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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.

  • Townsend Security Calls It Quits

    December 13, 2023 Alex Woodie

    After 40 years in business, Townsend Security will cease operations at the end of the month, the company’s principal, Patrick Townsend, announced last week. “It has been my honor to serve you and work with you for these many years, and I know that our security solutions have kept many safe from harm,” he wrote.

    Townsend Security traces its roots back to 1984, when Townsend created a consulting team to provide network and communications solutions for a global chipmaker, according to Patrick Townsend’s LinkedIn page. Townsend formally founded Townsend Security in 1991, and has served the IBM midrange community …

    Read more
  • ACS, Merlin Hit With Serious Security Vulnerabilities

    December 11, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Three serious security vulnerabilities in IBM i Access Client Solutions and six in Merlin were disclosed and patched by IBM last week. The flaws could allow attackers to commit a range of crimes, from executing arbitrary code and denial of service attacks, to obtaining sensitive data on IBM i conducting phishing attacks. All of the flaws – including another three reported by IBM in November – should be patched immediately.

    IBM published a security bulletin December 8 covering all three of the ACS flaws, which impact ACS versions 1.1.2 through 1.1.4 and 1.1.4.3 through 1.1.9.3. The fix is to download …

    Read more
  • Fresche Bolsters MFA with IBM i Exit Point Coverage

    December 6, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Organizations relying on Fresche Solutions’ multi-factor authentication (MFA) to protect their IBM i assets can now implement more fine-grained enforcement by protecting access to IBM i exit points, the company announced recently. The MFA offering also now hooks into enterprise-level MFA solutions.

    MFA has emerged as a minimum standard for protecting critical IT assets and data, as well as for preventing ransomware attacks. Even if a cybercriminal were to obtain the user ID and password to access sensitive applications and data, MFA serves as a difficult-to-overcome barrier that slows, if not prevents, them from actually getting into systems.

    Fresche Solutions …

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  • AWS Taps Precisely to Bring IBM i Data Into Its Cloud

    December 6, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Amazon Web Services and Precisely have entered into a partnership agreement that will see AWS reselling Precisely’s data replication software to bring IBM i data into the cloud. It’s part of a larger effort by AWS to bring more IBM workloads into its data centers.

    Precisely and AWS previously had a relationship to move mainframe data into the world’s largest public cloud through a program called AWS Mainframe Modernization Data Replication. In late November, the companies announced they’re expanding the program to include IBM i. (While not technically a mainframe, the IBM i server is often called a mainframe. If …

    Read more
  • Government Cracks Down on Security Responses, Unpatched Vulns

    December 6, 2023 Alex Woodie

    New federal rules that go into effect next week require public companies to share information about past security incidents within four days of the event, as well as detail in annual reports how they’re preparing for future attacks. And a state prosecutor in New York fined a company for allowing hackers to steal customer data through a critical zero-day security vulnerability that was left unpatched for 11 months.

    The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s new cybersecurity rule that went into effect on October 1 requires public companies to report details of cybersecurity incidents that impact their operations. Companies must report …

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  • IBM Pushes Storage Limits With Storage Scale 6000

    December 4, 2023 Alex Woodie

    IBM recently unveiled a new high-end all-flash storage array that pushes the limits of I/O. Dubbed the IBM Storage Scale System 6000, the new array gives users 1.44 PB of storage in a 4U chassis with up to an eye-watering 256 GB/sec of bandwidth and 7 million input/output operations per second (IOPS) of performance.

    Few IBM i shops have the need for that sort of performance with traditional business applications. Indeed, with its Storage Scale parallel file system (the new name given to IBM’s General Parallel File System, or GPFS, which also previously went by the name Spectrum Scale), the …

    Read more
  • IBM i Shops Have Alternatives to Db2 Web Query

    November 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    The sudden demise of Db2 Web Query has sent customers looking for alternatives. The good news is that IBM i software vendors offer a number of pre-built solutions that can fit the bill.

    Here are some potential business intelligence tools from vendors that could serve as replacements to Db2 Web Query. We’ll take a look at open source alternatives in a future article.

    Cozzi Research SQL World

    Cozzi Research develops two query tools for IBM i, including SQL iQuery and SQL Tools, and bundles them both in a single product called SQL World.

    Cozzi positions SQL iQuery as a native …

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  • Eradani Lays Waste to API Payload Restrictions

    November 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Eradani Connect customers who need to pass large amounts of data to IBM i via external API calls have often been stymied by a built-in restriction in IBM i that limits their payload to a mere 16MB. Those customers will be thrilled that Eradani has launched a new big data connector that smashes those payload restrictions to smithereens.

    Eradani Connect is a packaged application designed to simplify the creation and execution of API calls on IBM i. The software functions as a middleware layer that makes it easy for .NET, JavaScript, and Python developers to get access to the IBM …

    Read more
  • Old PHP and Other PASE Apps Break on IBM i 7.5

    November 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Customers running old versions of PHP and other PASE applications like Node.JS may run into compatibility issues when running on IBM i 7.5. The issue is due to an upgrade in OpenSSL support in the latest release of the IBM i operating system, according to Alan Seiden.

    Seiden, the principle of Seiden Group, first sounded the alarm in July about the problems running older, non-RPM versions of PHP and Node.JS on IBM i 7.5, which was upgraded from OpenSSL version 1.0.2 to version 1.1. In October, he recently published a blog post restating the issue.

    “While [the OpenSSL upgrade …

    Read more
  • IBM To Add Generative AI To QRadar

    November 13, 2023 Alex Woodie

    If you feel that cyber crooks are getting the upper hand, you’re not alone. Studies show cybercrime volume booming while security professionals struggle to connect the dots and keep up. One possible route forward was presented last week by IBM, which announced that it will add generative AI capabilities to its QRadar SIEM tool.

    Security information and event management (SIEM) tools are the sharp end of the stick for security-loving organizations, as they are where the hard work of assembling security data from all of the various components in the modern IT stack (including IBM i) and then trying to …

    Read more

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