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.

• Db2 And SQL Services Get Upgrades With TRs

  October 12, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Among the biggest enhancements that IBM is bringing to IBM i with the latest batch of Technology Refreshes are new capabilities added to the integrated Db2 database and, specifically, the slew of SQL-based services that retrieve all types of data from the platform for IBM i professionals.

  As we previously told you, IBM has decided to rename SQL Services, which were the collection of pre-defined SQL queries that recreate traditional IBM i commands and sometimes bring something entirely new. The growing gaggle of services (or perhaps it’s a herd?) are now being officially referred to as IBM i services, …

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• How The Latest TRs Bolster The Core IBM i OS

  October 7, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Yesterday was Technology Refresh (TR) day for IBM and its IBM i operating system, and Big Blue didn’t disappoint. The company unveiled new releases of IBM i 7.4 and 7.3 that bring a slew of new capabilities to the core operating system as well as surrounding offerings like Db2 Mirror, ACS, and RDi. In this article, we’ll look at enhancements to the core OS and related key features.

  During a COMMON webcast Tuesday, IBM i Chief Architect Steve Will touched broadly on a number of enhancements that soon will be available in the TRs. Most of the new capabilities will …

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• What’s the Deal? Battling the ‘L’ Word

  October 7, 2020 Alex Woodie

  It’s hard to read or write about the IBM i server or its big brother, the System z mainframe, without seeing the word “legacy” bandied about. These business systems have stood the test of time, providing value for millions of organizations, and the reward for that amazing longevity is to be called old and out of date. What’s the deal?

  We have searched for other terms to replace legacy, as if the word itself is the problem. Calling these “heritage” systems is one way people have tried to avoid the stigma associated with the “L” word (we’ve have even tried …

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• Seiden Group Helps Bring Community PHP To The Japanese Market

  October 5, 2020 Alex Woodie

  The new community edition of PHP is gaining interest from IBM i shops around the world. Now one of the biggest IBM i service providers in Japan, Chubu Systems Corp., is working with Seiden Group to ensure that Japanese IBM i shops have the latest, greatest distribution of PHP to work with.

  As you may have heard, there is a new open source PHP runtime for IBM i that is being distributed via RPM, which is IBM’s preferred method for sharing open source software on IBM i. The new community edition of PHP is free, and essentially replaces …

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• IBM i Tries On a Red Hat

  September 30, 2020 Alex Woodie

  When IBM initiated its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat in 2018, it was done to prepare Big Blue for the coming wave of innovation around things like containers, AI, clouds, and next-gen workloads. It was generally understood that most of the benefits would accrue in the X86 space. But apparently the plan called for sizable doses of IBM i, AIX, and mainframe, too.

  Last week at COMMON’s virtual POWERUp conference, IBM’s Joe Cropper, who works in Power development and holds the title IBM Master Inventor, laid out how the Red Hat acquisition will benefit IBM i and …

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• Does IBM i Need Its Own Zowe?

  September 30, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Getting open source software onto platforms like IBM i and System z is a big focus of IBM, its big iron customers, and the ecosystem of tool and service providers that tread these waters. In 2018, IBM, CA Technologies, and Rocket Software collaborated to create the Zowe framework as a part of the Linux Foundation’s Open Mainframe Project, with the goal to extend System z-based services into the greater open source IT landscape. Is it time for a similar effort on IBM i?

  When Zowe launched two years ago, the Open Mainframe Project (OMP) boasted that Zowe would “serve as …

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• Is Information Overload Hurting IBM i Security?

  September 28, 2020 Alex Woodie

  What is wrong with IBM i security? If you look at surveys and reports, you would be hard pressed to find something that is not broken. From excessive authority and ransomware, to exit programs and default passwords, it can feel as if IBM i servers are rife with security failures.

  IBM i shops are certainly aware of the security shortcomings. Security has been rated the number one concern in each of the past two IBM i Marketplace studies conducted by HelpSystems. In the most recent report, 77 percent of respondents rated security a top concern, the highest percentage …

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• MAGiC to Host In-Person User Conference

  September 28, 2020 Alex Woodie

  If you are itching to get out of the house and complete some in-person IBM i education, then the upcoming MAGiC Conference might be for you. In early November, the group is planning to host a small get-together of no more than 40 socially distanced attendees in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

  The Annual MAGiC Conference, slated for November 9-11 at the Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront hotel, will be the first in-person IBM i conference since COVID-19 shelved the usual midrange happenings, says Laura Hamway, the leader of the Mid-Atlantic Group of IBM i Collaborators, also known as MAGiC.

  That’s a …

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• Modernization Trumps Migration for IBM i and Mainframe, IDC Says

  September 23, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Organizations that modernized their IBM i and System z applications not only had higher satisfaction rates and lower costs than organizations that migrated off those platforms, but they also benefited from higher levels of innovation in things like AI, IoT, and mobile enablement, according to an IDC study commissioned by Rocket Software.

  In “The Quantified Business Benefits of Modernizing IBM Z and IBM i to Spur Innovation,” IDC analysts Peter Rutten and Randy Perry set out to quantitatively measure and compare various aspects, ramifications, and results of modernization and migration projects involving big iron from IBM. The analyst group …

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• An Update On Java for IBM i

  September 23, 2020 Alex Woodie

  Java is alive and well on IBM i, but it’s in a state of change at the moment, thanks to changes Oracle made to how it licenses and develops the popular technology. Meanwhile, IBM is getting ready to exploit upcoming Power10 capabilities with its server runtime for Java.

  In late June, IBM quietly released an early access version of Java 11 through its RPM process. The release, which IBM i shops can access via yum or through ACS, is not production ready, and is only intended for testing purposes.

  “We have, however, done thorough functional testing of various workloads, including …

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