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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Dynatrace Includes IBM i In Its Observability Bubble
February 14, 2024 Alex Woodie
If you’re looking for an observability tool that supports IBM i, you might want to consider Dynatrace. At first blush, you might suspect the application performance management (APM) experts at Dynatrace have better things to do than to support a proprietary midrange server used viewed as niche by the computing public. But in fact, Dynatrace appears to have devoted substantial resources to supporting the IBM i platform.
Dynatrace is best known for providing enterprise-level APM tools that track down performance issues in complex, multi-tiered applications that involve multiple operating systems, hypervisors, databases, application servers, and sundry other enterprise computing kit. …
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IBM Patches New Security Vulns In IBM i Components, Power Firmware
February 12, 2024 Alex Woodie
IBM has patched a series of moderate security vulnerabilities in IBM i products and Power firmware over the past two weeks. The IBM i flaws span Rational Developer for i (RDi), Access Client Solutions (ACS), and the Java development kit and runtime, while the Power flaw involves PowerVM and its communications with the Hardware Management Console (HMC).
Concerns over security hit an all-time high in the IBM i community according to the IBM i Marketplace 2024 study conducted by Fortra. The survey found that 79 percent of IBM i professionals considered security a top concern, a 10 percent increase …
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RPG Training Program Spun Up by Trucking Industry Outsourcer
February 7, 2024 Alex Woodie
If you’re in the trucking business and need RPG programmers, you might want to check out the outsourcing firm DDC FPO, which has spun up a new program in the Philippines to train junior RPG programmers to work at American trucking firms.
DDC FPO is one of the country’s largest business process outsourcing (BPO) firms serving the trucking industry. The company, which is headquartered in Evergreen, Colorado, works with more than half of the country’s less-than-truckload (LTL) operators. About one-third of the bills of lading generated daily are generated by DDC FPO workers, the company claims.
The IBM i platform …
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IBM i Security Concern Hits All-Time High, But Solution Adoption Lags, Fortra’s Marketplace Study Shows
February 7, 2024 Alex Woodie
Security is the number one concern of IBM i professionals, according to Fortra’s Marketplace Study, the seventh straight year that security has topped the charts. More survey respondents chose security as their top concern than any other year. Despite the growing security concern, there doesn’t seem to be a corresponding increase in adoption of security tools, the survey data show.
Fortra released the 2024 IBM i Marketplace Study last month, representing the 10th straight year that the company (formerly HelpSystems) has conducted the survey and published the findings. Last fall, Fortra surveyed 270 IBM i professionals from around the world, …
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2024 IBM i Predictions Part 3 – The Final Chapter
February 5, 2024 Alex Woodie
Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog who forecast an early spring on Friday, is said to have a long-term success rate of about 31 percent with his forecasts. What’s the accuracy rate of the IBM i experts who contribute to these yearly predictions? To borrow a line from the Magic 8 Ball, the answer is hazy at the moment. But one thing is clear: The IBM i ecosystem as a whole maintains an unabashedly optimistic and sunny disposition.
One of the brighter stars in the IBM i galaxy, Connectria regional sales director Peg Tuttle sees several trends emerging in the …
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New IBM Champion Class Grows Nearly 40 Percent
January 29, 2024 Alex Woodie
IBM unveiled a new crop of IBM Champions this month, and the first thing that stands out is the size of the 2024 IBM Champions class. Big Blue gave the honor to 1,155 individuals this year, a 38 percent increase over last year. Just about everyone who applied was named an IBM Champion, says Libby Ingrassia, the IBM program director, who also noted there was considerable overlap between IBM Champions and the new IBM Rising Champion Advocacy badge program.
IBM launched its IBM Champions program back in 2008 as a way to boost the visibility of customers and business partners …
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2024 IBM i Predictions, Part Deux
January 22, 2024 Alex Woodie
How will 2024 unfold? Nobody knows the answer to that. But that’s not stopping members of the IBM i community from taking some swings. It’s not only a good Bayesian exercise to think through the probabilities of what may occur, but it’s often a bit of fun, too.
Our second batch of 2024 predictions starts with IBM distinguished engineer Steve Will, who, as the IBM i chief technology officer and IBM i chief architect, doesn’t need to guess where the platform is going, since he’s literally leading the creation of it. Instead, his prediction focuses on the community.
“2024 will …
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Top Priorities in 2024: Security and AI
January 17, 2024 Alex Woodie
Two sometimes opposing forces will be at play in 2024: the threat of cybersecurity breaches on the one hand and the promise of tech disruption thanks to AI on the other. Tech leaders, including IBM i professionals, who chart a course through these obstacles will be well-positioned to help their companies and their careers in the years to come.
First, let’s cover security. It’s no secret that cybercriminals have been ramping up their game over the past few years. Since the Covid-19 pandemic gave online activity a turbo-boost four years ago, cybercriminals have been having a field day with people’s …
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IBM i Community Shares 2024 Predictions
January 15, 2024 Alex Woodie
Spaceship Earth has completed another trip around the Sun, which means one thing: Time for 2024 IBM i predictions! Hopefully you enjoy this year’s predictions, which seem to sport a good mixture of optimism and realism.
The future for IBM i is wide open – open source, that is, says Liam Allan, the creator of Code for IBM i and a software developer for IBM i.
“My prediction is pretty simple. Businesses will continue to invest in themselves through the power of open source,” Allan says. “Whether it be using dev tools, open source runtimes like Node.js, or even newer …
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IBM i Chief Architect Will Gives N2i Some Platform Pointers
January 10, 2024 Alex Woodie
It’s hard to find someone more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the IBM i platform than Steve Will, who holds CTO and chief architect titles at IBM. So when Will accepted an invitation from COMMON’s N2i (New to IBM i) group to speak to IBM i newcomers this week, it was a good chance to pick up something new.
One of the first things that IBM i newcomers will notice about the IBM i is that it’s an unusual platform, in several regards. For starters, it’s older than many platforms, being able to trace its lineage back to …
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