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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.

  • Data Is Streaming Into The Cloud, Including From IBM i

    November 14, 2022 Alex Woodie

    We are in the midst of a vast migration of data into public clouds, as companies seek to leverage technological innovation occurring in the cloud for competitive advantage. While there are no IBM i runtimes in the public cloud yet, IBM i shops are still getting value by moving their valuable Db2 for i data into the cloud, often using streaming technologies and tools like Apache Kafka and Apache Camel, as well as an updated ETL offering from IBM.

    It is tough to understate the magnitude of the transition to the public cloud is having on the $4 trillion IT …

    Read more
  • IBM and Microsoft Bring .NET to Power, After All

    November 9, 2022 Alex Woodie

    Despite initially denying the existence of a project to bring the Microsoft .NET runtime to Power, IBM this week officially announced that .NET version 7 will run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Power. The technology becomes available immediately, although the database driver connecting .NET applications to Db2 for i will take more time.

    Over the years, there have been various attempts at getting the .NET runtime unhooked from its Windows roots and replanted on the Power platform, including some targeting the IBM i operating system. In 2011, a big step forward was made with the Mono Project, which …

    Read more
  • How HelpSystems Became Fortra

    November 9, 2022 Alex Woodie

    HelpSystems, a longtime provider of utilities for IBM i servers and their predecessors, has been on the security warpath of late, using private equity funding to acquire dozens of security software and services firms. The Eden Prairie, Minnesota, company officially completed its pivot to security last week by changing its name to Fortra.

    HelpSystems started life back in 1982 when it was founded by Dick Jacobson, who created the first Robot/38 product. Over the years, the company (then called “Help/Systems”) would expand its well-respected suite of general-purpose Robot utilities, such as job scheduling, backup and recovery, and system monitoring, for …

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  • Momentum Builds For Code For IBM i

    November 7, 2022 Alex Woodie

    Energy and excitement are building in the IBM i development community thanks to Code for IBM i, the VS Code extension that enables users to write and edit RPG and COBOL code in a Web browser. Spearheaded by Liam Allan, who now works for IBM, the lightweight alternative to RDi is approaching critical mass among IBM i developers desperate for something new.

    For many years, IBM i shops had few options available to them when it comes to developing ILE applications for IBM i. IBM’s default recommendation was Rational Developer for i, the Java-based integrated development environment (IDE) that …

    Read more
  • Db2 Web Query Gets ML-Powered Insights, Cloud DW Connection

    November 2, 2022 Alex Woodie

    Organizations adopting the latest release of Db2 Web Query will find new capabilities in the graphical designer, an automated insights generation function that uses machine learning as well as new capabilities in the data migration tool that will help customers move data to cloud data warehouses, among other capabilities.

    Db2 Web Query is IBM’s flagship business intelligence offering for the IBM i platform. The software is based on WebFOCUS, the BI offering developed by Information Builders, with whom IBM has had an OEM relationship since 2007. In 2021, Information Builders was acquired by TIBCO Software, which has continued …

    Read more
  • TRs Deliver Database and SQL Updates for Every IBM i User

    November 2, 2022 Alex Woodie

    When it comes to SQL services and database updates, there’s something for just about every IBM i user in 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7. With dozens of new and enhanced database functions and SQL services, these TRs in fact may be the biggest releases ever, according to Scott Forstie, the Db2 for i architect at IBM.

    During a recent interview with IT Jungle about the new Watson geospatial capabilities that his team delivered in the database (which you can read about here), Forstie pondered the journey he and his team have been on, and how it’s culminated to this …

    Read more
  • OpenSSL Flaw No ‘Heartbleed,’ But Other New Vulns Detected

    November 2, 2022 Alex Woodie

    The cybersecurity world has been sitting on pins and needles for the past 48 hours, ever since news of a potentially devastating new flaw in OpenSSL started to leak out early Monday morning. That flaw turned out to be not as bad as initially feared, but that shouldn’t stop IBM i shops from patching other recent flaws, including some pretty serious ones in WebSphere Liberty, Java, the CCA, and Zlib.

    News started to emerge earlier this week of a critical OpenSSL flaw that required the utmost attention. The flaw could be a concern for just about everybody, including IBM, …

    Read more
  • What’s The Best Web Language For IBM i?

    October 31, 2022 Alex Woodie

    What’s the best language for developing Web applications on IBM i – Python, PHP, or Node.js? That’s the loaded question recently posed by Mike Pavlak, who has been sailing IBM i’s open source waters for nearly two decades. As Pavlak’s presentation at the recent COMMON NAViGATE conference showed, the answer might surprise you.

    Initially, Pavlak aimed to fight for Python in his “Web Language Shootout” session at COMMON’s NAViGATE conference, which was held in St. Louis, Missouri, last month, while his Perforce Software, colleague, Guido Faecke, argued for PHP and Liam Allan, who recently joined IBM, backed …

    Read more
  • Rocket Rides Modernization, DevOps for Hybrid Cloud Adoption

    October 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

    Puneet Kohli, Rocket Software’s new IBM i portfolio manager, is under no illusion about how easy it will be to boost IBM i software sales. “This is not a space where you wake up one morning and your CIO says ‘I’m going to go buy a product on the i,’” Kohli says. But a well-thought-out strategy around enabling DevOps and application modernization in a hybrid cloud setting? Now that just might move the needle.

    It’s been almost a year since Rocket Software founder Andy Youniss stepped down from the day-to-day management of the company he led for 31 years, paving …

    Read more
  • New Nav Makes Progress, But Still Not Caught Up with Old Nav

    October 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

    The Technology Refreshes have brought IBM closer to completing the transition to the new Navigator from the old Navigator product, which is susceptible to the Log4j security vulnerability. While the advances in IBM i 7.5 TR1 and 7.4 TR7 will help customers, the new Navigator product will still not be at feature parity with old Nav when the plug is pulled on the heritage product at the end of the year.

    IBM has been encouraging its IBM i customer base to accelerate its adoption of the new Navigator, which debuted just over a year ago with the introduction of IBM …

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