Legacy Modernization

[K Murali Krishnan]

Hi,

I am looking for an approach to migrate my existing Legacy application which is running in VAX/VMS to a windows based platform. I need some information on how can this been done. Is there any tool available to convert the COBOL codes to the targeted platform? Or can I use the same COBOL code and run the application on windows based platform.
Please shed some light on this.

Thanks,

[RBrown_1]

You could install a VAX emulator / simulator on your windows machine, and then run your application unchanged within the virtual VAX.

Commercial solutions: Charon VAX ....

DIY solutions: SIMH ....

[Hoff]

If your choice is the Microsoft Windows platform, then it would be best to ask for help from the folks most familiar with that platform; you want to best fit and best port into your new target choice, after all. Not your existing choice.

As for options and discussions...

Porting off...
http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/225

Porting ahead...
http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/226

Hardware Emulation...
http://labs.hoffmanlabs.com/node/70

COBOL is one of the more portable choices around, once you have COBOL established in the target. There will be extra pieces around the COBOL code that will involve (most of?) the porting effort.

For another legacy modernization discussion involving COBOL and OpenVMS, see

http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1372329

[K Murali Krishnan]

Hi,

Thanks for your responses.
I have an application which has Oracle 8.5 as the backend and has some homegrown screen designing tool. We have more complex functionality and modules involved in the application. We are in a plan to move this to a windows based platform and need to change the screens to GUI based. Also, we have several DCL batch programs that calls many COBOL programs.
What will be the better approach to migrate this application?

Advance Thanks for replying..

[John Gillings]

>homegrown screen designing tool

>we have several DCL batch programs
>that calls many COBOL programs.

This can be very difficult to migrate automatically (regardless of promises you get from folk with magic tools).

If you're going to go to the expense of migration, I'd suggest you step back, look at the big picture and consider reengineering the whole system on your new platform. Otherwise you find yourself replicating clumsy and inefficient workarounds implemented for some long forgotten reason.

Try and work out what the code is *really* doing and find the best way to do it on the new platform. Software technology has come a long way. There are often much better ways of doing things now. A migration is a good opportunity to update, rather than replicate obsolete methods.

[Hoff]

You're asking Microsoft Windows questions of an OpenVMS audience. That's not an optimal solution for your quest here.

A total rewrite is the safest assumption (when not using hardware emulation) when porting an existing application over to Microsoft Windows.

And to best do that rewrite or port or such (and beyond what I've pointed to in the earlier reply), you will need to engage and to know and to use the Windows interfaces, Windows tools, and Windows folks.

You will need to ask the Windows experts for help; the folks that don't (usually) lurk in an OpenVMS forum.

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Some ramblings

There are several companies eager to help with these kind of projects (pick me, pick me ! :-).

For example check out: http://www.seagullsoftware.com/

If the data is already in Oracle, then you can just access that directly from a windows/java application. You will not even need special ODBC software which is typically needed to access RMS (indexed) files (Attunity, Connex,...)

Now Attunity can also be used kinda as a transaction manager, using SQL queries to act on procedures.

I believe that Micro Focus Cobol is a big name to consider ( http://www.microfocus.com/ ), but a quick Google brings up lots of alternatives
( http://www.screenio.com/gui_screenio/gs.htm ? )

Regards,
Hein van den Heuvel
HvdH Performance Consulting