Assessment First

Start with the Real System

Working with you, COBOLworx develops a joint assessment of the modernization project. For a simple proof of concept, that means organizing the relevant assets and defining clear victory conditions. Larger projects add higher-level analysis around the same practical starting point.

Assessment means recapturing the original global design of the applications and collecting and organizing the artifacts that make them work: programs, JCL, control cards, copybooks, and related material. Those assets can then be placed into modern git repositories so the modernization work has a controlled, auditable foundation.

Use Production Scheduling to Narrow the Scope

Mainframe operations commonly rely on automated scheduling tools that run programs without manual intervention. Scheduler information can help identify the JCL that is actually in use. From that JCL, the programs actually run in production can be identified, dramatically reducing the amount of material that has to be considered for migration.

One or two representative JCL files can form an excellent proof of concept and process-development effort. The gcobol compiler provides a control flag that can compile a program and report the copybooks used by that program. Another flag can report CALL statements whose called program name is held in a variable, including the source line on which the call appears.

The JCL can also be used as input to a tool that builds a preliminary Makefile for compiling the programs required by the selected job.

Build the Modernization Input Set

A JCL interpreter will be available by the end of 2026. It will simplify migration of batch workloads without requiring changes to existing JCL files.

At that point, the project has a comprehensive collection of inputs for preparing the modernization effort itself: the production workload, the programs it depends on, the copybooks it requires, the dynamic calls that need attention, and a preliminary build process.