Why COBOL is strategic in the 21st
Century
John Billman
Product Director, Net Express and Japanese Products
The Value of Legacy
• Legacy applications are a valuable
resource
– An investment of over $5 trillion
– …at the heart of every large enterprise
– …running the world’s economy
• …which can be reused and extended
– As core services
– …in new products
– …delivered to new channels
• …providing enduring business value
– Reducing costs &
– …driving agility
– …with least risk
75% of the world's business data is
in COBOL
There are between 180 billion and
200 billion lines of COBOL code
in use worldwide
15% of all new applications (5
billion lines) through 2005 will be
in COBOL. (Gartner)
Emergence of Service-Oriented Architectures

Focus on ‘re-use’ at the business level

…based on XML & Web services

Web services is independent and
inclusive of:

–
Any platform
–
Any language
–
Any architecture
J2EE and .NET
“The secret to success lies in building
bridges between the old and the new”
Ovum: Legacy renewal, May 2004
Increased choice for the enterprise
Then
Now
 Moore’s law
 Higher flexibility
 Lower cost
 Platform for
Mainframe
extension
 Increased
scalability
UNIX
The Choices for Moving
“Rip and
Replace”
Package
Implementation
Legacy
Transformation
Cost
Legacy
Modernisation
“Lift and Shift”
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
% Reuse
“Lift and Shift” - the best strategy
70
80
90
100
The Lift & Shift Opportunity
 Reduced Costs
– 80% Savings in hardware and software achievable
– Rapid ROI utilizing existing staff skills, data and applications
 Increased Agility
– Modern service-based architecture using XML, Web Services
– Leverage the .NET or J2EE Application Environments
 Lower Risk
– Combination of Micro Focus running on an Enterprise-strength
platform and System Integrator expertise provides low-risk
route to lower TCO
Windows/UNIX Development & Deployment
Net Express with .NET
– COBOL development environment
– Take core COBOL business processes &
extend them to meet today’s business needs
Net Express Professional Edition
– Revolve + Net Express
– Combine Analysis Tools with Development
Process
.NET
Web Services
Java J2EE
WebApp
Servers
COBOL Modules
Web Services
COM Components
EJBs
Server Express
– UNIX/LINUX COBOL development
Business Rule
Development
Application Server
– Designed for performance and reliability
Enterprise Server
– Scalable, Managed, Transactional COBOL
Service Deployment Environment
– Mainframe Transaction Option for CICS
Other
Languages
C, C++, Java
HTML, XML
Faster Development, Flexible Deployment
Open
Middleware
Component
Architectures
Enterprise Server – All Platforms
Micro Focus Enterprise Server
Direct COBOL
Web service
COBOL/J2EE
Services
Mainframe
Transaction
Option
Micro Focus Application Server
COBOL Run-Time System (RTS), Filehandler, etc.
Linux
UNIX
Windows
Development Environment –
CICS Application
Net Express with MTO
TN3270
COBOL
Loadlib
BMS
Loadlib
CICS
Enterprise
Server
CICS
COBOL
Mainframe
Transaction
Option
BMS
Data
Definition
CICS (ES/MTO) Extension
.NET
Winform/Webform
COMMAREA
BMS
Interface
Mapping Toolkit
Workflow
Capture
Web Enable, Move to SOA
Web service
EJB, JSP and
Servlet Generator
Lombard Insurance - Overview






