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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.

  • Understanding IBM i Options For High Availability

    June 5, 2017 Alex Woodie

    There are many options when it comes to high availability (HA) for IBM i. Should you use logical replication software like MIMIX, or a hardware-based solution like PowerHA? Should you deploy to the cloud, or stay on premise? Is remote journaling the way to go or should you roll your own? IT decision-makers must do their homework if they’re going to find the right solution for them.

    If you’re in the market for a HA solution – and recent surveys indicate that many IBM i shops are shopping for HA in 2017 – then you should probably start at the …

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  • DSI Delves Into IBM i Backup Software

    May 24, 2017 Alex Woodie

    Dynamic Solutions International (DSI) may be best known as a provider of virtual tape library (VTL) solutions for IBM i and other platforms. But now the Colorado company is getting into the software space with a pair of backup offerings designed specifically for IBM i environments.

    Conductor and Tracker were unveiled by DSI earlier this month prior to the annual COMMON conference in Orlando, Florida. The products were created to bolster the management of backups of the company’s VTL clients that are backing up from IBM i. But they don’t necessarily require a VTL at all, and, in fact, can …

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  • CNX Kickstarts Development with Valence 5.1

    May 24, 2017 Alex Woodie

    A new release of the Valence Framework from CNX will enable IBM i shops to get more Web programming and modernization work done with even less effort than before.

    The Chicago-based company has been speaking the “less is more” mantra since the 2014 launch of Valence 4.0, one of the first releases that included Nitro add-on tools that handle tasks on behalf of the user. After all, why should the user get bogged down in the intricacies of coding JavaScript when software can do it instead?

    Nitro’s auto-coding capabilities are once again front-and-center in Valence 5.1, which CNX launched …

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  • Top Ten New IBM i RFEs

    May 22, 2017 Alex Woodie

    Should IBM open source its database drivers, or add support for .NET? Should it add the latest SSL ciphers to IBM i 7.1? These are some of the changes that it has received through its new Web-based requests for enhancement (RFE) program on its developerWorks site.

    The new RFE functionality is only a few months old, but it’s already attracting the attention of IBM i professionals who want IBM to change things about the stack. It’s also getting attention from other IBM i pros who get to vote on them.

    Here are the top ten RFEs so far, ranked by …

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  • WannaCry: What IBM i Pros Need To Know

    May 17, 2017 Alex Woodie

    Last week’s epic WannaCry ransomware attack left hundreds of thousands of people around the world scrambling to recover their data, either by paying the cyber crooks or executing their disaster recovery plan. If you’re an IBM i professional, the question you should be asking yourself is: What if that were me?

    Companies in the United States escaped relatively unscathed from the ransomware attack, which exploited a known security vulnerability in the Windows operating system and was based on code that was “weaponized” by the National Security Agency and subsequently stolen by hackers.

    There are two main reasons for this. For …

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  • Going Rogue with Open Source Support on IBM i

    May 17, 2017 Alex Woodie

    The number of IBM i shops adopting open source software (OSS) is on the uptick as companies strive to innovate more with fewer resources. However, the prospect of obtaining technical support for OSS tech looms as a major barrier to adoption. One potential option comes through custom support packages from Rogue Wave Software.

    While Rogue Wave Software isn’t strictly an OSS company, it’s no stranger to the paradigm either. Even before it its 2016 acquisition of Zend, which built a PHP business for IBM i shops, the company was quite active on the open source front. Considering that 70 percent …

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  • HelpSystems Tackles IBM i Password Woes

    May 15, 2017 Alex Woodie

    Passwords, in many ways, are the bane of our digital existence. We can’t live with passwords, but we certainly can’t live without them either. HelpSystems is aware of the challenges posed by this necessary evil, and has plans to alleviate the password pain with a series of new products and enhancements to existing ones.

    Last week at the COMMON Annual Meeting and Expo in Orlando, Florida, HelpSystems Vice President of Technical Services Tom Huntington previewed for IT Jungle a new product the company plans to ship by the end of June.

    The new product is called Access Authenticator, and it’s …

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  • Reporter’s Notebook: COMMON Spring 2017

    May 10, 2017 Alex Woodie

    Harry Potter sightings remain at an abnormally high level here at the COMMON conference, which is taking place in the heart of Universal Orlando. The young wizard appears to be everywhere – in sessions, by the pool, at the Expo, buying raffle tickets. But it’s left some wondering: Can he program in ILE?

    The COMMON conference wraps up today after a four-day run here at the brand-spanking-new Lowes Sapphire Falls Resort. The site has mostly lived up to the expectations of COMMON’s management, who booked the event before the massive construction project was even finished. You just can’t fake that …

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  • IBM i Vendors Seeking ‘Meaningful Exits’ Have Options

    May 10, 2017 Alex Woodie

    Skills depletion within the IBM i community has been well documented on these pages in issues past. Another side effect of working on an older computer platform is the aging of the software vendor community itself. As the baby boomer owners approach retirement age, a handful of industry consolidators are eager to give the software companies they created good homes.

    One of the most active vendors in the IBM i community over the past few years is Fresche Solutions. The Montreal, Quebec-based company was known as Speedware back in 2012 when it bought a German RPG migration tool company …

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  • IBM Brings Cloud Management In-House with New Console

    May 8, 2017 Alex Woodie

    Don’t be surprised to see the cloud seeping into your data center, because it’s all part of IBM’s plan. Yesterday during the COMMON Opening Session in Orlando, Florida, IBM executives gave the IBM i faithful a preview of a new Cloud Management Console that’s designed to enable customers to monitor and (eventually) manage their Power Systems environments from the comfort of the cloud.

    Steve Sibley, IBM‘s director of worldwide product management for IBM’s Power Systems line, gave IT Jungle a preview of the new Cloud Management Console, which was expected to be one of three products announcements he planned …

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