Alex Woodie

Alex Woodie is Senior Editor at IT Jungle. He was previously editor of two of IT Jungle's main newsletters, Four Hundred Stuff and The Windows Observer. Prior to joining Midrange Server (as Guild Companies was formerly called) in October 2001, Alex was a products editor at now defunct publisher Midrange Computing, where he was first introduced to the AS/400 and covered hardware, software, and services for Midrange Technology SHOWCASE magazine. Before joining Midrange Computing, Alex was a staff writer for The Insurance Journal and a reporter and columnist with The Paradise Post newspaper. Woodie obtained his Bachelors of Arts degree in journalism from Humboldt State University in 1997. Upon graduation, Alex intended to make his way onto a major daily newspaper, but in 1999 he found himself drawn to the high-technology industry, where his background in science and engineering has suited him well. He lives in Northern San Diego County. When he is not writing next week's newsletters, Alex can be found in his favorite chair reading the day's paper, in the kitchen, or at the beach.

HarrisData Supports Linux with new ‘AppsInHD’ Platform

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

IBM i ERP software developer HarrisData recently unveiled AppsInHD, a new platform that will serve as the foundation for the company’s future Web-based, loosely coupled, REST-enabled applications. The new “mashup” AppsInHD apps will run on IBM i as well as Linux.

HarrisData says AppsInHD is “the revolutionary platform” that it’s using to build the next generation of enterprise software. The company says that, with AppsInHD, it “broke apart” its previous application and re-assembled the pieces as a series of small and independent services. The resulting REST-based services run independently in a cloud environment.

“AppsInHD fundamentally uses REST and its emphasis

…

Inventory Forecasting Software Lives in the Cloud

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

Wholesaler distributors that fail to update demand forecasts are often left holding the bag when sales patterns change downstream or retailers cease carrying a product. Now a company called Thrive Technologies says it can offer advanced demand forecasting and inventory optimization for a variety of industries with its cloud-based offering.

In exchange for vast volumes, big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot extract deep concessions from their suppliers and often require them to maintain high service levels and in-stock percentages. When retailers add or drop products from their shelves, or demand unexpectedly changes, that makes it more difficult for distributors

…

HelpSystems Bolsters Automation Tool with Database Triggers

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

Organizations that use HelpSystems’ business process workflow software, dubbed AutoMate, last week gained the capability to incorporate database triggers into their integration scripts. The software, which can integrate with IBM i resources, also got a new GUI.

AutoMate and AutoMate BPA Server are Windows-based workflow scripting products that HelpSystems obtained earlier this year with its acquisition of Network Automation Inc. (NAI). The Los Angeles-based company had been selling the AutoMate line of products for 10 years.

With the version 10 releases of AutoMate and AutoMate BPA Server, HelpSystems delivered a new database trigger function that enables users to initiate

…

Vision Gets Serious About Hosted HA with MIMIX 8

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

Hosted high availability (HA) has been one of the top solutions that managed service providers (MSPs) have sold to IBM i shops over the past five years. But the HA market’s leader, Vision Solutions, has largely sat on the sidelines due to overly complicated licensing. The company hopes that starts to change with today’s launch of MIMIX 8.0, which introduces metered billing designed specifically for cloud HA.

The new metered billing feature in MIMIX 8.0 should make it easier for MSPs that are Vision’s business partners to sell hosted HA, says Becky Hjellming, senior manager of product strategy for

…

Homebuilder Repels the Tape Monkey with Crossroads VTL

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

A new virtual tape library (VTL) from Crosssroads Systems is helping to keep the tape monkey at bay for Meritage Homes, a $1.8 billion homebuilder headquartered in Arizona. While the company hasn’t totally eliminated tape from its data protection scheme, the introduction of a 20 TB SPHiNX appliance has reduced the incidence of failed backups, increased data retention, and shortened backup times.

Meritage Homes is a growing company that has built more than 84,000 upscale homes since it was founded in 1985, mainly across the southern swath of the country. The publicly traded company relies on the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

…

Halcyon Tackles IBM i Security with New Products

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

Halcyon Software moved further into the IBM i security business last month with the release of two new products, including Exit Point Manager and Password Reset Manager. The new software will help organizations secure their IBM i environments, while giving Halcyon additional products to sell to its customer base.

Halcyon’s new Exit Point Manager helps protect the exit points that IBM provides to enable applications to access external resources, such as FTP, ODBC, and TCP/IP that didn’t exist (or weren’t in widespread use) when the AS/400 was invented way back at the dawn of time in 1988. However, when a

…

Attachmate Emulators Run Natively on iOS and Android

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

Attachmate yesterday unveiled a new release of its Reflection terminal emulation software that allows users to access servers from mobile devices using an SSH client that runs natively on the Android and iOS operating systems.

The new iOS and Android editions of the Attachmate Reflection for UNIX suite are targeted at IT administrators who need to access to Unix and Linux servers from smartphones and tablets. The apps, which are available on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, provide VT emulation and uses SSH to secure sessions.

According to Attachmate product manager Kris Lall, the apps have several

…

Storwize Gets Faster Pipes, Encryption at Rest

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

IBM i shops that need to move a lot of data really fast may want to check out the latest Storwize V7000 and Storage Volume Controller (SVC) arrays, which now give customers the option of using 16 Gb Fibre Channel adapters. IBM also brought support for encryption at rest to the V7000.

The Storwize V7000 is the high-end of the Storwize family, the X86-based storage area networks aimed at midsized and large enterprises. The arrays run SAS-based disks across clusters of up to 20 enclosures. Properly configured, clusters can exceed 4 PB of storage.

IBM last week announced that the

…

Zend Delivers Mobile App Enhancements to PHP Developers

November 4, 2014 Alex Woodie

PHP developers will get new goodies for building mobile apps with the latest release of Zend Technologies‘ integrated development environment, Zend Studio 12, which was unveiled last week at the ZendCon conference in San Francisco. The company also unveiled a beta of Zend Server 8, which becomes generally available on open systems platforms next month.

Zend Studio 12 brings a mess of new capabilities for building Web applications that are housed on servers and features user interfaces for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Chief among them are support for three open source frameworks for building mobile Web apps,

…