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.
-
New OpenLegacy Product Creates ‘Tech-Agnostic’ Services
November 17, 2021 Alex Woodie
OpenLegacy recently announced OpenLegacy Hub, or OL Hub, a new offering designed to help customers create technology agnostic digital services from existing legacy applications and infrastructure. The offering supports IBM i and z/OS assets, among other platforms that are commonly grouped under the “legacy” banner.
Since it appeared on the midrange scene back in 2015, OpenLegacy has been looking to help IBM i and mainframe customers extend their existing systems in new and profitable ways. Led by tech veterans from IBM and Software AG, the Israeli company created a development environment that could analyze legacy programs, such as 5250 …
Read more -
Oracle JDK Is Free Again, But OpenJDK Still Recommended
November 15, 2021 Alex Woodie
Oracle has reversed course on a controversial decision to charge companies a licensing fee to use its Oracle Java Development Kit (JDK) and has once again make the Java technology free, starting with the recently released Oracle JDK version 17. However, the move hasn’t changed IBM’s recommendations regarding which Java package IBM i shops use to run Access Client Solutions (ACS) software
Oracle angered the Java-using community back in 2018 when it decided to stop distributing the Oracle JDK version 11 for free and charge companies a fee for commercial use (starting at $30 per desktop per year, and $300 …
Read more -
Consider Modernizing Your Approach to IBM i Security, Too
November 10, 2021 Alex Woodie
Many IBM i users are facing the reality that they need to modernize their IBM i applications, especially those based on monolithic blocks of fixed-format RPG. But other aspects of the IBM i experience can use some renovating too, including how organizations manage their security settings. Luckily, in the last few Technology Refreshes to IBM i, IBM has provided a slew of new SQL-based services for doing just that.
Traditionally on IBM i, administrators had two main approaches for viewing and changing security settings. They could view and control the settings directly using commands, often automated through CL programs. Or …
Read more -
Fabric Company Keeps to Its Knitting with Cleo
November 10, 2021 Alex Woodie
Camira Fabrics Ltd. has historically run its core operations on the IBM i platform. But when the UK company started expanding through acquisition, it suddenly found itself running a number of specialized ERP systems. Rather than embarking upon risky migrations, the company took an integration-based approach using tools from Cleo.
Based in Mirfield, a city in Northern England, Camira Fabrics has been making fabrics for nearly 200 years. The company today designs and manufacture upholstery and panel textiles for a range of uses, including education, healthcare, hospitality, busses, RVs, and trains.
The company, which manufactures 8 million meters of fabric …
Read more -
IBM i Developer Day This Week
November 10, 2021 Alex Woodie
IBM i developers of all stripes are welcome to IBM i Developer Day, a free virtual event that’s scheduled to take place next Friday, November 19, at 1 p.m. ET. Organized by Liam Allan, the event will feature a heavy dose of Visual Studio Code (Allan’s favorite IDE) plus discussions hosted by IBMers on the future of IBM i and its role in the cloud.
The world of application development is moving fast, but many IBM i pros are still stuck in the past when it comes to the tools, technologies, and techniques they use. While RPG and COBOL development …
Read more -
IBM Offers Free Security Check for IBM i
November 8, 2021 Alex Woodie
IBM i shops that are concerned about security – and really, who isn’t concerned about their security these days? – may be interested in receiving a free security check from the experts at IBM Systems Lab Services.
The IBM i Security Quick Check, as the free offering is called, was introduced by IBM in October as a way to help IBM i shops pinpoint the areas where their servers are susceptible to external attacks, insider threats, and malware.
The security check will let organizations know where the security vulnerabilities exist in their IBM i configurations, according to a blog post …
Read more -
Warning Signs: Inside Travis Perkins’ Failed ERP Migration
November 3, 2021 Alex Woodie
When UK construction supplier and home improvement retailer Travis Perkins announced last month that it had selected Oracle Fusion Cloud’s Financials as the core of its new ERP deployment, it marked the latest in a long series of decisions about the company’s computing infrastructure. Unfortunately, it came after many poor decisions and failed ERP migrations along the way. Hopefully they will serve to educate others who might travel the same path.
Travis Perkins’ current ERP woes began in 2016 at Infor’s annual Inforum user conference in New York City. The UK company’s then CEO, John Carter, announced that it …
Read more -
Precisely Ships MIMIX 10
November 3, 2021 Alex Woodie
Precisely last week unveiled Assure MIMIX 10, the latest release of its high availability software for IBM i. With this release, Precisely has simplified the initial setup and configuration of the journal-driven replication at the heart of the product. It also has broken the product up into three distinct packages.
After a slew of acquisitions of IBM i-based high availability software providers by Vision Solutions (now Precisely) over the years, Assure MIMIX 10 remains the flagship HA offering in the company’s lineup, particularly when it comes to providing application and data continuity for larger enterprises.
With version 10, Precisely …
Read more -
IBM to Resell DSI’s VTL In Its IBM i Cloud
November 1, 2021 Alex Woodie
IBM last week announced that it is now reselling Dynamic Solutions International (DSI)’s virtual tape library (VTL) technology with its IBM i cloud offering. By running DSI Restore in its Power Virtual Server, IBM is giving its public cloud customers another option for backing up and recovering data sets of all sizes.
DSI Restore is a Linux-based VTL solution designed specifically to back up and recover IBM i environments of varying sizes. It’s based on DSI’s popular VTL appliance, and emulates LTO drives while integrating with common backup and recovery tools for IBM i, such as BRMS, HelpSystems Robot/SAVE, …
Read more -
Technical Debt: The Silent Killer
October 27, 2021 Alex Woodie
There’s a dangerous malady afflicting companies that rely on the IBM i server to run their business applications. Left undiagnosed and untreated, it can debilitate an IT shop, rendering it unable to take advantage of new opportunities and respond to challenges. It’s called technical debt, and you or an organization you know may be suffering from it as we speak.
Technical debt is a concept that is credited to Ward Cunningham, the American programmer and the co-author of Manifesto for Agile Software Development. “If you develop a program for a long period of time by only adding features but …
Read more