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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Symtrax Delivers Mobile Interface for Document Management Suite
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
Symtrax last week unveiled a new release of its Compleo document management suite that gives customers the capability to monitor document production from any Web browser, including those on smart phones and tablets. The new Web interface in version 5.4 will also allow users to perform some limited management tasks within Compleo, like restarting a batch distribution of PDF invoices via email, or remotely switching MICR check printing runs to a backup printer when the primary printer goes down.
Compleo is a suite of output management tools that is well-established in the IBM i community. The software offers a range
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EVault Revs Backup Appliances, Drops Prices
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
EVault last week began shipments of a new generation of dedicated backup appliances that feature upgraded hardware and EVault’s version 7 software. The new boxes are not only faster, but they consume 30 percent less power. Thanks to an upgrade to latest EVault 7 software, the device provides customers with better resilience through support for tertiary backups. And the company has also dropped the price of the appliances by 33 percent.
EVault sells two backup devices: the Plug-n-Protect device, which scales from 3 TB to 24 TB and is designed to hold full backups, and the Express Recovery Appliance, which
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Vision Juices IBM i Performance in DB Replication Tool
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
The latest release of Vision Solutions‘ Double-Take Share database replication tool will yield higher throughput when replicating changes from DB2 for i databases. According to Vision, IBM i shops running Double-Take Share version 5.1 will see performance increases of up to 30 percent. Additional enhancements for IBM i are targeted at high transaction environments.
Double-Take Share (formerly MIMIX Replicate1) is a cross-platform database replication tool designed to move large amounts of data from one database to another in real time. The product is often used in business intelligence environments, where it moves data from production machines to a data
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Liaison Adopts KMIP with Encryption Key Manager
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
Liaison Technologies last week unveiled a new version of Key Manager, its encryption key management solution that’s part of its overall Liaison Protect suite. Key Manager 3.0 delivers support for key management interoperability protocol (KMIP), an emerging standard that helps ensure the proper functioning of encryption keys in multi-vendor environments.
Liaison Protect Key Manager is an encryption key management product designed to automate the tasks involved with creating, using, maintaining, and retiring encryption keys. The software is a part of Liaison’s over-arching data security suite, called Liaison Protect, which also includes a data encryption solution and a tokenization solution, both
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Indigo Launches IBM i-Based Warehouse Management System
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
The English software firm Indigo Software Ltd. this week will launch Indigo WMS for IBM i, a new warehouse management system designed to automate many aspects of running a warehouse. Indigo says its new solution brings time-saving features out of the box, including wireless integration and voice-enabled picking, and will integrate easily with popular IBM i-based ERP systems.
Indigo has been developing custom IBM i software packages for European customers for 33 years. The company has an extensive history with the old JBA System21 product, which was widely deployed in the UK and is currently owned by Infor.
Indigo
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Infor to Buy CERTPOINT for Learning Management Expertise
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
Infor this month unveiled plans to buy CERTPOINT Systems, a developer of learning management software used by large enterprises. Infor says the deal shows it’s serious about making its human capital management (HCM) suite a top-notch contender in the field.
CERTPOINT’s software is used primarily in the sales, distribution, and support organizations of large enterprises. The software is designed to ensure the successful transfer of knowledge in certain critical circumstances, such as the launch of a new product, to drive sales and service training, or to meet regulations.
The company’s learning suite, called CERTPOINTVLS, includes integrated content creation, management,
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STORServer Unveils Hybrid Backup Appliance
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
STORServer has traditionally required that customers purchase one of its IBM System x-based systems as the basis for their appliance. But with the unveiling of its new Hybrid Appliance (HA) last week, customers can now utilize their own hardware when rolling out their STORServer protection scheme.
STORServer has built a business around making IBM’s Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) backup software easier to use for midsized organizations. While TSM is regarded as a rock-solid, enterprise-strength backup and recovery tool for multi-platform environments, it can be complicated for smaller organizations to install and manage. STORServer addressed these issues by developing its own
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Spinnaker Takes Third-Party ERP Support Business to Africa
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
Oracle JD Edwards and SAP customers in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa can now utilize third-party ERP support services from Spinnaker Support thanks to a new partner Spinnaker has in the region.
Denver, Colorado-based Spinnaker’s entry into Africa is largely the result of its new partnership with Mantrasys, a South African company that distributes enterprise IT, network monitoring, and test automation solutions to companies throughout the continent.
Spinnaker managing principal Matt Stava says that the company is being contacted by customers all over the world due to increases in ERP vendor maintenance costs. SAP recently announced it would increase
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LiveRebel Expands to Support Additional Languages
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
ZeroTurnaround last week unveiled a new release of LiveRebel, a new release of its continuous integration enablement tool for accelerating the application deployment cycle in agile development environments. With version 2.6, LiveRebel now supports additional languages, including PHP, in addition to Java.
LiveRebel helps agile development groups by providing the “last mile” of connectivity between development and production. It automates several tasks that must be completed following the latest development burst, including setting up a test bed, running test scripts, and promoting the software into production.
In previous releases, LiveRebel had been restricted to being used in Java environments. With
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Linoma Showcases MFT Customer Successes Via Video
March 19, 2013 Alex Woodie
Linoma Software recently posted a series of customer success stories to its website for GoAnywhere MFT, its managed file transfer (MFT) product for IBM i and other platforms.
Among the IBM i shops participating in Linoma’s video are AAA Cooper Transportation, American Fidelity and Liberty Insurance (AF&L), Londen Insurance, Monterey Mushrooms, P.C. Richard and Son, and United Security, Life, and Health.
A common theme among the stories is a need to automate and streamline cumbersome file transfer activities. For example, it used to take four or five days to compile the month-end reports required at AF&L, according to the video