Veryant Releases New Options for COBOL Modernization

April 11, 2011 - Veryant, the COBOL and Java technology innovator, today announced the immediate availability of isCOBOL Evolve 2011 Release 1. To lower software licensing fees and simplify application modernization, isCOBOL Evolve enables developers to continue programming in a familiar COBOL environment, and at the same time, deploy and enhance applications across multiple platforms in an open Java framework without rewriting code.

The new version of isCOBOL offers rapid COBOL application development and graphical user interface (GUI) modernization.

Organizations updating legacy COBOL applications with modern Web 2.0 user interfaces can build dynamic GUIs directly in the COBOL language with the graphical isCOBOL Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Developers can quickly add functionality such as customizable docking windows to GUIs and automatically propose values from a preset list or a user's history to end users completing form entry fields. In addition to COBOL, the isCOBOL IDE now supports Java, XML, and HTML editing capabilities, as well as a Hex editor and version control with CVS and Subversion, providing a streamlined, industry-standard environment for building, deploying, and testing applications across the entire software lifecycle, regardless of language.

The newest isCOBOL release also helps businesses make more efficient use of existing IT infrastructure by conserving processing resources through a new load balancer and remote compilation feature.

The isCOBOL Load Balancer is for organizations distributing COBOL applications with 100% portable thin client user interfaces. An add-on product to isCOBOL Application Server, it distributes workloads among clusters of server processes running on the same or different machines for enhanced horizontal scalability or workload separation.

The addition of a remote compilation feature to the isCOBOL IDE allows developers to incorporate server-side pre-compilers and translators into the application build step. Developers can now push files to a server, preprocess, compile, and then pull errors and .class files back into the isCOBOL IDE with a single click of the mouse.

Other enhancements include:

improved database performance, up to 33%, by reducing overhead on read workloads with ESQL FETCH statements
effortless editing of applications with ANSI fixed-format code with the addition of a horizontal ruler and COBOL source area vertical guidelines in the isCOBOL IDE
support for Eclipse Helios, the latest in the Eclipse release train

To learn more about isCOBOL 2011 R1, click here.