Fujitsu Software recognized the value of Microsoft’s .NET Framework early on, demonstrating an early prototype of .NET support at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference 2000 when .NET was first announced. They were the only COBOL vendor to release a compiler producing native .NET MSIL code when .NET was released.

Today the NetCOBOL for .NET compiler is complemented by the NeoKicks and zBatch products that provide migration options for mission critical CICS and batch applications to the Windows environment, as well as many other tools and utilities, and consulting services which help companies realize big savings by migrating their applications off expensive mainframes.

The NetCOBOL group is lead by Ron Langer, director of languages, who we tapped to share his knowledge and experiences. Ron has worked with Fujitsu Software from the early days of introducing Fujitsu COBOL to the US market. A pioneer of Fujitsu Software's close relationship with Microsoft, he has directed the creation of NetCOBOL for .NET.

Ron, why are firms migrating apps from their mainframes?

Tightening budgets is one of the strongest motivators. One customer’s mainframe expenses were increasing at 18% per year, while revenues increased 7%. Another big saver can be delaying mainframe upgrades costing several million dollars. Companies that have grown through acquisitions can also rationalize operations by consolidating platforms and choosing Windows .NET as one of the environments they’ll maintain.

Any others?

Greater agility. The quality of development tools available in the .NET environment surpasses those available on the mainframe so, with migration tools like NeoKicks that bring CICS applications fully into the .NET world, companies see the increased ability to use and enhance their existing applications, achieving things impossible in the mainframe environment or what took considerably longer to develop.

A surprising fact for many is that every application we’ve helped migrate has seen an increase in performance compared to the results obtained on the mainframe.

What are the critical issues when preparing to undertake a migration project?

After checking that there are no surprises in the code such as using antiquated syntax, usually the case, you need to review the pieces outside the standard CICS/COBOL code that you’re using. For example, are there any third-party utilities essential to the operations; do you have large amounts of assembler code; do you use specialist languages or databases?

You would then go on to consider how interoperability with yet-to-be-migrated applications will be maintained and the future directions for the applications, considerations that may influence details of the architecture for the migrated application.

Tell us about some of your successes in the financial services industry.

EuroNext, one of Europe’s major stock exchanges, decided that NetCOBOL, zBatch and NeoKicks gave the best solution for supporting one of their mainframe applications. Formed by the merger of the Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Lisbon exchanges, they managed to consolidate most of their applications on UNIX environments but this left some CICS and batch COBOL applications on a mainframe, an expensive platform for processing that remained to be performed. With our solution, applications could be migrated with minimal change to a more appropriate platform with more readily available maintenance resources.

In the States, Presidential Life had already moved off the mainframe in the late 90s but had used a CICS emulation solution, so screens were still in character form and the latest .NET technologies weren’t readily available. Support for the Windows NT and CICS emulation software was also running out. To embrace a 21st century solution, they chose NeoKicks with NetCOBOL because it offered the best agility and the chance to give the applications modern GUI and Web interfaces.

Are there others you can talk about?

One company reviewed its mainframe options for replacing a 2500 MIPS machine, figured it would cost $12 million but tests now imply they’ll be able to improve performance and reliability using Windows Server hardware costing less than $500k. Another, with batch processes dealing with good-sized files of around 60 gigabytes, is looking at execution times around half those experienced on the mainframe at a fraction of the cost.

How can firms like Presidential Life obtain the reliability they need?

Giving Windows Server environments the same attention they give to their mainframes. We’ve found that if you put the same effort into your production Windows environments as you put into your mainframe environments, you’ll obtain similar uptime and reliability.

What about .NET’s desirability as a target platform?

It has to be the cost for obtaining similar or better performance to the mainframe. Companies are motivated by their bottom lines and migrating to .NET platforms gives a lot of breathing space in budgets. Then, once the financial case has been made, the usability and agility of the environment come to the fore in the desirability rankings. Developers love the tools that are at their finger tips and everyone likes the accessibility of new technologies and the speed with which these can be incorporated into existing applications, enabling businesses to be responsive to user needs and opportunities.

Why Fujitsu Software?

As part of Fujitsu, we have a long history of working with mainframes and understanding the benefits they have provided in the past. Knowing what mainframe users value, we’ve been able to provide those features in our products and services.

NeoKicks brings CICS applications to .NET, giving them Web or Windows interfaces and opening the door to Web services. The code we generate is verifiable, meaning, it’s memory safe, a feature increasingly important for .NET-related products.

NetCOBOL and NeoKicks integrate tightly with Visual Studio .NET, making them easy to work with. Other companies claim to migrate mainframe applications, but Fujitsu delivers applications to an environment where they can be effectively used with new technology.

Let me backtrack. NeoKicks is a pioneer CICS migration solution, correct?

Yes, it’s the only CICS migration solution today that takes you to the .NET environment and which, as part of the process, makes the screens into ASP.NET Web pages. It takes advantage of the similarity between the ASP.NET and CICS architectures to make a quick and easy transition from one environment to the other. It transforms CICS calls into .NET calls so you’re working directly with the new environment rather than sitting on top of a CICS emulator.

Do you work direct or on an outsourced basis?

We can do either. For larger projects, we’ll recommend and work with outsourcing companies. For smaller projects, we can train and mentor the organization’s staff.

Ready for more projects?

We’re ready….

For more information, visit http://www.netcobol.com/index.htm.