Using
Enterprise Developer, you can choose from several methods provided to expose COBOL as Web services, and in some cases, deploy and run your Web
services on
Enterprise Server. In addition, you can also generate client applications to access your Web services:
- WSDL or JSON File
- Starting with a WSDL or JSON file, you can generate both a COBOL Program Web service that is deployable to
Enterprise Server, and a COBOL application console client to access the service.
- .NET COBOL
- Using
Enterprise Developer, you can compile your COBOL applications to Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL), which uses the Microsoft .NET Framework
and includes Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) integration. You can then expose your WCF applications as Web services
with the COBOL application running as managed code.
This method requires OO COBOL or C# on the front end to invoke the Web service; however, you can then optionally call procedural
COBOL for the back end. See
Building Service-Oriented Applications with WCF and COBOL.
- Calling COBOL from Another Language
- You can call COBOL using any of a wide variety of other programming languages. Some of these languages have direct Web services
support through tooling and Application Server deployment.
CAUTION:
When developing a Web service using this method, be sure to include a failsafe to address the scenario in which the COBOL
program crashes or issues a STOP RUN when executed in the same process of an Application Server. Failure to address this scenario
introduces the risk of bringing down the Application Server.