Many source code control systems and Agile tools can be integrated into the Eclipse IDE.
You should also consider using continuous integration, which involves the automatic building and testing of an application after a change occurs to the source code. This method traps errors sooner in the development life cycle and can greatly improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Visual COBOL includes a Run Unit API to enable multiple users to simultaneously use an application based on COBOL code that was designed originally for a single user.
You can use Visual COBOL to migrate existing, core applications to a service-oriented architecture as Web services, and deploy them using Micro Focus COBOL Server and Enterprise Server, so that you can develop COBOL-based software components to be invoked across the Web.
You can compile both new and existing COBOL as JVM COBOL managed code. This enables you to:
Both procedural and Object-Oriented (OO) COBOL are supported within the JVM. OO COBOL classes can inherit classes written in Java and vice versa.
The managed COBOL syntax includes many extensions to the COBOL language to support Java features; for example, the TRY ... CATCH syntax to enable exception handling in COBOL.
There are also certain directives that help integrate your managed COBOL with Java. For example, you can now expose the Linkage Section and entry points in your COBOL to other managed languages by compiling with the ILSMARTLINKAGE directive.