ValueEdge: Value Stream Management
Align corporate investments with business strategy
Continuous quality from requirements to delivery
Scale enterprise SCCM with security and compliance
Resilient AI-powered functional test automation
Enterprise-level requirements management
Deliver continuous application performance testing
Plan, track, orchestrate, and release applications
Govern quality and implement auditable processes
Automate deployments for continuous delivery
Build business applications using new tools & platforms
The leading solution for COBOL application modernization
Modernize mainframe applications for the Cloud
Modernize host application access
Discover the future of CORBA
Modern mainframe application delivery for IBM Z
Secure, zero-footprint access to host applications
Access host data and automate processes with RPA
Multi-factor Authentication for IBM z/OS endpoints
Build secure software fast
Augment human intelligence
Discover, analyze, and protect sensitive data
Drive IT ecosystem with identity-centric expertise
Deliver simplified, secure access to users
Scale to billions of identities with IGA platform
Gain control of privileged user activities
Track changes and activities in managed services
Get fast, accurate detection of threats
Analytics for text, audio, video, and image data
Reduce risk, cost, and maintenance, and T2M
AI and machine learning for data analysis
Enterprise backup/disaster recovery
Unified traditional and mobile device management
Meet regulatory & privacy retention requirements
Email, IM, and chat-based collaboration
Mobile workforce communication & collaboration
Secure critical file storage and print services
Manage IT & non-IT services with automation and AI
Discover, monitor, and remediate with AIOps
Monitor and optimize complex networks
Discover, manage, and map configurations & assets
Accelerate provisioning with governance in place
Automate and orchestrate processes end to end
Manage IT & software assets for better compliance
Automate server provisioning, patching, and compliance
Automate screen-based human actions with robots
All Micro Focus learning in one place
Build the skills to succeed
Streamline software delivery for faster value
ValueEdge: Value Stream Management
Align corporate investments with business strategy
Continuous quality from requirements to delivery
Scale enterprise SCCM with security and compliance
Resilient AI-powered functional test automation
Enterprise-level requirements management
Deliver continuous application performance testing
Plan, track, orchestrate, and release applications
Govern quality and implement auditable processes
Automate deployments for continuous delivery
Access all products in application delivery management
Modernize Core Business Systems to Drive Business Transformation
Build business applications using new tools & platforms
The leading solution for COBOL application modernization
Modernize mainframe applications for the Cloud
Modernize host application access
Discover the future of CORBA
Modern mainframe application delivery for IBM Z
Secure, zero-footprint access to host applications
Access host data and automate processes with RPA
Multi-factor Authentication for IBM z/OS endpoints
Access all products in Application Modernization & Connectivity
Security at the core to everything you do; Operations, Applications, Identity and Data
Build secure software fast
Augment human intelligence
Discover, analyze, and protect sensitive data
Drive IT ecosystem with identity-centric expertise
Deliver simplified, secure access to users
Scale to billions of identities with IGA platform
Gain control of privileged user activities
Track changes and activities in managed services
Get fast, accurate detection of threats
Access all products in CyberRes
Trusted, proven legal, compliance and privacy solutions
Analytics for text, audio, video, and image data
Reduce risk, cost, and maintenance, and T2M
AI and machine learning for data analysis
Enterprise backup/disaster recovery
Unified traditional and mobile device management
Meet regulatory & privacy retention requirements
Email, IM, and chat-based collaboration
Mobile workforce communication & collaboration
Secure critical file storage and print services
Access all products in Information Management and Governance
Simplify Your IT Transformation
Manage IT & non-IT services with automation and AI
Discover, monitor, and remediate with AIOps
Monitor and optimize complex networks
Discover, manage, and map configurations & assets
Accelerate provisioning with governance in place
Automate and orchestrate processes end to end
Manage IT & software assets for better compliance
Automate server provisioning, patching, and compliance
Automate screen-based human actions with robots
Access all products in IT Operations Management
Give your team the power to make your business perform to its fullest
Moving to a more modern development IDE to deliver a user-friendly GUI. The company also needed real-time and relational access to its COBOL application data.
COBOL is crucial to running its operations. From handling customer orders, to inventory control, purchasing, bill of materials, accounts receivable/payable, general ledger, and production, every element of the business is controlled by COBOL programs. Shipping nearly 450,000 items each year, and managing over 200,000 inventory items across different locations in different states, calls for sophisticated IT support.
The company moved from Micro Focus Object COBOL (OCDS) to Server Express, but its IT Manager still struggled with some limitations: “Our application users were limited to 24x80 screens which meant lots of navigating between screens to complete actions. We felt a more modern development IDE would help us design a user-friendly and efficient interface. We also noticed an increase in demand for querying our COBOL data for reporting purposes. We used Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers to access and extract data, but this could only give us a snapshot in time, when we really wanted near real-time and relational access to data to share with our Window applications. Finally, more recent hires in our IT department were not familiar with COBOL, and we looked for a development environment where we could leverage our 25 year COBOL investment, and yet attract a new generation of developers.”
The company maintained over 1,000 COBOL programs, containing 1,700,000 LOC (Lines of Code) while also sharing macros. The IT team wanted to improve both the end-user and developer experience.
This company is an independent distributor in North America. With multiple locations in the USA servicing the world with over 170 employees, the company specializes in being customer-focused and exceeding expectations.
Its long history with Micro Focus, and its deep investment in COBOL which it didn’t want to risk losing, convinced the company to look at Visual COBOL. The development team had been using vi editor, the default editor that comes with the UNIX operating system, on its Linux machine. This did not keep version history and wasn’t suitable going forward. Visual COBOL for Eclipse provides advanced COBOL editing and debugging tools. Its continuous background compilation code analysis, code search, and remote compile, and debugging streamline application delivery for the development team.
The move to Visual COBOL was well considered and the company chose to engage a Micro Focus consultant for a week to help familiarize the IT team with the new toolset. After setting up a test environment and ironing out any issues, Visual COBOL proved a wonderful solution, giving the team a whole new set of business practices for editing, testing, and troubleshooting its COBOL applications. The IT Manager comments:
IT MANAGER
Independent Distributor
Users saw their change requests implemented faster because Visual COBOL for Eclipse enabled the development team to deploy tested changes without having to wait for the full system to compile and launch. This allows the team to respond more rapidly to business requirements.
The team then turned their focus to the reporting issue. They wanted to eliminate using third party software to share COBOL data with the Windows applications. The IT Manager explains further: “We were excited by the launch of XDBC but it was rather limited and didn’t offer a 64 bit version to run on our Windows server. Further research led us to Micro Focus Relativity.”
Relativity brings the benefits of modern relational database access to COBOL applications. It presents COBOL data files as a relational data source, enabling the company to take full advantage of modern analytics and reporting tools to enhance the data processing capabilities of COBOL applications. Rather than replicated copies, Relativity provides real-time, SQL-based, relational data access to COBOL data files. The end user sees exactly the same data at exactly the same time as the COBOL application.
End users are enjoying the benefits of more efficient screens and new features. Using the Visual COBOL toolset, new applications are designed to interact with COBOL data more seamlessly and efficiently. The IT Manager comments: “The development team love the editing and debugging benefits Visual COBOL has given them. We now have greater visibility across the development lifecycle, including full history for auditing purposes.”
IT MANAGER
Independent Distributor
