Why COBOL is strategic in the 21st century

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 ca

Why COBOL is strategic in the 21st

Century

J ohn Billman

Product Director, Net Express and J apanese 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 bus ine s s data is

in COBOL

The re are be twe e n 180 billion and

200 billion line s of COBOL code

in us e worldwide

15% of all ne w applications (5 billion line s) 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

 J 2EE and NET

“The s e c re t to s uc c e s s lie s in building bridg e s be twe e n the o ld and the ne w”

Ovum: Legacy renewal, May 2004

Increased choice for the enterprise

 Increased scalability

UNIX

Mainframe

“Rip and Replace”

Cost

% Reuse

Package Implementation

Legacy Transformation

Legacy Modernisation

“Lift and Shift”

“Lift and Shift” - the best strategy

The Choices for Moving

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 J 2EE 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

Business Rule Development

Open Middleware Component Architectures

COBOL Modules Web Services COM Components EJBs

C, C++, Java HTML, XML

Other Languages

.NET Web Services Java J2EE WebApp Servers

Fas te r De ve lo pme nt, Fle xible De plo yme nt

Ne t Expre s s with NET

– COBOL development environment

– Take core COBOL business processes &

extend them to meet today’s business needs

Ne t Expre s s Pro fe s s io nal Editio n

– Revolve + Net Express

– Combine Analysis Tools with Development

Process

S e rve r Expre s s

– UNIX/LINUX COBOL development

Applic atio n S e rve r

– Designed for performance and reliability

Ente rpris e S e rve r

– Scalable, Managed, Transactional COBOL

Service Deployment Environment

– Mainframe Transaction Option for CICS

Micro Focus Enterprise Server Enterprise Server – All Platforms

Linux

Micro Focus Application Server

COBOL Run-Time System (RTS), Filehandler, etc.

BMS Loadlib

Net Express with MTO

CICS (ES/MTO) Extension

COMMAREA

Interface Mapping Toolkit

EJ B, J SP and Servlet Generator

Web Enable, Move to SOA

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?

skill set required to maintain a mainframe

environment

ecosystem

the tradition of technology leadership in the

insurance industry

IBM Mainframe

(outsourced)

RISC AS/400

Lombard – Migration Approach

Phase 1 - Migration

- 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

– Documerge –

formatting and printing output

Phase 1 – Personal and Commercial Insurance Systems

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 J CL 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

SAS Acceptance/Systems

TEST

TEST Unit

Yellow Servers = Internet

Green Servers = Production

Red Servers = Development

/Admin

– 4 J CL Streams – with 21 J CL J obs/Proc

92.3% of COBOL code retained!!

Lombard – Why Migration?

“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.”

experienceΔInsurance

Peter Howling, Vice President of IT, Lombard Canada Ltd.:

Software licensing costs projected to fall from 12% of IT

Budget to 2-4%

Customer Story - SOLCORP

• Price/Performance a key decision factor in new

accounts

• Need to maintain and enhance competitive edge

• Seamless Integration with other insurance and

financial systems

• Deliver Managed code solution reusing existing

COBOL mainframe DB2 code in service based architecture

• Match or exceed mainframe performance and

scalability

• Micro Focus Net Express with NET combined with

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and SQLServer

• 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 millio n line s o f mainframe COBOL re us e d in NET

# Policies 700,000 1,400,000 2,100,000

– Converted to run on Windows

in ASCII against UDB

databases

 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

z/OS €3.6m Still not agile

Migrate to AS/400 €3.0m Non Strategic

Migrate to Windows €1.2m Strategic, Agile,

Reduced TCO

Alnova Financial Solutions

(Madrid-based banking application provider in Accenture’s

insurance and banking portfolio)

– Migrate Enterprise Banking application

– 5500 COBOL programs - 11 million lines of code…

– 1600 transactions, 2000 J CL 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

 Bus ine s s Challe nge s :

• Price/Performance a key decision factor in new accounts

• Need to maintain and enhance competitive edge

• Maintain Common Business Logic across Mainframe, UNIX and Windows

• Deliver Scalable, Robust, High Performance System

• Micro Focus Net Express combined with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 delivering scalable operating environment

• Successful Benchmark at over 800 TPS

COBOL s cale s ne w he ig hts o n Windo ws

Benchmarking ES/MTO

 Performance Measurement Methodology

– 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

 COBOL implementation of TPC-C

– Intentionally untuned for any one subsystem

– Mirrors typical CICS transaction (database) mix

 Apples for Apples - Uses all subsystems for presentation logic, business logic and data storage

– 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

– EMC 2 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)

Te s t Clie nt

Non-ES Windows only

Linkage items in your COBOL program…

…map on to fields in your web service interface

The Interface Mapping Toolkit

Deploy Web Services to Enterprise Server

…and call your Web Service from any client you like

Mapping COBOL Programs as EJ B

COBOL

Program

Checker

Interface Mapper

IDT Map XML

INT Data Dict

XML

EJ B Classes

EJ B, J SP and Servlet Generator

Servlet Classes J SP

Security Mgmt

BINP – Micro Focus Binary Protocol

System Contract with J2EE Application Server

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

COBOL Inside the NET Framework

Create, Reuse and Extend

in NET

COBOL under NET

utilize NET functionality

– Access to NET Framework Classes

program-id ShowMessageBox as "ShowMessageBox".

invoke Message-Box "Show" using "Hello COBOL World".

end program ShowMessageBox.

Moving to ADO.NET

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

called directly from

COBOL

ADO.NET

COBOL EXEC SQL

COBOL EXEC ADO

Database (SQL Server, Oracle, …)

COBOL, C#, VB, …

OpenESQL Assistant

or

Connected and Disconnected Data Access

 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

Application Read / Write

COBOL, C#, VB.NET Program

Dataset(s)

Download

Upload

Expose COBOL as Web Services

Us e Vis ual S tudio NET to c re ate and e xte nd COBOL applic atio ns

CLASS-ID Stock INHERITS WEBSERVICE.

Why use XML?

piece between applications or application components (EAI, B2C and B2B)

technology

to Integrate COBOL business logic and data to systems across the enterprise

A key technology to enable e-business

Micro Focus COBOL/XML Syntax

COBOL/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

CBL2XML

COBOL Record

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.

DISPLAY "Status: " mybuff-status

DISPLAY "Name : " myxml-name

CLOSE myxml

STOP RUN.

 Bus ine s s Challe nge s :

bulk share processing

requirement

COBOL System ‘Mozart’.

integration between the two separate systems

XML and returned the status back

existing system

Inte grate Dis parate Bus ine s s Sys te ms

Deutsche Bank Luxembourg

Deutsche Bank Luxembourg

XML

COBOL Import/Export XML

Mozart OMS (NX

application)

Oracle Database

Why COBOL is strategic in the 21st Century

– 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 J 2EE, XML and Web services)

 Legacy Platforms and Legacy Environments should be differentiated from mission critical business logic

How can I help?

which like ly won't have a strong mainframe skill se t "We 've outlive d and outgrown the mainframe," Howling said "W ith [re ce nt] graduates, you

s tart talking mainframe and the y're not inte rested … that's whe re my tale nt pool is coming from, and they won't be le arning COBOL in unive rsities."

 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

J ohn Billman

Product Director, Net Express and J apanese Products