I will upgrade my nodes to cater for growth of the network and ensure that the nodes are well resources to handle the current and future demands.
• I will run a private test node and testnet to ensure changes to the core code are implemented in a smooth and reliable fashion.
• I will be available via all channels and committed to customer service and timely response to enquiries.
• I will be honoured to serve the community and the Peerplays network.

How to vote for me:

Voting is easy, Please see the steps below or follow the gif at the bottom to support my witness.

Firstly you will need to open your Peerplays wallet and sign in

How to Vote:

1. Click Vote from the top menu bar
2. Click the Witness tab
3. Type 'jims-steempowered-witness' into the select a witness text box
4. Click Add
5. Scroll down toward the bottom of the page and click Publish Changes

Scroll down until you see 'Publish Changes'

Animated Gif showing the voting process

Thank you for your consideration.

Jim,