You want to use C#/Windows Forms, MS Workflow Foundation, SSIS, IronPython, ASP.NET or SQL Server CLR integration with your COBOL back end - knock yourself out.Īs such, it's often a very attractive alternative to a complete re-write and migration of a legacy application. The front-end can be written with pretty much any development tool that supports the CLR.

This allows you to put a GUI or web front-end (or a web services layer) on an existing COBOL application, preserving your investment in the existing code base. You can compile any of the supported dialects and it will run all of the legacy emulation functions. NET compiler that allows you to run COBOL applications on a CLR back-end. There is quite a substantial ecosystem of terminal emulation software, screen scrapers, interfacing libraries and RPC wrappers for various protocols such as CORBA and SOAP.Ī few years ago Micro Focus brought out a COBOL. Integrating legacy COBOL back-ends to modern front-ends is big business. Bearing in mind that you could still buy mainframe systems rated at 22 MIPS from Amdahl in the early 1990s 400 MIPS on a mainframe is quite a substantial workload.

As of 2004 they recommend it for replacing mainframe workloads up to 400 MIPS or so. It speaks something like 20 dialects of COBOL from various platforms and has a CICS emulation facility. Micro Focus make a COBOL development suite that is substantially aimed at maintaining legacy mainframe applications.

Cobol in unix