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.

• Townsend Taps Authy To Strengthen 2FA on IBM i

  February 14, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Townsend Security adopted a new smartphone app called Authy to deliver one-time authentication codes to users in the latest release of its two-factor authentication (2FA) solution for IBM i. The new Authy solution replaces the text messaging-based approach that it previously used, which soon will likely be no longer compliant with PCI regulations.

  2FA solutions are the emerging standard for authentication in the enterprise, following the long downward spiral in the effectiveness and efficiency of using passwords to confirm identity. Nearly everybody carries a smartphone these days, and enterprises have tried multiple ways to incorporate that fact into their authentication …

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• Modernizing The IBM i Estate For Digital Transformation

  February 12, 2018 Alex Woodie

  For those that use it, the IBM i platform is a workhorse of a machine, faithfully executing critical business processes day in and day out, with a minimum of fuss and upkeep. However, the long-term dependability of the IBM i platform comes with a potentially nasty side effect: technological stagnation caused by inattention and a disinclination for change.

  Like the old commercials for Maytag showed, reliability has a price. For the home appliance maker, the cost of above-average reliability was a lower revenue stream on the maintenance side of the business. While the manufacturers building shoddy washing machines may have …

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• IBM Power Champions: Showing Passion For The Platform

  February 7, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Having a job working on the IBM i-Power Systems platform isn’t easy. Compared to the vast Intel X86 ecosystem, IBM i folks make up a tiny, oft-overlooked minority. That’s one reason why it’s so important to have strong and passionate leaders that the wider installed based can look up to. Along that vein, last week IBM unveiled its 2018 class of Power Systems Champions, which includes a good number of passionate IBM i types.

  IBM named 60 Power Systems Champions for 2018. Out of those 60 Champions, 22 are new to the program, while 38 are returning. Twenty-six of the …

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• Does IBM i Need Independent Security Vendors?

  February 7, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Over the past 10 years, the number of independent IBM i security vendors has dwindled as bigger companies backed by deep-pocket investors scooped up smaller firms. Today there are only a handful of security firms that HelpSystems and Syncsort (Vision Solutions) have not acquired. We chatted with the heads of those companies to hear their thoughts on the matter.

  HelpSystems has been the biggest force for consolidation in the IBM i business, completing over a dozen acquisitions since it kicked off a decade-long buying spree with its acquisition of ASC back in October 2006. Many of HelpSystems’ deals involved IBM …

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• Will Blockchain Impact IBM i?

  February 5, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Lately there’s been a lot of talk about blockchain, in both the IT press and the mainstream media, which is telling. Most of this talk centers around digital currencies like bitcoin that are based on blockchain technology. But because of the media-fueled speculative bubble that’s pushed digital currency values through the roof, it’s tough for a rational being to separate the incredible hype from the underlying reality.

  What’s interesting about the whole blockchain-bitcoin discussion, however, is how many smart technology folks have come out and basically said that while the digital currencies are interesting but not ground-breaking, the underlying blockchain …

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• IBM i Gets More PTFs for Meltdown and Spectre

  January 31, 2018 Alex Woodie

  IBM on Friday issued a second set of program temporary fixes (PTFs) for the IBM i operating system that address the Meltdown and Spectre processor vulnerabilities that were disclosed earlier this month. Meanwhile, IBM i customers are beginning to wonder about the performance impact that the patches will bring to production workloads.

  At about 11 a.m. Eastern time on January 26, IBM posted a message to the PSIRT Blog to let customers know that “IBM i has released PTFs in response to the vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown.” (We’ll assume that the urgent nature of the message led to …

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• Rocket Gits Hip to Emerging IBM i Tech

  January 31, 2018 Alex Woodie

  When it comes to managing traditional IBM i development environments, Rocket Software has its bases covered. But as younger technologies and younger developers find their way onto the platform, Rocket found that it had some work to do to ensure that DevOps – or application lifecycle management (ALM), if you like — runs as smoothly as its enterprise customers expect. That’s the case with the vendor’s announcement today around Git.

  Rocket Software today announced that it’s now supporting Git with the Aldon Lifecycle Manager (Enterprise Edition), the company’s ALM product for open systems environments like Windows, Linux, and Unix. The …

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• LUG Talks About IBM i Priorities

  January 29, 2018 Alex Woodie

  The Large User Group (LUG) held its first meeting of the year last week at the IBM lab in Rochester, Minnesota. While LUG members use the IBM i platform differently than your average mid-sized company, their experiences, concerns, and vision for the future of the platform are relevant to the community as a whole. We caught up with two LUG members last week to get the low down on the i tech.

  The LUG is a private organization that keeps the identities of its members confidential. Because the overall IBM i ecosystem is relatively small, the LUG requested that IT …

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• InterForm Keeps Automotive Data On The Straight and Narrow

  January 24, 2018 Alex Woodie

  In the massive automotive supply chain, barcodes and EDI are part of the daily grind. Warehouse workers and drivers have no choice but to assume the barcodes are correct. But what happens when the barcode is wrong? That’s a situation that InterForm, a provider of electronic forms management software, is addressing with a new solution.

  The penalties for bad data can be severe. If you’re dealing with a big OEM like Ford or General Motors, the penalties can approach $300 per incident. Some of the European manufacturers that InterForm A/S CEO Peter Sørensen works with pay penalties of €3,000 per …

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• Syncsort Finds Security Key To Business Resilience

  January 22, 2018 Alex Woodie

  Syncsort is keeping up the tradition started 10 years ago by Vision Solutions, which it now owns, by publishing a State of Resilience report. This year’s report focuses the spotlight heavily on one particular aspect of IT operations that’s on everybody’s minds following a turbulent 2017: security.

  After surveying 5,632 IT professionals from January through July of last year, Syncsort found that security was the initiative at the top of most IT pros’ minds. Looking out over the next 24 months, security emerged as the top initiative, accounting for 49% of the votes, followed by high availability.

  Specifically, IT professionals …

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