Enterprise COBOL for z/OS (COBOL) Migration Portal
The one-stop COBOL Migration Portal is now live in the COBOL Documentation for easy access to COBOL migration-related information.
On May 5, 2020, IBM extended the end of service date for Enterprise COBOL V4.2 to April 30, 2022, which means that there are fewer than 22 months to complete the migration before COBOL V4 goes out of service.
Withdrawing service for Enterprise COBOL V4.2 means clients can no longer open Cases or get APAR fixes for the COBOL compiler after the end of service dates become effective. Code compiled with these compilers will continue to run. In addition, the COBOL runtime, which is part of the IBM z/OS® Language Environment, will continue to be supported. Clients who are currently still on COBOL V4.2 are encouraged to plan and start their migration to COBOL V6 as soon as possible.
COBOL Migration Portal
If you still have no idea about this COBOL migration or are still struggling with your migration, the one-stop COBOL Migration Portal is now live in the COBOL Documentation for your easy access to all COBOL migration-related information.
In particular, you can:
Read case studies to see how other companies have benefited from the migration and speeded up their digital transformations with the latest COBOL V6 compiler.
Watch the COBOL experts interview videos, where Roland Koo (Offering Manager for IBM Enterprise Products and Compilers on z/OS) and Tom Ross (Captain COBOL) briefly describe why you should migrate to the latest COBOL V6 compilers and how to migrate.
Try the cloud-based COBOL Migration Assistant to navigate through the whole migration process. The Migration Assistant requires a simple IBMid logon, and it outlines the 14 key migration steps that you should take actions or pay attention to. Each step asks a question and then points you to more information or the following steps.
Register to the no-charge COBOL Migration and Performance Tuning Webinars. In the Migration Webinar, COBOL experts will introduce the migration process, recommendations and best practices to avoid common pitfalls during COBOL migration. Whereas in the Performance Tuning Webinar, you will learn how to tune your applications as well as how to test your new compiler’s performance after you migrate. Both webinars would also be good opportunities for you to talk directly to the COBOL experts.
Discover IBM Automatic Binary Optimizer for z/OS (ABO), which can accelerate the COBOL migration and improve the performance of COBOL modules without a recompilation plan. You can also try the ABO Trial on IBM Cloud® without the resources needed for an on-premises installation.
Check FAQs to quickly find answers and solutions when running into problems. Typical questions include whether you need to recompile everything for the migration, how to select top CPU hitters to migrate first and tools or suggestions to speed up the migration, etc.
Find the complete COBOL Migration Guides and Performance Tuning Guides, where you can locate every detail about migration and performance tuning.
Check out other resources such as fix packs/PTFs to keep your COBOL compilers up-to-date, as well as the COBOL Support Portal and COBOL community to seek for help along your migration and performance tuning journey.
Along with the portal live, the COBOL welcome page also gets updated. There’s a “What’s New” section listing the blogs that summarize documentation updates due to COBOL continuous delivery and GAs, so you will know when the documentation gets refreshed and which topics are refreshed. In addition, there’s a COBOL video gallery, which contains all of the COBOL-related videos divided into different categories such as “Technical Features”, “What’s New”, etc., and each video is presented with a short description and a YouTube link. If you have any comments or would like to see other topics in the COBOL Migration Portal, please send them to compinfo@cn.ibm.com. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
About the author
Nicole Trudeau is the Go to Market Specialist for IBM compilers (C, C++, Fortran, COBOL, PL/I, Swift, Node.js).
Dan Zhang is the content designer for IBM COBOL compilers.