I think async/await is semantically similar to the promises pattern [1] but different to the Go concurrent models using channels. What the compiler does with await/async is quite interesting [2]. Essentially it takes your await/async code and turns the related code into a state machine which keeps track of how control should be switched between the callee and the await keyword (and uses Task for the async bit).
But I'm not trying to say that async/await are superior to the actor paradigm (which is what my understanding Go subroutine, don't call em threads things are).
Just that I would have hazarded a guess for pinging a bunch of servers, the TPL stuff is a better choice, than actor?
I feel there is a lot of buzz around Go, though I'm not seeing why. I guess my only option is to find something suitable enough for it, and give it whirl. But of course I am lazy, so trying to find someone elses suitable experiences would be great.
[1] http://blog.parse.com/2013/01/29/whats-so-great-about-javasc...
[2] http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/535635/Async-Await-and-t...