Lombard Canada Ltd. is one of the
oldest property and casualty insurance
operations in Canada
Commercial, personal, and specialized insurance
Consolidated gross premiums written totaling C$ 1.94
billion
Total shareholders' equity of C$ 861.7 million
Top 5 Insurance Company in Canada
Wholly owned subsidiaries of Northbridge Financial
Corporation (NB on the TSE)
Lombard – Why Migration?
 Diminishing availability of the highly specialized
skill set required to maintain a mainframe
environment
 Shortage of innovation in the mainframe ISV
ecosystem
 Need for increased flexibility
 Desire to stay ahead of the curve and continuing
the tradition of technology leadership in the
insurance industry
 Significant Cost Savings
Lombard – Migration Approach
Phase 1 - Migration
IBM Mainframe
(outsourced)
AS/400
RISC
- CARP Sub-system
- Personal Insurance System
- Commercial Insurance System
Phase 2 - Migration
- Finance Systems
Phase 3 - Migration
- MIS and Business Support Systems
Projected ROI = 18 Months!
Lombard – Current Systems
Phase 1 – Personal and Commercial Insurance Systems
– IBM H70 - 200 MIPS
(S/390) running z/OS
(hosted at external
supplier)
– COBOL for MVS 1.2
– CICS T/S 2.2
– VSAM
– DB2
– GTAM
–
–
–
–
Assembler
JCL
EZ Sockets
AS/400 Interfaces
(LU6.2)
– SAS
– SELCOPY
– Documerge –
formatting and printing
output
Lombard – Target Environment
– Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise
– Convert all DB2, VSAM & GTAM to Microsoft SQL
Server
– Migrate all COBOL to Micro Focus ES/MTO
– Re-write Assembler into Cobol or C#
– Utilize Micro Focus JCL Handler
– Convert AS/400 interfaces (LU6.2) to Web Services
– Third Party Software
– Migrate SAS to Windows version
– Replace SELCOPY with Windows version
– Replace Documerge with Windows version
– Microsoft SourceSafe for Code Management
Lombard – Target Environment
2 x 4 CPU Application
Servers (split workload
+ backup) 32GB RAM
2 x SQL/Data Servers
(passive backup;
clustered)
Yellow Servers
Green Servers
Red Servers
Websphere
PL
B Choice
CL
Regions
Micro Focus
P. Line
Micro Focus
CL Billing
Documerge
Infopac
SQL
Database
SQL
Database
SAS
Acceptance/
Systems
TEST
= Internet
= Production
= Development
/Admin
SAN
TEST
Unit
Lombard – Phase 1A
 CARP Sub-system: handed over to
Lombard on April 25th, 2005
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
37 Cobol Programs
16 BMS CICS Maps
145 Cobol Copybooks
3 Assembler Programs
12 GTAM (Assembler Tables)
7 VSAM files
2 DB2 tables
2 Flat/Sequential files
4 JCL Streams – with 21 JCL Jobs/Proc
92.3% of COBOL code retained!!
Lombard – Why Migration?
Peter Howling, Vice President of IT, Lombard Canada Ltd.:
“We estimate this project will save us in excess of $1 million a
year, but more importantly, it will enable us to become more
competitive in our industry both today and in the future.”
“Part of Lombard’s competitive advantage is directly related to
technology, and this migration will help us attract and retain
the most talented IT people, who are looking to work with the
latest technology.”
Software licensing costs projected to fall from 12% of IT
Budget to 2-4%
experienceΔInsurance
Customer Story - SOLCORP



Business Challenges:
•
Price/Performance a key decision factor in new
accounts
•
Need to maintain and enhance competitive edge
•
Seamless Integration with other insurance and
financial systems
Technical Challenges:
•
Deliver Managed code solution reusing existing
COBOL mainframe DB2 code in service based
architecture
•
Match or exceed mainframe performance and
scalability
Solution:
•

Micro Focus Net Express with .NET combined with
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and SQLServer
CPUs
4
8
12
# Policies
700,000
1,400,000
2,100,000
Results:
•
Successful migration of Batch and On-line parts of
the system
•
Exceptional scalability to >2 million policies
•
Agile system, with COBOL business processes
exposed as Web services
1 million lines of mainframe COBOL reused in .NET
Bertelsmann

Business Challenge
– Very high running costs of VSE
application
– Lock-out from new user
interface technologies to
improve competitiveness

Solution
– Converted to run on Windows
in ASCII against UDB
databases

Choice
Cost
Bottom
Line
Rewrite in
Java
€4-5m
15 Man
Years,
Risky,
Expensive
Move to
z/OS
€3.6m
Still not
agile
Migrate to
AS/400
€3.0m
Non
Strategic
Migrate to
Windows
€1.2m
Strategic,
Agile,
Reduced
TCO
Outcome
– Batch performance and on-line
performance improved
– Saving 600k Euros per annum
– Positioned to be more agile –
new user interface coming
Better performance, lower costs and more agility
Alnova Financial Solutions
(Madrid-based banking application provider in Accenture’s
insurance and banking portfolio)

Business Challenge
– Target low end market using mainframe assets for its Alnova
Financial Solutions product suite
– Strategic commitment to .NET

Solution
–
–
–
–

Migrate Enterprise Banking application
5500 COBOL programs - 11 million lines of code…
1600 transactions, 2000 JCL steps, DB2 database…
To Windows 2000 on 8-way Intel servers running SQL Server
Outcome
– Successful migration to Windows and .NET
– Achieved >240 transactions-per-second on 8-way processor
– Single-sourced business rules for both platforms



Business Challenges:
•
Price/Performance a key decision factor in new accounts
•
Need to maintain and enhance competitive edge
Technical Challenges:
•
Maintain Common Business Logic across Mainframe, UNIX and Windows
•
Deliver Scalable, Robust, High Performance System
Solution:
•

