The concerns facing businesses regarding COBOL modernization are issues that have been created over five decades. This is more than enough time for inherent and potentially unseen variables to develop, and those issues shouldn’t be so quickly dismissed. Yet, there is a perception that a complete and total replacement is a single-step process! Reduced Risk […]
Hopefully, you’ve been reading along in this series of articles on effective usage of the zIIP on the IBM System z mainframe. But even if you have not, this article focuses on a single topic that does not require in-depth knowledge of zIIP particulars. Herein we will discuss best practices for COBOL and Db2 users […]
In our previous writings, we’ve discussed the scale of COBOL investment over the last several decades and the challenges of continuing to depend on this legendary programming language. The drivers for modernization remain, and COBOL can’t help but be caught up in the plans of many mainframe organizations. ANY modernization approach has risks associated with […]
Much of the defense of COBOL as a programming language is based on the volume of code that exists today in production. These mission-critical workloads support both government and commercial needs all over the globe. Something used to prop up such critical workloads MUST be valuable, right? Well, the volume of COBOL is more a […]
Many organizations using the IBM System z have begun to use zIIP processors to help reduce the overall cost of their mainframe environment. But… Assuming Everything Will Run on the zIIP One of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming that everything that is eligible to run on the zIIP will actually run on […]
The debate as to whether you should or shouldn’t modernize any portion of your application portfolio is a separate question to the ways to do it correctly. While many people discuss “COBOL modernization,” there is much more involved than simply translating the syntax of COBOL to the syntax of another language. The keys to effectively […]
Even though mainframes remain the transactional backbone of the modern economy, powering industries from banking to airlines, many enterprises with mainframes find their modernization strategies require migrating workloads off this platform into the cloud. Over the years, this requirement has led to a plethora of COBOL conversion applications that typically convert this venerable language into […]
Our last post looked at the five significant benefits of Java and zIIPs, detailing how the combination can reduce cost, simplify support and maintenance, deliver the performance you need, and improve portability. But most enterprise mainframe applications are written in COBOL. Now, most organizations are not likely to embark on a full-fledged campaign to convert […]
It’s clear that the volume and importance of COBOL-based applications remains high. Despite the variety and volume of “stones” thrown by the modern IT intelligentsia at this language and the mainframe platform, these technologies continue to provide valuable solutions that answer the technology demands of many organizations. The reason to address an organization’s existing portfolio […]
In this series of blog posts on the zIIP, we have looked at the various types of specialty processors and the zIIPs place among them, honed in on zIIP usage and eligibility issues and terms and examined the types of processing that can utilize zIIPs. Having digested all of that information, we will turn our […]
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