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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.

  • IBM Streamlines Data Migration With New Partition Mirror Tech

    July 28, 2025 Alex Woodie

    There is a brand new technology available for migrating data from one IBM i partition to another as part of IBM’s new Migrate While Active tool. It’s called partition mirror, and it gives IBM i shops a potentially less disruptive method for moving data across distances both long and short.

    IBM first unveiled its new Migrate While Active product in October 2024 as part of its announcement introducing subscriptions for the PowerHA high availability and Db2 Mirror continuous availability products. The co-mingling of the announcements made some sense when you consider that the original Migrate While Active product utilized a …

    Read more
  • Profound Logic Adds MCP To IBM i AI Tool

    July 28, 2025 Alex Woodie

    The world of AI is moving extremely fast right now, with new models, techniques, and technologies emerging every week. One of the newest bits of AI tech to catch on is Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), which has quickly become a defacto standard for connecting data sources to AI models. Profound Logic, which has been on the cutting edge of AI, is the first IBM i vendor to bring MCP support to the server and the Db2 for i database.

    Anthropic quietly launched Model Context Protocol in late November 2024 as a way to enable large language models (LLMs), such …

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  • BRMS Isn’t The Only Backup Product With A Security Problem

    July 21, 2025 Alex Woodie

    IBM last month patched a serious security flaw in BRMS, the built-in backup and recovery facility that it ships with the IBM i operating system. The flaw is the latest in a series of security flaws uncovered in backup tools, which cyber criminals appear to be now targeting.

    If you’re a regular reader of Doug Bidwell’s IBM i PTF Guide – and really, if you are responsible for managing an IBM i environment, you should be reading it regularly – then you already knew about the security flaw in BRMS. Bidwell covered the flaw and the associated emergency PTF for …

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  • Maxis Adds IBM i Support To Database Modernization Tool

    July 21, 2025 Alex Woodie

    Legacy applications are frequent targets for modernization efforts, but databases also need their share of TLC. One company that specializes in database modernization, Maxis Technology, recently announced support for IBM i and its integrated Db2 for i database with its flagship product, dubbed Alchemize.

    Maxis Technology is an Eagle Rock, Missouri, company that specializes in database modernization. Founded by Steve Cornell in 2011, Maxis develops the Alchemize database power tool, which allows developers and engineers to automate a range of database tasks, including: data migration and loading; data mapping and archiving; data transformations and cleanup; fixing data quality issues; optimizing …

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  • Vendors Fill In The Gaps With IBM’s New MFA Solution

    July 14, 2025 Alex Woodie

    The new multi-factor authentication (MFA) capability that IBM has built into the IBM i operating system is a real gamechanger in terms of securing the system and preventing unauthorized access to applications and data. However, it lacks some key capabilities that some customers are looking for in an MFA solution, which third-party vendors are eager to fill.

    The native MFA function that Big Blue delivered with IBM i 7.6 is being praised almost universally throughout the IBM i community as a massive security improvement. The MFA functionality, which uses randomly generated time-based one-time passwords (TOTP), is built directly into …

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  • Izzi Buys CNX, Eyes Valence Port To System Z

    July 8, 2025 Alex Woodie

    Izzi Software today announced the acquisition of CNX Corp., owner of the Valence suite of Web development tools for IBM i. The deal is the first IBM i-related acquisition for Izzi, which was founded last year with a mandate to buy smaller IBM i and mainframe vendors that typically don’t get M&A attention from bigger players.

    CNX is a Chicago-based software vendor and consulting firm founded in 1996 by Richard Milone and Robert Swanson. The two had worked with BPCS (now Infor ERP LX) customers, and developed a product that extended that ERP system to the Web. That product, then …

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  • IBM i Shops “Attacking” Security Concerns, Study Shows

    July 8, 2025 Alex Woodie

    Faced with ever-growing security concerns, IBM i shops are “attacking” the problem and taking real steps to improve their security posture, Fortra says in its latest State of IBM i Security study. It is the second straight year that Fortra has noticed an improvement in IBM i shops’ approach to security. However, there are still areas that require improvement.

    Fortra and its predecessors (HelpSystems, PowerTech) have been running the annual State of Security study for 22 years, providing a unique glimpse into the security configurations of IBM i customers that is unmatched in the industry.

    Every year, a new group …

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  • Liam Allan Shares What’s Coming Next With Code For IBM i

    June 23, 2025 Alex Woodie

    The rise of Code for IBM i arguably is the best IBM i technology story of the past few years. The VS Code development environment came out of nowhere to challenge Rational Developer for i as the pre-eminent developer tool on the platform. And according to Liam Allan, who started this whole thing, Code for i is only going to get better in the months and years to come.

    There is clear and unmistakable momentum behind VS Code and Code for IBM i, the VS Code plug-in that Liam Allan created back in 2021 while working at Seiden Group …

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  • Meet The Next Gen Of IBMers Helping To Build IBM i

    June 16, 2025 Alex Woodie

    The graying of the IBM i installed base is a topic that deserves attention, as every platform must find a way to reinvent itself if it wants to survive. IBM executives have been vocal about the need for IBM i customers to hire younger people. Well, it looks like Big Blue is taking its own advice, judging from the new crop of developers working in the Rochester and Toronto labs, and beyond.

    It’s hard to believe that Liam Allan has been working on the IBM i platform for nearly a decade. Allan, who started working on IBM i when he …

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  • Will Independent IBM i Clouds Survive PowerVS?

    June 16, 2025 Alex Woodie

    IBM currently competes with a slew of independent IBM i clouds with its Power Virtual Server (PowerVS) offering. But as IBM’s PowerVS grows bigger and more capable, there is still a question: Can the independent IBM i clouds survive?

    Clouds have been around in one form or another for as long as the IBM midrange server has existed. Whether it’s termed co-location, a computer bureau, an application service provider (ASP), a managed service provider (MSP), or the cloud, people have been running IBM gear on behalf of other people for a very, very long time.

    Since the online bookseller Amazon …

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