Micro Focus Net Express combined with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 delivering
scalable operating environment
Result:
•
Successful Benchmark at over 800 TPS
RESULTS SUMMARY
DB Server on Win2K
Configuration
Online
Test
(TPS)
CONF1 (16Way) 816
CONF2 (8Way) 528
CONF3 (4Way) 358
DB Server on Win2K3
FNS/SQL
Server Batch Test
(Acc/Hr)
CPU
Usage
FNS/SQL
Online
Server
Test
CPU
(TPS)
Usage
FNS/SQL
Server Batch Test FNS/SQL Server
(Acc/Hr) CPU Usage
CPU
Usage
91/69
95/42
94/27
84/91
92/50
94/32
92/57
96/38
96/21
19.85 Million
13 Million
9.1 Million
811
538
334
19.9 Million 83/82
12.8 Million 90/49
8.9 Million 95/28
COBOL scales new heights on Windows
Benchmarking ES/MTO

Performance Measurement Methodology

COBOL implementation of TPC-C

Apples for Apples - Uses all subsystems for presentation logic, business
logic and data storage
– Measure same CICS COBOL transaction (OLTP) workload on mainframe and
Enterprise Server w/ MTO
– Compute MIPS rating equivalent for Windows platforms
– Generate Price / Performance ratios
– Create Return On Investment (ROI) Calculator
– Intentionally untuned for any one subsystem
– Mirrors typical CICS transaction (database) mix
–
–
–
–
COBOL language and runtime system
3270 terminal I/O
CICS transaction management system
DB2 database management system
Mainframe Functionality, Performance, Reliability, Availability, Serviceability, Scalability, Security
Performance Results

Given Enterprise-class Hardware …
– Unisys ES7000 8 x Intel 3.0 GHz Xeon 32-bit processor, 8GB RAM
– EMC2 1 terabyte Storage Area Network (SAN)
– CISCO network

… and Enterprise-class Software …
– Micro Focus Net Express and Micro Focus Enterprise Server w/ MTO
– Microsoft Windows 2003 Server
– IBM UDB 8.1 database management system

… we can estimate …
– 1715 MIPS equivalent for each 8-way processor group
– Price / Performance advantage of 20x over zSeries upgrade pricing in the 5000-10000
MIPS range
Enterprise Performance , major cost savings
Interface Mapping Toolkit (IMTK)
COM
Non-ES
Windows only
Generation
EJB
Interface
COBOL
Interface
(Linkage Section)
Web
Services
Test
Client
Deployment
Java
Application
Server
Enterprise
Server
The Interface Mapping Toolkit
Linkage items in your COBOL program…
…map on to fields in your web service interface
Deploy Web Services to Enterprise Server
…and call your Web Service
from any client you like
Mapping COBOL Programs as EJB
COBOL
Program
Interface
Mapper
IDT
Checker
INT
Data Dict.
XML
Map. XML
EJB, JSP and
Servlet Generator
EJB
Classes
Servlet
Classes
JSP
Java Connector Architecture
EJB Container
EJB
Web Container
EJB Methods
JSP/Servlet
Application Contract (CCI)
J2EE
Micro Focus
Resource Adaptor
Transaction Mgmt
Connection Mgmt
Security Mgmt
System Contract with J2EE
Application Server
BINP – Micro Focus Binary Protocol
Micro Focus Enterprise Server
COBOL Inside the .NET Framework
C#
…
VB.NET
.NET Framework
Framework
Classes
ADO.NET
Winforms
Webforms
Micro Focus
Application Server
MSIL (Intermediate Language)
Common Language Runtime
Visual Studio .NET 2003
Net Express with .NET
COBOL
Win32
COBOL Development
COBOL Deployment
COBOL – an equal player in .NET
COBOL
generates IL as other Microsoft languages
COBOL is deployed inside the .NET Framework under the CLR
COBOL gains access to Framework classes and functionality
Create, Reuse and Extend
 Reuse existing COBOL Business logic
in .NET
 Use Procedural or Object Oriented
COBOL under .NET
program-id. ShowMessageBox as "ShowMessageBox".
environment division.
configuration section.
repository.
class Message-Box as "System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox".
 Extend COBOL applications to utilize
.NET functionality
– Access to .NET Framework Classes
data division.
working-storage section.
procedure division.
invoke Message-Box "Show" using "Hello COBOL World".
end program ShowMessageBox.
Moving to ADO.NET
 Existing OpenESQL
applications can be
reused under .NET
EXEC SQL SELECT A.NAME ,A.SALARY
INTO :STAFF-NAME:STAFF-NAME-NULL,
:STAFF-SALARY:STAFF-SALARY-NULL
FROM STAFF A WHERE ( A.ID = :STAFF-ID
)
END-EXEC
 ADO.NET classes can be
called directly from
COBOL
 OpenESQL mapped to
ADO.NET
OpenESQL
Assistant
COBOL
EXEC
SQL
COBOL
COBOL,
EXEC
C#, VB, …
ADO
or
ODBC
ADO.NET
Database (SQL Server, Oracle, …)
Connected and Disconnected Data Access
Connected Data Access
RDB
ISAM
Read / Write

