COBOL-Conversions by Computer Support Services, Inc.

A Conversion And Analysis Development System
To Provide A System Solution For Users Of Mainframe Systems

A major problem in data processing is the understanding of the programs that are currently in production at any installation. These programs are the heart of the business operations. When a company moves to an e-business environment these programs are still needed for back-end processing. These programs control the inventory, manfacturing, and accounting operations for a company. EXPLAIN converts the COBOL code of these systems to operate with a native HTML, CGI, or Java front end for a browser or internet terminal. For example the CICS processing of an IBM program, the COBOL and CICS code, will be converted to a HTML, CGI or Java interface to run in a UNIX, Linux, or NT environment. (See Examples). The business logic in the programs remains the same but the hardware and user interface have changed. The converted program is still COBOL combined with HTML, CGI, or Java ready for e-Business.

At the time the programs are moved to a new machine it becomes imperative that knowledge of all programs and data in the system is immediately and easily available to the data processing personnel. Many programs are composed of old code with little understanding of how the programs accomplish their functions. EXPLAIN is a computer software system created by David R. Black to provide a complete, quick, and economical solution to the software migration needs of business. The objective of the EXPLAIN system is to solve the problem of old code and bring its functions into future environments. EXPLAIN will provide a solution based upon your business and data processing needs. EXPLAIN will assist the movement of your core business activity into the e-business computing environment based upon the strategic directions you want to go.

We are seeing companies convert from COBOL on one brand of hardware to another to save on hardware cost, to replace obsolete hardware, and to expand the capabilities of their current operations. If changing to a new software system is so easy, then why did they not rewrite and change to a new system to solve their Y2k problem? At the time we do a conversion new improvements can be made, automatically, to the code to provide GUI interfaces, HTML frontends, or Java for the e-commerece world. Major advantages of the conversion over a rewrite of the code into some other language is accuracy, cost, and minimum time to production..

The systems written in COBOL have had their bugs removed over time, the operations procedures are well known, and the users understand the operations of the system. The COBOL programs have been tailored to meet the business requirements of the company. In short 'They Work'.

There is a tremendous cost to creating a new system. Analysts say that over half of all rewriting/re-engineering projects exceed budget, in most cases at least 2 times the expected budget. They are often years behind schedule in becoming productive and giving a good return on investment (ROI).

Over 25% of the rewrites are rescheduled or cancelled and those that reach completion have fewer than 50% of the planned features.

When 'rehosting' to new hardware you retain the full features and functions of your existing applications, minimize developer and user retraining, and save countless hours of development and debugging work. You do not have to retrain your development staff and add new technical personnel to your technical staff.

Then there is the cost. A 1,000 line program that is rewritten, can cost $50,000 to $100,000 before it is in production. If we do the conversion, put a HTML interface on it and revise the data base the cost will be $500 and definitely less than $1,000 including testing. The rewriting of the documentation, if there is any, will consist of saving pictures of the screens and including them in the old documentation. The time to get the system on line will be days instead of years. In one conversion we are working on now, the customer said that they were a year ahead of schedule after only two weeks work. They were getting a GUI interface, having portable code that would run on PC under Windows and also run under Linux with no changes.

A 1,000 program system can be converted for under $750,000 dollars and be complete in 6 months. To rewrite the system would cost $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 and take 3 to 5 years

COBOL has been continually enhanced over the years to include the latest features such as OOP features, compatability with all the latest databases and SQL features. There are web-browser plug-ins and CGI syntax that allow the user full internet capabilities for the COBOL code.

We have converted thousands of programs from DEC Vaxes, UNISYS main frames, IBM CICS environments to run on different hardware. The cost of rewriting is too great and the investment in COBOL code is too great not to convert.

We are seeing companies convert from COBOL on one brand of hardware to another to save on hardware cost, to replace obsolete hardware, and to expand the capabilities of their current operations. If changing to a new computer language is so easy, then why did they not rewrite and change to a new system to solve their Y2k problem? At the time we do a conversion new improvements can be made, automatically, to the code to provide GUI interfaces and HTML frontends for the e-commerece world. Major advantages of the conversion over a rewrite of the code into some other language is accuracy, cost, and minimum time to production..

Computer Support Services uses the EXPLAIN tools to convert the DEC COBOL code to another brand of COBOL. In the installation with multiple different brands of hardware it allows them to have one version of their source code that will operate exactly the same on all their different hardware. The new platform can be a Windows based PC, A Linux Platform, AIX, UNIX, or any other operating system on any of the many hardware platforms supporting Acucobol. EXPLAIN is available only as a service on a per-program basis. The customer can have a complete conversion of 1000 programs, along with all data conversion, in a matter of less than 4 weeks after receipt of a complete set of source code.