

- #SORTING AN ARRAY IN COBOL PROGRAM MANUAL#
- #SORTING AN ARRAY IN COBOL PROGRAM SOFTWARE#
- #SORTING AN ARRAY IN COBOL PROGRAM CODE#
All of the remaining infrastructure was migrated to the AWS GovCloud, including development, staging, production and support.

#SORTING AN ARRAY IN COBOL PROGRAM CODE#
This involved further refactoring the Java code to remove any lingering remnants of COBOL and to enhance ease of maintenance.

This involved using automated COBOL-to-Java refactoring to run on an Intel x86/RHEL platform. But in the end, we settled on a COBOL-to-Java code automated refactoring solution, to be implemented in three phases over approximately three years: In every case, the need for training was a major consideration. A COBOL emulator re-host solution was also considered as a stopgap measure, but we decided that it would have failed to meet the system’s future state architectural requirements. Another strategy was to completely replace it with an altogether newly procured system, but that would have sacrificed DOD’s carefully crafted business rules, so it was rejected. But that would have exceeded the program’s time constraints, involving a high risk of failure, and it would have cost too much.
#SORTING AN ARRAY IN COBOL PROGRAM MANUAL#
One option was a total manual rewrite and re-architecting solution. We started the project by identifying and then evaluating various alternative solutions with a view to formulating a high-level technology roadmap for the transition. It was an ambitious project of a sort DOD had never attempted before. What the project needed to accomplish was an extensive system modernization that included migration to an affordable hosting environment, accomplished without downtime, data loss, loss of functionality or diminished performance, and done with minimal risk of security or mission impact. But it suffered from serious issues of reliability, scalability, poor documentation, and lacked more modern features like microservices and containerization that would allow for easier future enhancements, at the time we started work, was running on hardware more than 50 years old. In the case of this particular project, the system was a key component of DOD’s mission-critical defense IT program used servicewide and globally. Modernization, however, is not something DOD does just to have a shiny new system in place it’s only undertaken if it can increase the organization’s overall effectiveness. Any of them would allow DOD to leverage the high-value services provided by cloud operators-an important advantage at a time of tight budgets and limited technical manpower. However, the strategies we devised through our Application Modernization and Cloud Centers of Excellence, and the phasing of that migration, could apply equally well to Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and other major commercial cloud service providers, as well as to hybrids involving multiple vendors. Perhaps most important, at least from a technical standpoint, is that as a programming language built for mainframe computers in private data centers, COBOL is simply unsuited to the operating systems commonly used in today’s cloud environment.Īs a result of COBOL’s limited legacy system functionality, compounded by the increasingly desperate search for scarce COBOL engineers, our company was engaged as part of a consortium tasked with modernizing and transitioning a major DOD system from its long-term home in government mainframe data centers to a Java-based system running on the AWS GovCloud. Even so, many DOD systems still run on that platform, meaning that they lack the flexibility and features available on more recent platform languages and, by extension, limit the armed forces’ focus on critical missions. However, a variety of factors have contributed to a steady decline in its popularity, including major advancements in computing technology such as commercial clouds, and the steady drumbeat of retirement by programmers experienced in using COBOL. Today, COBOL is still in wide use for applications on mainframe computers.
#SORTING AN ARRAY IN COBOL PROGRAM SOFTWARE#
But even with updates, COBOL’s fundamental architecture has become outdated, limiting its ability to make use of important innovations, including automation software for application development and security. In fact, the name itself is an acronym for “Common Business-Oriented Language.” Although seldom used in scientific work, COBOL has been widely used by the Defense Department, which resulted in its extensive adoption by other users, both inside and outside of government. Since the introduction of COBOL in 1959 and its standardization 10 years later, it has served as the backbone of mainframe business computing.