Application
Disconnected Data Access


Application
COBOL, C#,
VS.NET Program
Download
RDB
ISAM
Dataset(s)


Upload
COBOL, C#,
VB.NET Program

ADO.NET provides for
Connected and
Disconnected data access
Disconnected data access
liberates SQL application
from a continual
connection to a database
Enhance the performance
of web and other
applications
Share data across
composite applications
Make ISAM and other data
available to non-COBOL
applications
Export data to XML
Expose COBOL as Web Services
Use Visual Studio .NET to create and extend COBOL applications
CLASS-ID. Stock INHERITS WEBSERVICE.
REPOSITORY.
CLASS WEBSERVICE AS "System.Web.Services.WebService"
CLASS WEBMETHOD AS
"System.Web.Services.WebMethodAttribute".
OBJECT.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
METHOD-ID. StockQuote CUSTOM-ATTRIBUTE IS WEBMETHOD.
COBOL
ASP.NET
Microsoft IIS
COBOL
Application
Why use XML?
 XML brings data to the web
 XML is now commonly deployed as an integration
piece between applications or application
components (EAI, B2C and B2B)
 XML is a simple but extensible and mature
technology
 By accessing XML from COBOL it becomes easier
to Integrate COBOL business logic and data to
systems across the enterprise
A key technology to enable e-business
Micro Focus COBOL/XML Syntax
 Provide a higher level COBOL orientated approach to
COBOL/XML
 Adds significant new syntax to handle XML
documents to consume, create, update and XML
documents from COBOL
– Based on familiar approach used with COBOL I/O support
– Provides both SAX style or DOM style parsing
 Map to/from XML W3C Compliant Schemas
COBOL
Record
CBL2XML
XML
Schema
Basic MF COBOL XML handler…
$set sourceformat(free) p(prexml) o(basic.pp) endp
SELECT myxml ASSIGN ADDRESS OF mybuff
ORGANIZATION IS XML
DOCUMENT-TYPE "mybuff.xsd"
FILE STATUS IS mybuff-status.
XD myxml.
01 myxml-name
PIC X(80) IDENTIFIED BY "name".
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 mybuff
PIC X(80) VALUE "<name>Barry &amp;
Laurence</name>".
01 mybuff-status PIC S9(9) COMP-5.
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
OPEN INPUT myxml
READ myxml
DISPLAY "Status: " mybuff-status
DISPLAY "Name : " myxml-name
CLOSE myxml
STOP RUN.
Deutsche Bank Luxembourg
 Business Challenges:
• Differing requirements for on-line single share order entry and high volume
bulk share processing
• Security. Integrity, and Consistency of Share Processing an absolute
requirement
 Technical Challenges:
• Integrate 3rd Party System running on UNIX with existing Windows based
COBOL System ‘Mozart’.
• Deliver Robust, Reliable High Performance System
 Solution:
• Micro Focus Net Express XML Early Adopter Software enabled data
integration between the two separate systems
• A small XML I/O processor was built that delivered bulk orders to ‘Mozart’ via
XML and returned the status back
 Result:
• Successful integration of new Share System for bulk orders without impacting
existing system
Integrate Disparate Business Systems
Deutsche Bank Luxembourg
Outline Architecture
UNIX
Windows
RPMS
Export/Import
Flat file
Mercator
EAI tool
(mapping
and data
transformat
ion)
XML
COBOL
Import/Export
XML
Mozart OMS
(NX
application)
Oracle
Database
Why COBOL is strategic in the 21st Century
 Reuse COBOL assets
– 200 billion lines of COBOL in use today
– 75% of business data processed in COBOL
– 15% of all new programs will be written in COBOL
 Reuse COBOL Skills
 Powerful Development environments improve
programmer productivity
 COBOL remains a strong business class language
delivering performance and maintainability
 “Its not your Fathers COBOL!”
– COBOL is now a “First Class Citizen” in .NET
– COBOL is Object Orientated
– COBOL works with other technologies in the enterprise (not just .NET,
also J2EE, XML and Web services)
 Legacy Platforms and Legacy Environments should be
differentiated from mission critical business logic
How can I help?
 Teach more COBOL
– Part of the future Howling envisions includes bringing in new talent,
which likely won't have a strong mainframe skill set. "We've outlived and
outgrown the mainframe," Howling said. "With [recent] graduates, you
start talking mainframe and they're not interested … that's where my
talent pool is coming from, and they won't be learning COBOL in
universities."





Show COBOL is has moved beyond the mainframe
Show COBOL is modern, agile and strategic
Show how COBOL has a future
Show how COBOL works within the enterprise today
Show why COBOL is a valuable and strategic skill for a
21st Century IT Graduate
Help build the next generation of COBOL Programmers!
Why COBOL is strategic in the 21st
Century
John Billman
Product Director, Net Express and Japanese Products