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.
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RJS Taps Partner to Build Document Security into WebDocs
June 25, 2013 Alex Woodie
Document management software vendor RJS Software Systems is teaming up with security software developer Global Velocity to build data loss prevention (DLP) technology into the IBM i and Windows versions of RJS’ WebDocs.
Global Velocity builds and sells a DLP solution, called rapidDLP, which helps protect data by detecting and blocking unauthorized attempts to access data or documents. The St. Louis, Missouri, company starts by indexing all of the content under protection. Then it uses proprietary pattern-matching algorithms to detect whenever that content is moved across the network.
The offering, which deploys as a Wintel- or Lintel-based appliance, works well
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UCG Lauded for Test Work by VAULT400 Customer
June 25, 2013 Alex Woodie
In the event of a disaster, your chances of recovery are only as good as your last test. Thanks to the testing work that Atlas Paper Mills did with IBM i cloud backup and disaster recovery (DR) services provider VAULT400, its chances of surviving a disaster are better.
Testing is a critical element of a complete disaster recovery plan. But all too often, tests don’t go deep enough or last long enough to truly simulate bringing a system back online following a disaster. Short tests may allow organizations to check “DR test” off their list and make happy with
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Xperia Taps SIS for SaaS, HA Hosting
June 25, 2013 Alex Woodie
Xperia Solutions, a provider of IBM i-based ERP software for the apparel industry, is now working with the managed service provider (MSP) Software Information Systems (SIS) to provide hosted high availability (HA) and software as a service (SaaS) options for its customers.
Xperia develops and sells a COBOL-based suite of supply chain planning, production management, and customer relationship management software used by small and midsized businesses in the apparel and soft goods industries. The company, which formerly went by the name Online Data Systems, counts OshKosh B’Gosh, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Converse as customers.
In May, Xperia announced a new
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Infor Reports 10 Percent Growth in Sales
June 25, 2013 Alex Woodie
Infor last week divulged some preliminary, non-binding financial results that show steady sales growth for its fourth quarter of 2013, which ended May 31. According to the company, it grew software license fees and subscription revenues by about 10 percent during its quarter compared to the same quarter in 2012.
The company didn’t divulge much beyond that, except to say that, at constant currency, the growth rate for the fourth quarter will likely be about 9 percent instead of 10, and that non-GAAP license fee and revenue figures will be 9 percent at both constant currency and actual rates. Infor
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IBM Delivers New Mobile Development Tooling With RDi 9.0
June 24, 2013 Alex Woodie
IBM is now shipping Rational Developer for i (RDi), the name of the once-and-current flagship development tool for writing RPG, COBOL, Java, and C apps for IBM i. The product, which replaces Rational Developer for Power Systems (RDp), was officially unveiled by IBM two months ago. Chief among the new capabilities is support for Worklight Studio, which brings hybrid mobile application development capabilities to the IBM i platform.
IBM has, once again, reshuffled the deck of cards (some say nested set of Russian dolls) that is its Rational development tool collection. On June 14, it began shipping a broad new
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Information Builders Bolsters Data Asset Management Strategy
June 18, 2013 Alex Woodie
Information Builders is in the process of overhauling its iWay data integration tools as part of a new focus on data asset management. With the new strategy, the company is looking to tie the disciplines of data integration, quality, and master data management (MDM) closer together. The new iWay 7 suite is the result of this strategy, and will be rolled out over the next 18 months.
The market for data integration tools has changed dramatically over the years, according to Dennis McLaughlin of Information Builders. Instead of trying to hook together disparate databases or utilize application-level adapters–as was traditionally
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LANSA Unveils Free Mobile App to Audit GS1 Product Data
June 18, 2013 Alex Woodie
Ensuring that real-life products in the consumer goods supply chain match their digital GS1 records can be a time-consuming and error-prone job. To speed up the task of executing data quality audits, LANSA last week unveiled DQ Inspector, a free mobile iOS app that streamlines the work of recording physical attributes of goods and verifying that they match GS1 records.
The GS1 organization is dedicated to helping businesses and consumers by driving standards into processes. In the consumer goods supply chain, the organization sets standards over the use of Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) and the synchronization of related product
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Tributary Updates VTL Software’s LTO Tape Compatibility
June 18, 2013 Alex Woodie
Tributary Systems last week announced a new release of Storage Director, its storage virtualization software used to create virtual tape libraries (VTLs) in IBM i environments. With version 4.1, Storage Director can now input data into the VTL through new LTO-5 and LTO-6 emulation connections. It also gained support for outputting data to LTO-6 drives and NFS repositories.
Tributary markets Storage Director as an “any-to-any” storage virtualization tool that can move data from practically any computer in the data center to just about any form of storage. Loaded onto a VTL or disk-based backup appliance, Storage Director can speed up
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Zend Server Gets a Seat on the IBM SmartCloud
June 18, 2013 Alex Woodie
Organizations that tap IBM for private cloud services will be able to get the PHP runtime from Zend as part of the bargain, the companies announced this month.
The expanded partnership has the companies working together to load Zend Server on SmartCloud Application Services (SCAS), IBM’s platform as a service (PaaS) offering that includes Linux, WebSphere, DB2, SAP business applications, and Rational’s Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) tools.
A new pattern, dubbed the Zend Server V6 Application Pattern for PHP, provides SCAS customers all of the capabilities of Zend Server 6, the latest PHP stack from the Cupertino, California company. The
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FalconStor in New OEM Deal with IBM for VTL Appliances
June 18, 2013 Alex Woodie
FalconStor is teaming up with IBM once again to get its virtual tape library (VTL) software preloaded onto IBM servers. The X64-based appliance, called the FalconStor VTL IBM Series, will be marketed heavily to IBM’s midrange customers, including IBM i shops who want a backup system that is faster and more reliable than tape, and which offers deep support for the IBM i OS.
Mellville, New York-based FalconStor previously had a distribution deal with IBM, but ended it several years ago after IBM launched its ProtecTIER family of data de-duplication appliances. However, ProtecTIER is simply too much tech and costs