• Lessons from Southwest’s IT Debacle

  January 11, 2023 Alex Woodie

  During the historic Christmas Blizzard of 2022, air traffic came nearly to a standstill across the United States. Most major airlines rebounded before the ice fully melted, but Southwest Airlines was unable to get its Boeing 737s back up in the air. The main reason cited may have a familiar ring to it for IBM i shops: An overreliance on outdated, legacy technology.

  Not all the details are known about what went on at Southwest Airlines during the week that followed the winter storm that decimated the eastern half of the country for several days, starting on Christmas Eve. But …

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• What AWS Supply Chain Can Offer IBM i Shops

  December 14, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Amazon Web Services says its new machine learning-powered Supply Chain offering can provide better forecasting of inventory shortages, as well as predict demand for goods in all manner of supply chains. That includes companies in the consumer goods supply chain, in which many companies rely on IBM i-based applications to keep the goods moving.

  Following years of success building infrastructure and platform solutions, AWS has been creeping up the stack into the application business lately. Usually this is done in partnership with ISVs that supply the software to run atop the sprawling AWS infrastructure. But increasingly, the cloud giant is …

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• Security Is Top of Mind at VAI

  November 16, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Kevin Beasley hasn’t added “security” to his title yet at VAI, the Long Island-based IBM i ERP software and services provider. But the longtime CIO may just yet, considering all the security activities he’s overseeing for VAI’s on-prem and cloud customers alike.

  “We’re constantly looking at new things,” Beasley tells IT Jungle. “Obviously, the security landscape out there is phenomenally dangerous. There was a local government attacked here, and we’re constantly working on security.”

  The top threat at the moment is ransomware, which is typically perpetrated through email or text phishing schemes. Nearly a dozen VAI customers have been hit …

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• Thoroughly Modern: Digital Solutions For IBM i And Beyond

  November 7, 2022 Marcel Sarrasin and Scott Gingerysty

  IT leaders need to develop strategies that address business goals but also look ahead to a changing economic climate and disruptions. Digital innovation (web, mobile, APis, cloud, etc.)  is one of the fastest growing areas of IT. And it’s no wonder – taking on these initiatives while using an iterative approach can deliver quick wins and attainable near-term impacts. This allows organizations to invest in ways that are sustainable.

  As organizations look to new business models, seeing technology as a way to accomplish business objectives is the right approach. Competition, market disruption, growth, cost optimization and responding to client needs …

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• Rocket Rides Modernization, DevOps for Hybrid Cloud Adoption

  October 26, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Puneet Kohli, Rocket Software’s new IBM i portfolio manager, is under no illusion about how easy it will be to boost IBM i software sales. “This is not a space where you wake up one morning and your CIO says ‘I’m going to go buy a product on the i,’” Kohli says. But a well-thought-out strategy around enabling DevOps and application modernization in a hybrid cloud setting? Now that just might move the needle.

  It’s been almost a year since Rocket Software founder Andy Youniss stepped down from the day-to-day management of the company he led for 31 years, paving …

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• ERP Flexibility Trumps Loyalty In The Cloud

  August 22, 2022 Alex Woodie

  How much loyalty exists in the ERP business? More than you might think, according to a new survey by ERP software provider Epicor. However, that loyalty only lasts so long in the fast-changing world of cloud ERP, SaaS solutions, and digital transformation, it found.

  Epicor’s Industry Insights Report 2022 sheds some light on the state of the ERP industry, in particular the manufacturing segment where the Austin, Texas-based software company is most prominent.

  One of the more interesting findings in the report, which was released earlier this year, concerned the level of loyalty that ERP customers feel toward their …

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• The Cloud’s Future Is So Bright, So Why Are You So Glum?

  August 17, 2022 Alex Woodie

  It’s tough not to be excited about the cloud, that amalgamation of servers that Gartner says will account for half of enterprise IT spending by 2025. The cloud is where the action is; it’s where everyone is headed. So what’s holding you back? The cloud, it turns out, is not so rosy for those without a clear path to get there.

  We’re in the steep part of the public cloud’s growth phase at the moment, thanks in part to COVID-19, which turbo-charged digital transformation projects, Gartner declared in a report earlier this year. The cloud’s growth comes at the …

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• JD Edwards Customers Face Support Decisions

  August 3, 2022 Alex Woodie

  JD Edwards was the gold standard for ERP software on the IBM midrange server for many years. But with end-of-support dates looming from Oracle, many JD Edwards customers – especially users of the World package – must make some decisions about the future of their ERP system.

  In April, as it has planned for years, Oracle ceased providing premiere support for JD Edwards World, the older, RPG-based ERP package originally developed. This marks the first time in decades that the World product is not under mainstream support from its owner.

  However, the software giant will continue to honor extended support …

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• Cleo and SrinSoft in Integration-Modernization Link Up

  August 3, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Modernization is a hot topic among organizations that run ERP and industry-specific applications on mature platforms, like the IBM i. But other parts of the stack need modernizing too, including the integration layer, which is the subject of a new partnership between integration software provider Cleo and SrinSoft.

  Cleo provides a range of data and application integration solutions as part of its Cleo Integration Cloud (CIC) offering, which connects to backend IBM i systems. The Rockford, Illinois-based company supports API, EDI (AS2), and file-based integration methods via CIC, which is available in Express, Essentials, Business, and Premium versions.

  SrinSoft, …

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• Infor Puts CM3 Project On Hold

  June 29, 2022 Alex Woodie

  Infor is no longer developing an on-premise and containerized version of M3, its ERP system that’s popular with IBM i customers. While the CM3 project is apparently dead, the company is working to certify the latest release of the ERP system on IBM i version 7.5, IT Jungle has learned.

  Like other ERP vendors with large legacy installed bases, Infor has struggled to get customers to move to its cloud offerings. In particular, its customers who run the M3 ERP system on IBM i have not migrated to the cloud version of the product in the numbers that Infor expected. …

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