Veryant Introduces New COBOL Option for Mainframe Migration

January 18, 2011 - Veryant, the COBOL and Java technology innovator, today introduced vCOBOL Enterprise, a powerful platform to migrate legacy COBOL applications off IBM mainframes as part of strategic cost-cutting, consolidation, and operational effectiveness initiatives. With an optimized compiler and pioneering COBOL-to-Java runtime technology, vCOBOL is the newest software addition to Veryant's comprehensive portfolio of COBOL application development, maintenance, and deployment solutions.

vCOBOL Enterprise supports seamless transitions from the mainframe to affordable UNIX, Linux, and Microsoft Windows systems by preserving the valuable business logic developed in long-standing COBOL programs, without sacrificing performance or availability. This approach maximizes the value of existing resources and significantly lowers total cost of ownership.

Dale Vecchio, a research vice president in the Application Strategy and Governance group at Gartner, Inc., sees re-hosting mainframe COBOL workloads as a low-cost and immediate modernization alternative for many organizations, with reduced IT spending typically occurring within one to three years of migration.

"Overall IT modernization may take several years, but rehosting code to lower cost platforms can save costs and help pay for subsequent modernization activities," commented Vecchio. "Rehosting also enables companies to leverage their COBOL skills and modernize, as appropriate, on newer, distributed platforms."

vCOBOL complements Veryant's isCOBOL technology, which utilizes an ANSI-compliant compiler to translate COBOL source code into Java classes and fosters ongoing COBOL application maintenance and modernization. While isCOBOL provides a highly portable and easily extensible alternative for distributed COBOL applications running on platforms such as Micro Focus ACUCOBOL-GT and RM/COBOL, vCOBOL provides a cost-effective, high-performance alternative for mainframe-based COBOL applications.

With vCOBOL Enterprise, Veryant has shifted much of the 'heavy lifting' of operational analysis and execution instructions typically performed by alternative COBOL platforms during runtime, into the highly efficient vCOBOL Compiler. This approach significantly improves critical runtime performance commonly associated with mainframe IBM® CICS® transactions, IBM® IMS™ applications, CA IDMS workloads, and batch environments that are replatformed to open systems.

vCOBOL technology makes optimal use of memory access and is tightly integrated with UniKix Mainframe Rehosting software from Clerity Solutions, delivering a proven and scalable platform to rehost mission-critical online and batch mainframe assets to open systems. Close integration with UniKix Transaction Processing Environment (TPE) software and UniKix Batch Processing Environment (BPE) software provides a choice of COBOL solutions to enterprise-class customers, while lowering annual operating costs up to 70 percent.

The innovative Java-based runtime environment of vCOBOL takes full advantage of 32-bit and 64-bit architectures and enables programmers to natively call legacy COBOL programs from Java Servlets, Web Services, Enterprise JavaBeans, or any other Java program, offering an opportunity for true ongoing application modernization.

vCOBOL Enterprise is available immediately. Core components of vCOBOL Enterprise include a powerful COBOL compiler; a portable Java-based run-time environment; an Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment; a graphical, source-level debugger, and a range of data access and migration utilities to simplify transitions to the vCOBOL platform.

Click here to learn more about vCOBOL Enterprise.